Jordan Peterson - UNCENSORED

what do you think is the influence of colleges and how do you feel about the current educational system period I think universities are making seven fatal errors apparently it seems to be fine if a woman wants to play a patriarchal role that seems to be perfectly fine it's corrupt but it's okay if women occupy the positions of power it's like okay what do you not know a lot about that if asked about you don't really have that strong of an opinion research on those topics you have a moral duty to supersede the accomplishments of the person who bore that name and gave it its weight before you dare capitalize on it in the public sphere and there's Trudeau did none of that we're never gonna see Prime Minister Jordan Peterson that's not that's not in the equation so look we get a lot of guests on value taymiyah but one of the most highly requested guests ever by you on value Taemin has been dr. Jordan Peterson clinical psychologist professor at University of Toronto as well as the author of 12 rules for life dr. Jordan Peterson thanks for joining us you obtained an invitation yes definitely it's good to have you you know this if you if you don't know dr. Jordan Peterson if you you know I would say total viewers cuz I've seen some of your views 50 million on Facebook 80 million some stuff has gone completely viral I'd say total a billion views give or take maybe even more than that with your content that's on YouTube Facebook all over the place people now know the name dr. Jordan Peterson and the part I want to spend some time talking to you about today is a couple things one obviously a lot of people who interview you they're gonna talk to you about politics religion God post-modernism all of these things and maybe we'll get into some of that stuff but what I'm very curious about with you is the following one is who Jordan Peterson was growing up right I mean you read the stories about that 13 years old you've been given a book and you started studying some of I think I ran George Orwell and some of these books that were given to you and then from there you have other inspirations that came up and I think at one point at Harvard you were studying drugs and alcohol and the addiction reasoning why do we get addicted and then you become who you become and you have some strong opinions but I want to know who you were in high school if I was in high school today with you we're in 10th grade we're classmates I'm sitting next to you we're good friends who's Jordan Peterson well first I'm not very tall so I was younger than most of the people in my class because I skipped grade one okay so I was five foot two in grade ten really so yeah yeah yeah and so I suppose that made me a little bit more agile verbally than I might have otherwise been most of my friends were working-class guys most of them quit school in junior high and early in high school most of the friends that I had in high school were very comical people I had four very close friends from a little tiny town even north of where I grew up and there was almost nothing north of where I grew up they were extremely comical people and so we told jokes to each other all the time tried to amuse each other I spent a lot of time driving around on the country listening music drinking beer with my friends out in the bush in high school yeah that's great so now Bureau helps to think the way long winters in northern Alberta you know and not not a tremendous amount to do and well it's eight not a typical teenage behavior that was me in high school I read all the time oh you did so you were reading all the time yeah yeah I read a book a day for years are you kidding me no most of it was science fiction I had a neighbor across the street who had a huge science fiction collection a whole wall and he used to let me come in there once a week or so and I'd pick like seven or eight books and take them home and read them and then I'd come back and get another eighth I read science fiction like that I don't know from what age oh 10 probably one a day yeah yeah that was my cool now are you a speed reader do you go through a very fast reader will you always fast back then as yeah I learned to read when I was very young my father taught me to read when I was very young and I'm very fast did he teach you how to fast read oh well you just you just started reading so that was something I was very yeah well I wouldn't say specifically he taught me to speed read he just taught me to read and I guess I'm happened to be relatively fast at it so it yet that's been a very useful thing for me so your dad had a big influence on you yeah about that a begin yeah yeah he's you bet he spent a lot of time with me when I was a little kid you know we used to he used to come home every night we'd spend an hour or so reading he had designed this he was a teacher he a workbook which I still have that that outlined all the phonics the the all those sounds of all the letters the sounds of all the two-letter combinations and all of that and we went over that every night and and I that happened for a long time from the time I was probably three onward I think at three years old yeah Mary Jo mom do my mom well when I was a kid she took care of us she stayed home got it she was trained as a nurse she never practiced as a nurse though she had kids and then later she became librarian for our local college and she had a career that lasts about 20 years as head librarian and she was a very is both my parents are still alive she's a very pleasant person very funny she has a great sense of humor I used to make you laugh all the time so that was and I still do sometimes on purpose sometimes and so humor was that humor has humor always been part of your mo like have you always been somebody that jokes yeah definitely well it was a big part of the culture in northern Alberta like it was a big deal if you were funny I'm parties a lot of Canadians and we drank a lot of kokanee and these guys are funny people they know how to have fun yeah well there's a lot of Canadian comedian say yeah that's what we export down the state so that you guys have some we need your help because we need some good comedians down you're right so but you better be funny if you're gonna live through a Canadian winter that's a good point we better amuse you better be amusing and Joe yeah it was an important thing like a lot of what we did when when we were kids when we were adolescents in particular was just try to sit around and amuse each other you know with your dad we need sarcastic comments I grew up in there I was in the military so this is very normal for us we write witty were like sarcasm some people have a hard time with that but it's it's see I think it's more of a working-class thing you know I think so as well that's it I really miss it I really like it cuz I sort of moved up the ranks yes a on the academic front that became less and less common you get your wit from that set or you think that's part of a DNA you were born being witty or because you were in an environment that you had to be witty the major survive so the proto yeah that was definitely part of it well it was also because I was small and and mouthy it was very useful to be sarcastic and witty too because it was the only defense that I had really that's so you know people would after me I mean everybody gets there's lots of physical yeah back and forth in junior high in high school but people would come after me and I could defend myself reasonably well with my tongue so I think Ben Shapiro has a similar stories yes a similar guys because he was a year ahead I think it's a year you know and yet he was always smaller so you figure out a way to stand up him he was being bullied I don't think you don't mess with Shapiro no it's quite impressive I watched you lots of times on YouTube yeah you want to mess with him at your peril yeah we've had him on about a 10 min before and the way he thinks is also very interesting how we process this issue so let me ask you when you said your dad was teaching you how to read from three years old and he's going through it and all of us and you pick up and start reading a book a day would you also have dialogues with your dad hey Dad what do you think about this no I wouldn't say no so much dad's quite introverted and really yeah isn't a debate type of a format sure so your family wasn't I can't believe Prime Minister no no no very little treasurer little dad figured he would have been happier if you'd have been born a hundred years earlier I mean he grew up in a log cabin he grow literally and he grew up on this this well my grandparents were the original homesteaders in Saskatchewan Canada Western Canada is about a hundred years behind the beautiful area by the way that whole area they got some nice property yes yes and and so and his parents were from his parents were of Norwegian extraction and they built a log cabin in the middle of the damn Prairie and that's where he grew up and you know he's a hunter and a trapper and a fisherman and he likes to be outside he likes to spend time alone although he's got close friends but these are people that he mostly does these you know this hunting and fishing with that's I mean he was a teacher he's the fire chief in our local town he ran a huge or huge fishing game Association imported elk to northern Alberta or no elk up there before before the organization brought them up there and so but that was his life and he's a gunsmith and a gun collector and he has like I don't know how many guns many many and so that's his culture and his life and and it was never something that I was really part of I mean I went hunting with him I went fishing and trapping with him we used to camp all the time when I was a kid we weren't a particularly political family or a philosophically oriented family for that matter I mean my dad's very smart philosophically oriented family orderly no was it a religious family was literature no family was it let's read the Bible every day let's probably really so we the debate come from what did your ability to be able to listen process respond what did that ability come from was it when you went into academia is it as it post yeah probably I think to some degree it's it's it's a natural ability I mean even when I was a graduate student when I was first teaching I seemed to be good at it my the classes that I taught as a graduate student and that was without any previous teaching experience were popular and then I well I now I've been teaching I've been lecturing for you know multiple times a week for 30 years and so and I also very seldom relied on notes I mean to begin with when you don't know a topic very well you have to scaffold the conversation with notes you know but I I always very loosely stuck to my notes I would prepare a lot beforehand but then sorry now it's alright if I come you're not gonna give a PowerPoint speech here's what we're doing right you're just gonna speak it right now you know when PowerPoint first came out I used it more I relied on it more than I did once I got accustomed to it but no it's better to it's better to sketch out your your talk and then rely on your notes as little as possible if you can manage it and I learned to do that and I like I practice doing that so that I could get to the point where any ously how do you practice that we just try to stay farther and farther away from your notes as you yes well there's something do you roleplay do you sit there with the new person and you said no no no no usually what I do that that's a good question I mean first of all I be over prepared in some sense so I mean I believe that if you're going to if you're gonna give a 20-minute lecture you should have an hour of the material at hand because that way you have an opportunity to sort of move spontaneously through the material but generally what I do now because I have a lot of material at hand a lot of stories and a lot of things that I've knowledge say that I've accrued over the years usually before a lecture well this is the hard part and I can do a lecture without doing this but it's better if I do this this is the hard part I'll sit down for 20 minutes with my eyes closed and I figure out what the what the central topic is so there's always a question what's the question I'm trying to address in this lecture and then I'll figure out a pathway through it it's like okay well here's the argument here's point one here's 0.2 here's 0.3 and there's possible branches off those and then with each point I usually have a collection of stories and facts that I can use to make the point plus the point yeah yeah and then to buttress it didn't to make it interesting and so it's a little bit it's a little bit like improvisational jazz I would say or even improvisational piano because I play a little bit of piano on so you lay out the story and then write you can use the responses of the audience to guide how you're gonna walk through it it's not duplicatable you have to have that ability to do that do you would you say you have some kind of a photographic memory a little bit or no no no no not at all not at all so these books you are you to kinda you can say page 7 you know he said no it's not I know I've known people like that like I had professors and you seem like you may have a little bit of that because the way no I don't organize myself that way I knew professors at Harvard one particular professor Richard McNally who was a walking library man he extraordinarily well-read person very very smart very fast on his feet and that's really how he seemed to organize his knowledge he would know the author he would know the page he'd know the source he'd know where the book was I'm not like god I thought you were for sure so okay so let's go I have a theory that I've been working on for a very long time and what happens when I read something is I plug it into the theory so I know the full outline of the theory it's it probably take me 45 50 hours to lay it out in lectures I've done that online and then but I keep it grows and grows and grows and grows I know where to put everything nice so if I read something I think oh yes that slots there and so and so you store it as well if somebody asks you a question you need to use that fact you have it somewhere still where you bring out and say okay but it has to be related to this work I've been doing overtime oh yeah god oh it's kind of like there's this technique called memory castle that people have used for centuries to remember things and so what you do is you you you you sit and you you imagine a might be a place that you know like a little place a house and then you can place the things that you remember imagine you walk through the house you can place the things that you want to remember at different locations in the house but you have to you have to turn what you're remembering into an image and then you can walk through the house and and you can lift things up and find what it is that you're trying to remember I sort of do that with this theory it's like it's it's Beatrice I've literally worked on it for it's been 40 years and so I know the I know the story and I know it's branches and I keep adding to it and adding to it and shifting pieces around from time to time and so that's how I remember things and I forget a lot of what I read a tremendous amount of what I read that's now and then something pops up in it sticks that changes the complete perspective for me a little bit for me to know that your views obviously has been vested for many years but you're also constantly working on it I guess this leads to me wanting to ask this question from you is I think from my opinion I think I run a business here I'm an entrepreneur we do what we do with value tainment I believe the people that make it to the top of any space they learn how to process issues better than others they learn how to put things together a system that helps them make a good decision and then from there they come out with their opinion may be based on some facts based on whatever they collect together or data to say this is what I believe about God this is what I believe about politics here's how I view economics this is what I think works this is what I think is the way we ought to live the twelve rules for life right here's what I think boys need to do or women or men or this is based on this what do you do what is your processing when a topic enters your mind how are you taking the next necessary step to come up with an answer or a belief that you're very comfortable saying this is what I believe in I no wonder questions you don't like to be asked is do you believe in God and your response is phenomenal cuz you said one I don't know what believe means to you and I don't know what God means to you because the word believe in God may be a different meaning to me so that's a very interesting answer to give but how do you process issues here when a new topic comes out you Cavanaugh comes out everybody goes through the leadership with Cavanaugh right and you come out in you know afterwards like well I think he needs to you know well I I usually do think about what I want to know like what's the step yeah the share boss I'd love to hear that partner well I mostly I can think in images and so if I'm building things because I like to do carpentry and fix houses and that sort of thing and so I like to build things and if I'm figuring out how to build something I can picture it and so I can think in pictures but I don't usually think in pictures I usually think in words and I think pretty formally in words like if I'm sitting down let's say with the Cavanaugh issue there was a question that question Eric Weinstein asked was was there an alternative to him being confirmed or not confirmed because he sort of thought both of those wouldn't bode well for the country and I thought okay well what could the option possibly be so I think that through inwards and then I think well he could well I eventually thought well he could be nominated and then how would I feel in a situation like that well my my nomination would be very contentious is there a way that I can help dampen the contentiousness and still retain my reputation I thought well you could be nominated and resigned what would be the advantages to that and then lay out one side of the argument and then I'll lay out the other and another and another and and have an argument and like an in Whizzer so absolutely that's what you know absolutely got it yeah basically what you do and this is really what you do when you think is you you know if thinking is an internalized conversation which at least is one form of thinking is that you spin off avatars of yourself and you say well you take this position and you take this position and you take this position and then you have each fictional part of yourself lay out the argument and and argue it through so for example when I write so that's another thing that I've done a lot of to prepare for my lectures you know I've written well I've written two books and one of them took 15 years I wrote 3 hours a day for 15 years every day that was the first book that's a technical books of various it's very hard yes at so so I laid out I laid out that argument but the way I did it was well first of all you generate your ideas that's the first part there's actually a technical process that goes along with this I use a computer in a particular way so imagine I've laid out an essay well then what I'll do is I usually use two screens I take a paragraph out put it on the other screen get into sentences okay so I put spaces between all the sentences okay then I look and see if the sentences are organized properly if that if that's the proper order try to reconstruct them so that they that they make more sense they flow better and I take each sentence one at a time and try to write a better version of the sentence maybe three or four times and every time I try to write a better version of the sentence I try to think of all the ways that sentence is wrong and could be fixed so at the level of the word at the level of the phrase at the Leveson school oh you bet like four maps of meaning the first book I probably wrote every sentence in that book fifty times are you oh no absolutely and then well there's more so then so then I'll take put the paragraph back together and if it's better than the original paragraph then I'll put it in so then I have a replacement for it but then also imagine it's a chapter well then the chapter has a structure so I'll outline the structure so this is real helpful too if you're writing a chapter is like well boil it down to ten sentences you written a chapter down to yeah you got a chapter right a ten sentence outline and that forces you to condense what you wrote and with ten sentences you can see the argument does that argument make sense then you can cut and paste the paragraphs from the essay back into that structure and if you do that three or four times then you have a very very tight argument I have a writing guide on my website at Jordan B Peterson comm under products it's free it's it's it's just a word document but it outlines how to do this imagine if you're writing so here's what you have to get right if you're writing the whole argument has to make sense as a whole okay you can think rather unclearly and still make an argument that works as a whole sometimes I read essays written by intuitive students and the essay works as a whole like there's a good idea in here but it's very badly written but there's an idea there so it sort of succeeds at the highest level but then if something's written real well it's every word is the right word every phrase is the right phrase the phrases are put into sentences properly the sentences are organized into paragraphs properly and you have to edit at every one of those lessons piano so it has to be like if one you know Ennis listen to another person plant and one is off they can't shit right yeah regular person is not gonna catch it yeah so you you going to that level of perfection well then I also read everything out loud do you seek perfection in that get in that area no but I what I seek I wouldn't say I seek perfection what I seek is that I can't do it any better so I know a book is done when I can't write about it yeah that's right i maxed my ability out so if I can't and if I if I'm at the point where when I'm starting to edit I'm not sure if it's better then it's time to quit interesting and I also often if I'm writing like I'll write something and then wait like you have to wait a couple of weeks to look at it again because often when you're writing and you reread it you read what you think you wrote because you're still you still have the ideas in your head that that are part of the cloud of ideas and it's not until you forget the context in some sense that you can actually see what you wrote and so there has to be pauses in your writing as well do you have a method for turning off all the noise I mean you have a family you have kids so is there and you have Louisa so what does have a method for turning up all the noise I'm like a junkyard dog man it's like don't come in and bother me when I'm writing and like it's been hard somewhat hard on my family particularly on my wife because you know like I said from 1985 to to 1999 I wrote three hours a day and the rule was don't bother me when I'm writing like to leave me alone and the reason for that would be you know I I'd be working on something I have it like half an hour of thoughts in my head stacked up to make an argument and then someone would interrupt me and I'd lose all of it it's like that's no good and so I got well I have a mental image it's like there's barbed wire it's a barbed wire a nice job there dog do you ever lose it and doesn't come back well you'd most definitely Oh for sure are you mad scientist-type or no yeah so you okay so you do get frustrated get you know upset you you have that side as well oh definitely okay so do you get along with yourself typically like do you know you know what I'm time when I say you get along with yourself like you know sometimes I'm you know I enjoy driving I enjoy my own company I look I'm a guy that for me therapy is going to the movies by myself at ten o'clock and I'm gonna tell my sister I got to do something come back with popcorn all of my shirt that to me is therapy and believing or I think in movies but do you get along with jordan peterson yourself like do you have battles internally when you're battling the topic or an issue or theory oh i battles myself all the time that's what thinking is you know like see people think that thinking is you encounter something and thoughts appear in your head and those are your thoughts it's like that's you're just barely getting started at that point because you have to take those thoughts and then you have to critically assess them and that's really that's where the thinking starts and that's based on what that's based on experiences that's based on data that's based on research that's based on influence on a friend or profession to say john what do you think about what else would you is it also based on the fact that you're not being lazy about the fact that you're willing to put additional minutes that you get into a topic cersei I'm going to read a little bit more about this topic and then is there the idea of what conflict would you say some but it is some of it and I also outlined this to some degree in this writing guide that I that I mentioned is like well the first question might be well why write or why make an argument and the answer is well if you're writing to figure out what you think then you're gonna use what you think to guide your action and the consequence of that is going to be how your life turns out so I'm dead serious about what I write because because I know what the pathway is it's like you don't you don't communicate in a false manner because if you do you will warp the structure that guides your actions and you are absolutely absolutely 100% suffer for that I mean one of the things I've learned as a clinical psychologist is that I've never seen anyone it's really a terrifying thing I've never seen anyone get away with anything ever it the chickens always come home to roost so and sometimes it might you know let's say you get away with something it's like yeah you think so man you wait five years from now seven years from now it'll come back is that karma it's more like yes I think it's the same idea but it's more like you you can't you you you don't have the power to manipulate reality like you have the power to bring about reality show some sense because you confront potential and through your actions and and and your communicative intent you turn potential entry elodie but you don't have the you don't have the power to bend reality without it snap you don't think so you don't think so so you don't think visionaries and influencers have the ability to bend reality you know I don't think they bend it I think that they the I mean you can bring new things into being but you can't you can't get away with a falsehood hmm no you can definitely bring new things into B you can't get away with a false yes that's it okay makes sense and and you can't get away with weak thinking either because I mean any more than you can get away with improper action it just doesn't work so you're you're contending it's what's why I mean one of the themes and my writing is the danger of falsehood and at any at every level it's like well if you tell the truth to the degree that you can or at least don't lie that think that's rule eight then you have reality on your side you got to decide and you want reality on your side or do you want reality against you I wouldn't recommend the whole reality against you thing because you're not gonna win you're gonna get flattened and so I'm very careful with what I say and I'm very careful with what I write like I try to if I write something down it's not an opinion I mean obviously it is because it's my my thought sure but it's it's I try to take those sentences and beat them to death I'm trying only to leave on the paper things I cannot get under and flip over so and that's with every literally it's every sentence yeah because it seems like for the most part when somehow when you when you're sitting with these interviews and people are asking you questions about whatever topic having to do it with politics it seems like you've recited that answer 50 times or somebody looked it up you just kind of Dancing with them and like you know say there's a series of a thousand questions it's like a an actor whose role played these things so much except you're not the actor you're real-life person that believes these things that you're reciting back to people because it's been stored here for a while so it doesn't seem like anything's coming off to cover it seems like this has been already thought about and talked about for years all right not to answer questions that I haven't thought about well here's a question for you I mean you've been viewed a few billion times what do you not know a lot about that if asked about you don't really have that strong of an opinion research on those topics physics really quantum physics okay no mathematics mathematics no I'm not I'm not particularly smart mathematically I've had students who were very gifted mathematically Wow piano well you would've been a math guy because know some what is a method my math intelligence is average so I mean there's lots of things I don't know much about I don't know much about economics now I'm not sure anyone knows much about economics but they might but as a technical science I certainly don't know much about it so there's plenty of room there's plenty of places where I'm you know wooly ignorant I don't know nearly as much about history as I should it's quite embarrassing really book a day you don't know a lot about history I think you're probably downplaying yourself well there's a lot to know and you know I'm oh I know enough history to know what to have some sense of what I don't know and man it's a big very big expanse I'd like to know a lot more why don't we talk about what you do talk a lot about men you talk a lot about you know what's going on right now with men and for me like I'll ask this question maybe in a way that will get a different perspective for you for me I grew up with a father that's hot a lot of the stuff you write in your book the 12 rules for life you know stand up straight my dad's if people ask me what has your dad told you the most never be afraid of the truth if I tell you how many times I don't even know how many times he's probably told me that thing a million times never be afraid of the true just say never before in this part of you're one of the rules of life rules for life so see I think it's wrong you should be afraid of the truth but you should be more afraid of falsehood see I know man I mean that's no criticism of your dad's advice but people are afraid of the truth because often if you reveal it it causes conflict in the moment all day long oh yes sir all day long or sometimes they don't want to know it oh very off to sometime it's very scary yeah I know about it yeah otherwise it's trivial but life is boring if we don't pursue that side I mean what do you do if you go living not wanting to pursue the true to me it's kind of like what is the purpose if we're not at least trying to test our own beliefs to see if we are thinking right or not if we're not thinking right what the hell is a purpose of this life and we're just got eight years to be here and be gone we may as well have a little bit of figured telling the truth is definitely an adventure and so if you want an adventure that's admitting the truth or telling the truth both okay but but but seeking for sure but also telling you no what do you mean by that telling me so you know one of the things that your counsel to do let's say if you do a lot of media interviews is to figure out what it is that you want to accomplish with the media interview okay right so you have a goal it's like here's what I would I want to accomplish with this interview and uh and potentially there's some use in that but another way of going about it is to just say what you think and see what happens that's an adventure because you don't know what the outcome is going to be so look there's this old idea that it's necessary to have faith in the truth and so here's here's a way of thinking about that someone asks you a question and you might think well here's the outcome I want and so here's how I'm going to answer that question so that's one way of approaching it but another way of approaching it is you ask me a question I'm gonna think about the answer and I'm just going to tell you what I think and it doesn't matter what the outcome is because I'm willing to see what the outcome will be predicated on the idea that there isn't a better outcome than the one that truth produces even if it's harsh and terrible in them in the short term and sometimes it is it's like there isn't a better way of doing it now you might say well how do you know that an answer is well I don't know that that's why it's an article of faith because I believe and I believe this deeply the being that you produce as a consequence of telling the truth is good by definition but so you know it's harsh and and often uncomfortable because you get in trouble yes but your faith to me seems very mathematical like when I when I when I see your answers about your faith like you say I choose to believe that there is a God but I don't know so it's a very logical answer you're given right there act as if God exists access of God this is a good definition of belief yeah sure yeah you know believing is something you have not yet seen right you see this would you stake yourself all right you know like you think well how do you know if you believe something well the answer is you stake your life on it that's how you know and that's something I suppose to the degree that I've been able to have stake my life on it's like well do I believe it well it depends on what you mean I'm acting it out I'm putting myself on the line so that seems to be a reasonable definition of belief you know if someone says you know do you think there's a God in heaven it's like well I don't know how to answer that question because I don't know exactly what you mean it's what I'm saying the logical part to me is more honest I think the logical side of it is more of an honest way of looking at it saying it's a bet I don't know you know I'm not a hundred percent but I'm betting there is if I was to bet to see if there is or there isn't my bid is yes there is that's the life I want to live and I think I'm living a better life if I believe there it's also there's also there's psychological elements that are associated with that dude that are important so one of the things I learned from Carl Jung who great respect for is that we we necessarily exist inside a hierarchy of values and that manifests itself all the time because in order to act things have to come to a point right for you to do something you have to decide at that moment that that thing is more important to do than anything else that you're doing and it isn't only how you act it's even how you perceive because when you look at the world you look at some things one thing rather than all the other things you could look at so even to look at something and this is technically true you have to value the thing that you're looking at okay so you're always using values to interact with the world perceptually and in terms of action now those values are organized otherwise you're a chaotic mess so they're organized there's some consistency in what you do right there's a narrative driving it that's another way of looking at it means you exist inside a value hierarchy some things are more important than others some of the things that are important to you are even more important than other things that are important to other people well to you sure how do people period but you're pointing towards something now you might be fragmented and pointing to a bunch of contradictory things but that's not helpful let's assume that you're a reasonably integrated person okay and so you're pursuing you're pursuing something of value it's at the top of your hierarchy functionally speaking whatever that is at the top of your hierarchy that's God for you and you might say well I don't believe in God it's like oh yeah but you still have you either hand that's your God you have an ultimate value performs the function that a deity would pray for them yeah I agree with that let me let me ask this question do you think a lot of men today struggle with that but maybe even not even men men and women today because you know there's a lot of different movements to you see so it's almost like you know there was a band back in the days in the night they're still around they perform in Vegas they're called boys two men right we're going from boys to men we are now men and you know life has changed for us I think we're going from men to boys at times today you know sometimes guys are feeling bad about being too manly like you know here's a man's man oh my gosh is a man's man that's not how you're supposed to be you don't have any empathy or feelings for other people and then sometimes on the other side is you know you're not bossy enough you're not this enough do you think there's a identity crisis right now for both men and woman that they don't really know what position do I need to be to be a real man or a real woman you think there's some of that going on I think let's start with a male part of that I so I think that right now our society is criticizing itself there that that's part of let's call it patriarchy theory and the idea is the hierarchies that are characteristic of our society are male-dominated and predicated on power and tyranny okay so I don't buy that I think that any hierarchical structure can degenerate into tyranny but I think that most of the hierarchical structures in the West are about as good as hierarchical structures ever get and if you think we can do without hierarchical structures then you don't know what you're talking about because you can't organize your perception without a hierarchical structure and you can't organize people in terms of pursuing a valuable goal you can't even say that the goal is valuable without producing a hierarchy there's no getting rid of hierarchies now then you can say well yeah but the hierarchy is based on power and it's corrupt I don't think that's true in the West although hierarchies can become corrupt okay so let's say you do buy that though the hierarchy is patriarchal and it's corrupt well then let's say you're young man and you're ambitious well then obviously you're corrupt too because your ambition is to take your place in the corrupt hierarchy and so because the hierarchies aren't tyrannical and because they're based on competence your ambition if you have any sense is actually to become competent but if you confuse that with a power drive and there's tremendous confusion about that then you confuse young men because they think if they're ambitious and they want to get ahead let's say they want to be useful incompetent that they're somehow buying into the tyranny so you actually punish the young men for their for their virtues and I actually think that that's part and parcel of this critical process because I think that one of the things that the people who are theorizing about the tyrannical patriarchy's that they absolutely detest competence and it's a deep war so it's very annoying it's very hard on young men but it's also hard on young women so it's hard on young women because they end up with partners who are confused they're confused about the relationship between masculine and feminine they're confused about - how what role they should play out in the world apparently it seems to be fine if a woman wants to play a patriarchal role that seems to be perfectly fine ethically I don't understand how that can be the case if the patriarchy itself is corrupt it's corrupt but it's ok if women occupy the positions of power it's like ok how does that make sense well none of this makes sense part of the reason it doesn't make sense is because it it isn't designed to make sense it's designed to be destructive now there's more complications than that there's lots of reasons why people are unstable in their rules now I'm one of the big reasons is the introduction of the birth control pill so we still haven't adapted to that by any stretch of the imagination and we God knows how long it'll take it's a huge biological transformation for women to have voluntary control over the reproductive function that's a you can't possibly overstate how massive our technological revolution that is it's like a biological mutation you know it's like we're a different species it's really a big deal and so we're the there's plenty of waves produced by that and we haven't sorted that out at all do you think that is becoming the norm that you know boys like we had a guy today Trent asked the question hey I'd love to ask you know dr. Peterson I'm a new new father today raising kids today how different is it to be a father today than before do you think he who controls the mic dictates how people should live and think like men and women and today the mic is controlled by media and media is telling us everything and it's controlled by 80% on one side do you think that's what the influence is coming from and that's for the whole post modernism's influence on the younger generation well I think it's hard to say I mean the criticisms that that that we've been discussing are in some sense justified because it's reasonable to look at a hierarchical structure and to be concerned about the degree to which it becomes tyrannical Oracle structures tilt towards tyranny you have to be awake and you have to be ethical in order to keep them straight but the criticism has gone so far as far as I'm concerned that it's critiquing the entire idea it's gone way down to the bottom and critiquing even the idea of the sovereign individual which i think is a is it catastrophic it's a catastrophic problem and it's it's so interesting to see the response to people after my talks say or is a consequence of watching my lectures I have people come up to me every night because I talked to about 150 people a night after the talks and so many of them are happy because they've put their lives on firm foundation because they found a little bit of encouragement in my in my lectures saying look it's good for you to go take your place in the world have some ambition have some have a vision have a goal have a strategy try to try to be a good person in not not because it's your duty precisely because that's the proper way to live we're in danger of undermining all of that and it's not good for people one of the things that I've really learned for example recently is that there's a learn to articulate better is that there's a very tight relationship between aspiration and responsibilities so let's say well the first question might be do you need to aspire to something and the answer is well yes because you have to do something okay if you just sit there you'll die you can't just sit there you have to go act out in the world okay so act towards what well that's whatever your aspiration is you have to have a name okay well what should the aim be well it should be something worth doing let's say what why do something that you don't feel is worth doing what do you think's worth doing well if you watch other people and you judge when they're doing something worthwhile usually judge them positively if you see that they're taking responsibility at least for themselves what do you want to be completely useless so other people have to take care of you that's pretty pathetic and maybe you could get your act together so you're taking care of yourself and your family and maybe you could even do better than that and take care of yourself and your family and your community well good for you that's that's responsibility and that's a name well here's one of the things that's cool about that is that your life doesn't have meaning without aspiration or name okay so you need a hierarchy of values there's got to be something at the top it's got to be something important if you don't have that your life doesn't have any meaning so if you criticize the higher key or even the ideas of idea of hierarchy you destroy the idea of aspiration and then people have nothing well that's not helpful people are built for a struggle and they're built for a wait and you want to take on a heavy burden voluntarily see if you can put yourself together see what you can do out in the world while you're waiting to die it's an all-in game it better be worth while and so there's a tight relationship between responsibility and aspiration and hierarchy and when you criticize those things you get rid of the aspiration but why are those ideas doing good today like why why are those the idea of you know feeling entitled or victimhood mentality why are those ideas doing good today why is it becoming a norm to say people are feeling like I'm a victim but you don't understand what I'm going through you don't some where I'm at it feels like there's a lot of that going on today versus a stander but do something about your life and take some responsibility why are those ideas getting so much attention today or is it something that's always been like this I think in some sense it's it's an it's an eternal battle I mean the story of Cain and Abel is a story about that is about responsible proper living and the jealousy that might be engendered while observing that so it's a very very old problem I think well the problem is Envy are you saying Envy oh it definitely and yes definitely and I don't know just think about discussion of the 1% it's like well those evil 1% do you know how much money you have to make in order to be in the top 1% in in worldwide terms oh worldwide yeah we don't we're not the three thousand dollars a year it's thirty two thirty two thousand we made a video on that thirty two thousand persist so it's like well where why do you draw the boundaries so that the top 1% are people that aren't you if it's not envy if you're doing okay I mean you're doing okay with a with a say an average working class salary you're doing okay I'm not saying you're doing great you're not starving you've got heat you've got air conditioning you've got access to electronic technology you've got some ability to move forward into the future so you're doing all right and by historical standards you're doing damn fine so why all of a sudden is the one percent that you're envious of only those people who are richer than you when you're also part of the one percent worldwide if that's not envy so I know how the riches the rich is always someone who has more money than me that's who the rich is I don't put myself in that category you know especially if I'm pursuing this victim mentality and then the other part of the victim mentality as well you know let's say you can have a meaningful life by adopting responsibility but it's a heavy load you got to be awake and alert and on your feet and moving towards something difficult you have to have some self-control and you have to sacrifice in the present so that the future is better it's complex you have to integrate a lot and will you take on some responsibility your life has meaning you think I want a meaningful life it's like maybe you do if you're willing to take on the responsibility what's the alternative well to garner a lot of unearned sympathy for your victimization position and to at the same time take down the people who are willing to take more responsibility than you it's a nasty game and I see it played out in the universities too I think if you quadrupled the salaries of sociologists that most political correctness would go away I think they're jealous and envious because they see people who aren't any smarter than them doing way better out there in the capitalist world now it drives their envy and their hatred even though they're unbelievably privileged in their positions as let's say sociology professors or Social Work professors or people who are on the faculties of Education all disciplines that have become incredibly corrupt envy those are two things right there then then we're talking media and we're talking about educational system and the influence of the media and the educational system 80% is on the left well the media is a complicated more complicated thing I think because I think what's happening in the mainstream media is that it's falling apart as a consequence of technological transformation and as it's doing so it's polarizing you know like well look newspapers are having a hard time showing any money right we all know that and of course cable TV networks are losing all their viewers to interesting things like YouTube fault of people like you and so they're starting to disintegrate well when you start to disintegrate you get more desperate and when you get more desperate well then you have to attract attention however you can and I think what we're seeing in the mainstream media is increasing focus on polarizing figures because that drives the remaining audience to view and so I think a lot of that's being driven by the underlying technological transformations so media solving for view rather than the truth that you're saying yeah yeah so how do you feel about the media yourself when you when you think about the media well I have mixed feelings about it I mean I've been treated very well by some journalists you know there's a handful of Canadian journalists in particular I actually think they're the best journalists in Canada I don't I hope that isn't mere personal bias who've taken a careful look at what I've been doing and saying and have been very supportive of me the post media group in Canada it's an aggregation of 200 newspapers came out publicly in support of my stance on free speech a year and a half ago and at some cost to them because it was very contentious at that point so that's been that's been good and of course the media so to speak has also enabled me to bring what I know or purport to know to a very broad audience and so that's that's a very positive thing I've had very very stressful interactions with many many journalists it's certainly been the most stressful part of my life over the last two years and some of it was absolutely reprehensible some of the journalists and then MSNBC News appalling appalling and amateurish so both at the same time it's a bad combination vice and other pit of snakes as far as I'm concerned people who interviewed me and then chopped up the interview to make it look as bad as they possibly could and that was all laid out by other people on YouTube who spliced back the original interviews and you know put out what Iona said what do you think was CNN I've had absolutely no contact with personally if I don't pay attention to them Fox Fox the Fox people have treated me very well look I don't pay a lot for you I question for one here's the reason why I'm asking this question for because so I'll sit with people and on the left and the right we've had Gloria Allred Jerry Springer but we've had Prager Shapiro McAfee in the middle Ron Paul so you got two left to right in the middle weird I mean we got them all right we're even because I'm trying to get clear for myself philosophically and politically to see if there's some clarity as an entrepreneur what are some of the things we ought to pay attention to sometimes entrepreneurs you're so independence I listen just leave me alone don't bother me for the most part most entrepreneurs are libertarian esque type of philosophies for most because just let me get to work I'm gonna make my money I'm gonna create jobs I don't want to get anybody else into my business having said that I hear Republicans complain about the fact that well you know 80% of media is controlled by the left you know look what they own they own New York Times the own Washington Post they own you know they own this and they want that and doing this and look what they just did to Alex Jones they just banned them a hundred different web sites ban and PayPal just banned them what's this guy gonna do why can't he get up there and go out there and say what's on his mind and it's all the liberal media's fault right I hear that then on the complete opposite side say wait a minute Time magazine was just bought by the founder of salesforce.com for 350 million dollars you mean to tell me somebody on the right couldn't about Time magazine for 350 million dollars how much influence does it have so when I hear that part on the conservative side the right side Republicans calling the left snowflakes I see the other said that sometimes conservatives Republicans if you calling them snowflakes why don't you could also compete and buy some media and create some media for yourself there aren't any social media platforms that are pretty much owned by somebody on the right or conservative so that's why it's the question from you saying you know what do you think about media is it a majority controlled on the other side and why aren't the Republicans or the people on the right doing something about it we're at least 50/50 medias 50/50 where I can get up and say you know what I agree I disagree they're full of it these guys are full of it but I have an opinion versus 80% tells me to go look once I think part of it the argument that the large-scale social media providers were politically biased in some important senses only existed for about three or four years in any real sense right it's really expanded I would say since the election that's thrown by the left yeah yeah I mean I don't think people necessarily thought five years ago that Facebook and Google were primarily left at least to the degree that they're accused of as being now well Silicon Valley for the most Peter Thiel would be left if you think about Silicon Valley the only person that you got to be worried about it right but how long has that really been a contentious issue like Google has only been a company that people had had mixed opinions about for about two years like people were pretty happy let's say a handful of years yeah but nothing nothing to the plan worse all right I agree with you so strike a part but if you think about CNN you know MSNBC Washington Tom New York some of that is is purely that's true short but to some degree that was balanced by Fox News I think part of the reason that there are a channel again is fair enough but to some degree that's balanced I think part of the reason that there aren't more conservative social media platforms is because it wasn't obvious until relatively recently that that was a necessity now but I still think your point is well-taken if the Conservatives want to do something about the the hypothetically liberal bias of the large-scale social media companies then they're free to go out and do something about it but I don't think they've I don't think they've considered that a problem for for that mutineers they have you don't think they've seen that as a problem do you think I mean i-i've been following American politics say for I mean I come from Iran so for us we know Jimmy Carter the influence played in Iran and my mom's family's communist outsides imperialist I lived in Germany two years of refugee camp so I've had to follow politics for quite some time because it's affected my life right and when when you see politics here I would say 20 years of me at least looking at it I think a lot of its been on the left but Department the reason I'm asking this is I'm not looking for being right I don't think it's good to be 80 percent either side like I think what shoes Shapiro Rubin a rogue in some of us what we doing about them when we talk about capitalism I think that is very healthy but I also think John Oliver is good I also think John Stewart is good I think some of that is also there because we need both sides to see one is certainly the case that the people that you just described aren't having any shortage of opportunity to get they're married or not I mean I mean but the control at the top that's the thing when I say control at the top where distrust at the top do ya know like Ruben tweeted out yesterday he said that he's got reports from hundreds of people that that have been described from his channel you know and the problem is well is that true or is it not true the problem is is that well the trust for YouTube for example has been damaged you know when Google shut me down they shot my youtube channel down they shot my email channels down all of them one day everything a thousands and thousands of emails on Gmail everything for the last shuttle completely I couldn't get access at all I couldn't get actually with my calendar but I was appalled it was absolutely horrible does not concern you let horse it concerns me so was which to DuckDuckGo yesterday did you yeah well I'm simply with it yes and you said you're gonna get off to you at Lincoln about your offer to I don't think it's a good idea but you said I should we on être should know you're saying I'm thinking about no longer going on good and kind of writing more articles I might because your son recommended that you look more wrong there's other like I could use read it more for example don't use read it much and I already have a good I think I think you're writing you you you when you write and I read the article obviously when you wrote on your website said I shouldn't have just said this on Twitter let me elaborate I mean I read it you know and then you said yourself it's just because I say something doesn't mean I'm right I was thinking and not every thought I'm saying means I'm right but I was thinking about that right so but when you go deeper into it I see that for someone this is interesting how he's wired no my only concern is the fact that look in Iran the Shah was worried about today today was a group of Communists in Iran and everything they wanted to do find him and trying to get rid of him right now so my gosh we can't have these concept coming and then people were so afraid of today that they were forgot about how many or Comenius and you know France they never have to worry about it he came in and am bummed so the fear of communism of what if they could take over made him kind of give more ability for how many to create influence that led to a revolution when nine million people in streets of Iran revolt and boom Iran goes from one day one the best countries in the Middle East coming up and the Middle East was safe next thing you know the war half a million people getting killed and all this other stuff so I think sometimes being worried about what other people are gonna say they disagree with I don't think it leads to good things but today hundred social media platforms are controlled on one side that's a scary thought Jordan if all of a sudden capitalism becomes a curse word and anybody uses capitalism hey you know actually see things in the u.s. balance quite nicely you know I mean there is tremendous control on this a left-leaning end of things in academia and in in the classic mainstream media but you know the the electoral process seems to have balanced that out quite nicely because the Republicans I agree yeah so I agree the American system seems to work I agree with you absolutely it'll be really interesting to see what happens in November's elections American system works well however this is the one part that I think we have to realize that you know Ron Paul started social media influence on politics Ron Paul raised I think six million dollars in 2004 on myspace in 24 hours in 24 hours here eight-six may rise like Obama's like what he's got raised six million dollars in 24 hours a month and he's how old I'm young I'm cool I'm handsome I want to raise billions and then he took social media and he raised and he's a two-term president and then Trump you take the Jack Dorsey's Twitter out I don't know if Trump's president today so Trump learn how to use Twitter to his advantage now that everybody knows the power of social media the concern now becomes everyone knows what you need to do if you want to be a president two years from now or six years from now right you know if you play the game of social media whoever's got the big following so now the people at the top who control these social media platforms are more powerful than some governments are so this is why when you say the electoral college you know the system works it works today but you know that isn't necessarily I mean well we have no idea how all this technological transformation will destabilize and transform things going into the future that's what I mean part of the reason that I'm going on this tour for example and talking to people about individual responsibility is that I see this like everyone does this unbelievably rapid process of technological transformation approaching us I think well we better be wise enough to handle it because we can't predict it right so to the degree that we have character flaws that could be rectified the consequences those are going to be magnified by our increased technological power so I'm hoping that everybody can try to get their act together a little bit more carefully and that's that's also being extraordinarily fun in this like the the lecture so I've been in 85 cities since March that's amazing yeah since it is it's been it's unbeliev and I've been fortunate cuz I've had lots of good people helping me make sure this works and it has worked so far but it's really quite it's very heartening because all these every night I talk to about 2,000 people not every night but like four nights out of four nights and a week as far as I can tell they're all primarily coming there because they want to put their house together from a psychological perspective they're interested in developing a vision in writing and taking on responsibility and I have dozens of people every night who who have told me that over the last couple of years their lives have been transformed they've gone from a bad place we know where they were really lost in the nihilistic they've decided that they were gonna do something with their life you know I had I tweeted out something today that some kid kid wrote me he said two years ago he didn't have any friends he didn't he didn't have an intimate relationship he didn't know where he was going his life he didn't have a job like he was just you know nothing was going for him and he's doing a philosophy degrees in the second year he has a good job he's got a girlfriend he's got friends that care forms like he's put his life for another and so I hear this sort of story from people all the time people stopped me on the street and tell me this which is lovely right to go to a city you've never been to this happens to me all the time I'll be walking down the street someone will come up and say I'm sorry that I'm bothering you and they're not because people are very polite they've been very polite to me say you know I wasn't in such a good place year ago two years ago I've been trying to put my life together I've been listening to your lectures and here's a bunch of things that are way better for me it's like right on man the more about the better and I think that's the right way forward you know this which is why I don't really regard myself as a political person I have political interests but mostly I must I operate I try to operate at the level of psychology it's like better for people to put their lives together it's important and I think each person is crucially important I think that's a predicate of of the democratic state right we wouldn't let people vote people wouldn't have the responsibility to vote to determine the outcome of the state if there wasn't a deep belief in our culture that each person was vital and I do believe that I believe that the world is constructed so that each person plays a vital role and so every time that someone gets their act together it's like great great that's gonna have way more positive effect than you think and stave off an awful lot of trouble because someone who goes bad can do an unbelievable amount of damage or even just not going bad is a good thing so you know sometimes you you read this you know articles or videos of America's more divided than it's ever been before and then you read some research and it says you know it's actually not the truth America is more United than we've ever been before it's a better place than it's ever been before I know you're a Canadian looking in but you're going also speaking every way 85 places you speak since March that's a lot of people you're shaking hands with that you're talking to and 150 people that stick around after words they're having a dialogue this is more info you have here than the average human being what are you feeling about the conditions of America are we more divided than we've ever been before or are we actually we're definitely not mean before because you guys had a civil war and we're certainly not at that point and I don't think that the current division is any greater than it was in the 1960s in fact I think it's less I think there's more there was more tension well the war was going well yes there was a war I mean that makes a big difference you know I mean people people young people particularly now who haven't been through that don't realize what that's like it's not like I've been through that personally but a war is a big deal and a universal draft I mean that was high stakes bargaining you know and then things were pretty divided later under Nixon that was the end of the 60s and then they were divided again under Reagan there were huge scale protests under Reagan and the Cold War had really heated up and everyone was afraid that we were gonna push the nuclear button and so there's plenty of division then even in in my lifetime I've seen times when I think that your country the United States was more divided than it is now there is a fair bit of polarization now I know that if you look at how what's happened to political attitudes the the typical Democrat has moved farther to the left over the last 20 years the Republicans haven't moved that much they're still relatively that median Republican is still relatively close to the center but I think a lot of the polarization is actually being driven by the death of the mainstream media like well you know you always want to look at what the consequence of a technological transformation is and this is a big transformation you know there used to be flagship media sources that were basically attempting to give a balanced picture and I think they did a pretty good job 30 years ago Time magazine even the mainstream news programs they had a professionalism that was associated with their journalism that had some degree of objectivity and that's fragmented and and it's fragmenting because there's all these media sources like innumerable media sources and so it's it's driving people who are trying to get attention to desperation and they exaggerate the polarity and so that puts everyone on and Twitter puts people on edge like and this is part of the reason I'd thought about I'm still thinking about what to do with Twitter maybe I should not use it for a month because Twitter I think my experience with Twitter is that I'm wandering around in the world and everything's fine the streets are peaceful the people I meet every the people I meet are doing well that your cities I've been to I don't know how many American cities in the last four months like 40 or 50 they look great you know I mean the everywhere I go there's construction and and the country feels like it's moving how does one person that's watching the news and that's what the news they get from it they consume news through media I'm watching CNN Fox MSNBC whatever yeah how do I tell apart between the truth and propaganda I don't know I mean when I counsel my clinical clients who are depressed or anxious one of the things I've always told them to do over the last few decades is to disconnect themselves from the news this was before the social media and you still believe that today well I hadn't see you asked me about CNN earlier like I haven't watched mainstream television news since like 1985 you gotta be no I'm not let me get this straight I want to hear you say this one more time you haven't watched mainstream media since 1985 no very little I didn't have a TV I didn't have a TV since nineteen about 1985 Alessa me watch CNN probably in an airport for a few minutes I personally never watched you so if I don't come to your place I know you have some interesting collection of art that you collect but if I come to your place your TV's not gonna be on CNN there's no TV there's no TV new I haven't had a TV since 1985 I realized back in 1985 that news wasn't news if it was only news for a day it wasn't important so I read magazines you know I've read I read Harper's or I'm not at the moment Harper's Atlantic Monthly The Economist those were my basic sources for news now that's changed you see because I got tangled up so badly and scandal two years ago that I've been on top of especially social media like an obsessed addict for two years trying to manage it you know but it's not clear to me that that's been a good thing for like for your sanity or for it's it's certainly I don't think Twitter is a good thing for my sanity Twitter is so contentious it's so I mean if you want a daily dose of hate you can get it in 10 minutes on Twitter you know if I post something you know there's there's there's a number of comments about whatever I posted and one out of four of them is brutally rude and obnoxious as nasty as it can possibly be and that's very very common and like you know people are quite sensitive to negative information we're more sensitive to negative information than we are the positive information and so and our not complaining I don't have to use Twitter it's a completely voluntary choice and I'm certainly a massive beneficiary of the existence of social media so I'm not complaining about it I don't have a right to complain about but it exists in absolute contrast to my experiences in the world like it's not like I'm walking down the street and one person out of 4 jumps out of an alley and like curses me I haven't had a single negative interaction with an individual that's not true I met one really drunk woman in in in Dublin and she called me a wanker but she was great the piece of work though was a timid husband by her size that after Connor lost maybe she was pissed out because maybe maybe she was but but I've had thousands of interactions with individual people on the street let's say in airports and so forth in the last six months and every single one of them has been overwhelmingly positive so that's reality then I go into Twitter and it's like oh my god it's just brutal doesn't really bother you though do you really get a bother and listen but all of us you know no one likes negative comments like right before this Mario sitting I'm preparing my notes and Mars like look at the three negative comments we got to them like Mario I'm doing an interview yes in your tone sir so obviously before doing some like this but does it does it bother you a little bit when you read those Nicole definitely read oh definitely well look when when I was when I was still working as a professor I'm on unpaid leave at the moment you know I get my my feedback from my students and my feedback is being generally extraordinarily positive so maybe there'll be 50 comments from students three of them will be negative something like that or two and and often quite nasty negative ones and uh you remember the negative ones and that is what people are like we're much more sensitive to negative and that the reason for that is negative things can kill you positive things can make you a little happier so going back to it I guess what you are saying is with the social media platform you saying from 1985 you didn't consume any content on TV outside of pure accident there's no TV at your house in the last two years you've done it because social media so you kind of have to be aware yeah I had to be on top of it has okay so this is an interesting question are you happier now that you're consuming the content last two years or do you find yourself being man I'm a little bit more anxious than I was two years ago was a little oh I'm Way more anxious really oh yeah are you waiting about going on a diet again from social media like well no not not look it's it's it's complicated because my life is gone I mean my life was fairly broad two years ago I had a number of businesses I had my clinical practice I was working as a professor I was writing I was involved in lots of things and so I had plenty to do you know but since then it's gone like this and some of its unbelievably good and some of it's really really bad and so the breadth of it has extended and so like all right there's no shortage of ridiculously positive things that are happening to me on an ongoing basis I can't even believe it but the same is true on the negative end and so what's happened is the the range of my emotional experience has expanded almost unbearably I would say so and again I'm not complaining about that because I couldn't choose to do it differently but some of this has also been a matter of management it's like it is it is literally the case that although it's been a little better over the last three or four months for about 18 months in a row I was at the center of a scandal that could have taken me out at least twice a week so constant non-stop scandal of one form or another and so that took a lot of juggling and management to see what was going on and I was paying attention to social media and trying to figure out how to respond in the press and on YouTube and and on my blog and all of these sorts of things trying to learn how to do that and so it's been an obsessive learning experience let's say I has served me very very well my blog works out very well for me the podcast I have a podcast it's very popular that's worked out really well Facebook I don't pay much attention to Facebook although I post on it Twitter that's that's something else Twitter is this you don't know what to do with Twitter I don't know what to do with Twitter I think I go back and forth I I go back and forth you know there's a part of me that there's people I keep up with on Twitter the people I follow some of these IDW types so to speak you know I see what Shapiro's posting i see what brett weinstein is posting and sam harris and I kind of keep in the loop that way and I feel a moral obligation to be to keep up and I have nine hundred thousand followers and I feel an obligation to them too but there's this also this addictive curiosity you know that that that what's happening what's happening what's happening what's happening and I tried to pull myself away from that on the TV news because it's the same thing except in much less concentrated form and it was good for me and I do think if it's only important today it's not important right if it's news it doesn't matter if you don't know about it for a week it's still news but I still haven't figured out how to completely deal with all this social reach I have at my fingertips I don't know exactly how to manage it you feel there's an addiction to because you know that's the whole thing with social media addiction to feel like you are committed to seeing what everybody else is doing because it's a part of loyalty like I gotta be loyal to them and I kind of feel like they've been loyal to me yeah there's some of that going on there's definitely some of that there's also there's also that there's also and like I am insatiably curious about things and so Twitter is terrible for that because it's just continual hits of information so I'm sure yeah I mean if you taught me reading a book a day and you all of a sudden have all this information to your hands like what is he say what's going over here what about this oh my gosh what's it so you can get really caught up with that yes and that's gonna happen a lot with social media last question here before we go into speedrun educational system your professor I mean you've been in the environment you see what's going on I know sometimes when we're talking about early 80% of media is on the left one of the stats you read about is that one in twelve professors in colleges today are conservative one in 12 that means 11 are not right so you know what do you think is the influence of colleges and how do you feel about the current educational system period I've seen large institutions fall apart because they make a fatal error I think universities are making seven fatal errors top-heavy administration that keeps growing okay increase in the number of part-time untenured faculty members who have no administrative or or academic power massively increasing insane increases in tuition combined with indentured servitude for students right you get a student loan you can't declare bankruptcy now so that means that the burgeoning administration has learned how to pick the pockets of the young people's future earnings they entice them into university and offer them extended adolescence with no responsibilities and the price they garner from them is too garnished their future earnings crooked game ethics committees absolute catastrophe the the the dominance of this post this weird nonsensical alliance between the postmodern types and the neo-marxist types which makes no sense philosophically given the post modernist stated what would you call it skepticism for meta-narratives why the hell they've aligned themselves with the Marxist is below beyond me except that I think post-modernism is just a shell game for for Marxism that's another fatal error the gerrymandering of the grade system so that's I think I got six there all of those there they're not good they're they're fatal I think all of them and so I think they I don't know what's gonna happen to the university system over the next twenty years but I'm certainly not optimistic about it so and I've hired some people this is like this is a big problem we just discussed and I've got this little solution and so I know I'm talking about a little semi-interesting book if you were to write about it well I've hired people I've hired some people to build an online education platform and where they've been working on it for six months and we have a bit of a prototype and we're trying to figure out how to build an alternative you know you said look if if the Conservatives are so concerned about the liberal media why the hell don't they go out and build their own media empire it's like well if I'm concerned about the education system then why don't I try to generate an alternative to it you're doing it yeah I'm trying to I mean the probability that it will succeed is like zero it's an impossible task but we're trying to build a platform that would help people use their online time more productively and keep track of it so imagine that everything that you taught yourself on YouTube could be accredited and you could be you could be rewarded for that across time and may be guided through it so that you could you could track your educational progress through along a whole wide range of potential learning opportunities we'd like to build an online portal that would make your use of your online time much more productive and engaging that so that's that's what we're aiming soon oh god who knows we have a prototype we have a prototype and we've applied to Y Combinator I don't know if we'll get accepted maybe we will maybe we won't we thought all alternatives lined up well let us know about it we have some context we would love to know more about I will let you know with the right people what's next for you by the way I mean what are your aspirations I mean you know everybody has inspirations though you're talking about right everybody well I can tell you what's happening in the next year but that's as far out is it long look oh so you don't know no filter right Minister follow six nothing like that so we're never gonna see Prime Minister Jordan Peterson that's not that's not in the equation not that I can foresee at the moment I mean god only knows because I can't look that far out I'm more interested in what I'm doing at the moment I think it's more useful I can tell you what I'm doing for the next year okay so next month I'm going to Europe I have like 15 talks in Europe all over the place and then Hawaii Los Angeles Calgary Vancouver more talks and then Florida and then I'm going to Australia New Zealand in February for another lecture tour if the Y Combinator thing pops up I'll go to San Francisco for January and February and March I'm going back to Europe I'll probably hit another 25 cities then from May to September I'm gonna hopefully finish up my next book which is called twelve moral more rules for life beyond mere order that's the plan and then from September to December next year I'm going to I did a whole series of lectures on Genesis I want to go back after that but go to Exodus and do a series of lectures on Exodus so that's out for the next year and after that I don't know I have no idea that's plenty of planning for heads for how you're planning this well for how fluid and crazy things are right now that's if I get through all that that'll be a miracle III think if you were to start a university or online university or somewhere to educate thinking processing decision making process I think that would that would that wouldn't just be something that'll do well in the states here that'll be worldwide we also want to build modules we've been trying to figure out how to do this to teach people to read to teach them to think to teach them to speak and present to teach them to negotiate so part of the aligned with what we're thinking it's so weird like this stuff he's saying yeah well there's a there's a crying need for it and and obviously with the current technology that we possess it would be possible to educate everyone hypothetically and we'd also like to do it at low cost so one of our goals is to is to make a high quality University equivalent education process that would be like one 1/10 to 1/100 of the current cost that's powerful that and we have a need for that so the fact that you're doing that I'm looking forward to it I think I think the way you know you're you your ideas have been growing and people are looking at and being so receptive where nowadays everybody sounds Jordan Peterson Jordan Peterson well maybe one day if the man upstairs has plans who knows maybe you know the Trudeau last name may be replaced by Peterson last name you know in a place like Canada but we'll see what happened there definitely you are very presidential Prime Minister s type of a person and you're you're good with fashion as well you know how to put it together so you're very fashionable anyway so let's do speed run let's do speed run I'll say some things a name of a person just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind okay whatever it may be all right Drake male duck Kanye West king of the IDW that's Dave Reubens really okay Trump anomaly Trudeau Justin Trudeau that I just shake my head at that okay oh man who capitalized without virtue on the name of his father Wow yes why was right he had an ounce of character he would have never run I'm not happy about him he had no right well he had a right he's a citizen he can run he didn't earn his name not impressed why do you say that's a specific because his father was very famous sure and so that put Trudeau at menace advantage with regards to moving into a leadership position in Canada it's not excusable you should move ahead on your own merits especially if you're daring to do something like run a country you have a moral duty if you have the advantage of a name you have a moral duty to supersede the accomplishments of the person who bore that name and gave it its weight before you dare capitalize on it in the public sphere and there's Trudeau did none of that he can he knows how to behave he knows how to act in public he had the upbringing for it other than that there's nothing there not that I can see and if there was he wouldn't have run the way he did he's not not an impressive person in my estimation some strong opinions there's he appointed fifty percent of females to 50 percent of his cabinet because it was what he says well because it's 2015 it's like no quarter of your elected members of parliament were female if you would your job was to pick the most qualified people period regardless of their genitalia because they're leading the country you picked the most qualified people steady advocated his responsibility to make those difficult decisions and then wallpapered it over with a this casual virtue of well I'm going to promote women it's like no you're going to promote competent people you weasel no excuse for it Wow I'd say one word but that was a few hundred words yeah well I'll take it we'll go with that okay how about vegans to each his own man Jim Jefferies he's a comedian more power to him I like comedians Kathy Newman failure to learn from experience Alex Jones don't persecute someone who's paranoid it's a big mistake strategically speaking you know lots of people think conspiratorial II it's it's a mode of thinking and perhaps Alex Jones a little more than everyone else they didn't just stop Alex Jones they stopped all the people that were listening to him all those people weren't stupid it wasn't like they believed everything else Jones said she left him the hell alone so it's not he's a canary in the coal mine I think Karl Marx a testament to the murderous power of resentment Elon Musk amazing he's amazing he's done five impossible things that's amazing it's absolutely beyond belief it's hard to believe he exists he made an electric car and then he shorted into space right either one of those things really hard but to do them together and actually do them it doesn't even seem real and he lives during our time yes that's what yeah we don't ice time but we he's current so look so here's what I wanted a few dohman I want to get a signed copy of one of your books yeah and we give it away to undervalue tanners since everybody's been asking about you know Jordan Peterson being on here I'm about you tell me dr. Jordan Peterson I figure we get a signed book out you know you have a self authoring website yeah you teach people how to write book so I'm going to talk a little bit about it's a program it's an online writing program that helps people straighten out their past write an autobiography understand their personality virtues and faults and to develop a vision and a strategy for the future it's a really useful program the future authoring part which is the part that helps you develop a vision if University students do that it increases the probability they'll stay in university by about 30% so and we've done that with thousands of people and so if you're trying to get your act together this is an excellent way to sit down and have a discussion with yourself about what's important where you what I'm asking myself yeah Wow it breaks down the process is planning your life and I'm really curious because the way you were explaining it earlier so this program is 29 bucks you said earlier that's right and you get all three programs and get an extra one for a friend how about we get a cold yeah that we put on there they can you let's use PBD maybe this is about a 20% discount okay so here's what we're gonna do this what I want you to do go to is self authoring com sign up for the program 29.95 there'll be a 20% discount if you use the code PBD then when you buy this program tweet me and him with the handles that we have right next to our names you should see it it's right next to our names and you and I will pick a winner and we'll send send a signed copy to one of the people that will pick us a winner because sounds like a good that'd be good hey yeah thanks so much for him enjoyed it really really enjoyed looking forward to next time Yeah right take everybody much love bye-bye

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 2,310,714

Rating: 4.8957062 out of 5

Keywords: Entrepreneur, patrick bet david, Entrepreneurship, jordan peterson, 12 rules of life, jordan peterson goes off, who is jordan peterson, jordan peterson debate, jordan peterson interview

Id: dvBbxbjFRw4

Length: 79min 44sec (4784 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

What the actual fuck?? People in this sub believe Jordan Peterson is a fascist? You guys really need to sit down and think about your lives.

[u/aga_blag_blag]

r/DDG confused as fuck right now.

[u/SunRaSquarePants]

Link to the context. He explains that google shut down his email and youtube account etc, and offers his shoutout to DDG!

[u/Gothmorg8]

Oh ffs

[u/_potaTARDIS_]

Ugh, I don't want his nasty Jungian ass anywhere near me

[u/dhorrible]

Not sure this is something to be proud of.

[u/data_citizen]

Ew

[u/Mennims]

That interviewer is absolutely terrible. He constantly interrupts Peterson and it triggers me.