Jordan Peterson: Why You Need Art in Your Life

why I was at the Modern Art Museum Museum of Art in in New York I'm afraid I don't remember which one unfortunately but it I was in this amazing room you know it had all these Priceless paintings from the from the late Renaissance hanging in it you know each painting worth who knows a billion dollars maybe the Priceless painting so the room was it's a shrine and it was full of people from all over the world who are looking at these paintings you think well what the hell are these people doing coming to this room looking at these paintings like what what are they up to one of them was a painting of the Assumption of Mary right brilliantly composed and there was all these people looking at it and I thought what are they doing they don't know what that means like why are they looking at that painting why is it in this room why does it cost a billion dollars why is that painting worth so much and the answer to that is well we don't really know like it happened there there're sacred objects in some sense and we gaze at them in ignorance and wonder and the reason for that is that the unknown shine through the Mattis and in partially articulated form and so well that's the role of Art and that's the role of artists you know and real artists real artists are contending with the unknown right and they're possessed by it they have a personality trait openness that makes them do that they can't even help it and I've had lots of creative people in my clinical practice and I can tell you the worst thing for Creative people is to not be creative because they just die and it because it's it's it's it's like maybe you're a tree with a few major branches you know that's your personality so if you're extroverted man you can't be cut off from people because you just wither and if you're agreeable you have to be in an intimate relationship or you die you know and if you're conscientious man and you and you're unemployed you're just going to eat yourself up because you have to have a duty and you have to carry a load because you just can't stand it otherwise and open people have to be creative they have to be because otherwise they die they don't have any vitality and so they're cursed with the necessity of putting a foot out into the unknown and making sense of it and then they're also cursed with the necessity of trying to make a living while they're doing that which they can't because you can't it's almost impossible to monetize creative creative action as many of you who are creative will no doubt find out it's very very frustrating it's not that creative action is without value right because the creative people are entrepreneurs and the creative people Revitalize cities and the creative people make things magnificent and beautiful you think about what's happened in Europe over the last Thousand Years say 2,000 years this amazing unbelievable collaboration to make things so beautiful that they're they're jaw-dropping when you walk into them you think about the economic value of that right I mean I think it's it's either France or Spain that's the most visited country country in the world it's one of those two I think there's more tourists in France than there are people most of the time and part of the reason for that is it's just so damn beautiful you just can't stand it and you think what's the economic value of that it's absolutely incalculable and what's interesting too is that you build that beauty in and then the farther away you get from it in time the more valuable it becomes right instead of decaying it has exactly the opposite effect its value magnifies and one of the things that I'm deeply ashamed of as a Canadian is that our sense of beauty is so underdeveloped we're so primitive it's not even primitive that's the wrong word cuz you know I don't know what it is it's it's it's second rate it's second rate at least it's Terror too because people are afraid of beauty but the idea that art is the conservatives really have a problem with this in particular because conservative people tend not to be that creative and it it's a Myster Myster by temperament it it's a mystery to me because they should be concerned with economic development and beauty is so unbelievably crucial to Economic Development it just yells out at you you know so anyway so that's what artists are doing and so one of the things I would say is buy a damn piece of art you know find one that really speaks to you and and buy a piece of art because you invite that into your life and it's it's a look out if you do it if it's a real piece of art because you'll also get a you know a little introduction to the artist and then that'll seep into your life and that'll change things like mad but really it's unbelievably worth it because it it opens your eyes to the domain of the Transcendent that's the right way of thinking about a real piece of art is a window into the Transcendent that's what it is and you need that in your life because you're finite and limited and bounded right by your ignorance and your lack of knowing and unless you can make a connection to the Transcendent then you don't have the strength to Prevail and that's part of the Covenant that's part of the Covenant with God and you can see that because you look at these magnific ENT Cathedrals that our civilization built over the centuries you know some of those they're still bu building the sangria familia in in in uh Barcelona right and it's an amazing building I think it's going to take them like 300 years to build that you know people in the Middle Ages they'd start building a cathedral and they' think oh we'll be done this in 300 years you know you imagine the vision that it took to invest in something like that we we look at quarterly reports we can't think 300 years into the future to build something of that kind of remarkable remarkable what those Cathedrals are so they're they're perfect they're trees first right they're a forest right the gothic Cathedrals they're they're a forest and the sun is shining through the branches that's the stained glass and they're the perfect balance of light and structure because they're representing something about the proper structure of being which is something like the proper balance between light and structure and and they represent like the sacred tragedy of mankind that's why they're in the shape of a cross and they're open to the sky that's why they have a dome and they're full of gold so that it Glitters because that's like the city of God you know and and and you you can see that that integral to to our culture is the idea that beauty is one pathway towards God and it's and it's if you can't find another pathway then why don't you use Beauty sure most of you do that with music because music is the one thing that modern people can't be cynical about thank God for that and being fascinated by music because of that it it speaks meaning to people right even nihilistic Punk Rockers are so damn engaged with their music that they can hardly stand it and you can knock on them and say look you know you're having a Transcendent religious experience and they'll just tell you to [ __ ] off because [Applause] that's because that's that's what punk rockers have to do but but that's still what's happening you know I mean it's still what's happening so okay so okay so I I got into all that because I was talking about about the Bible as literature you know and and and trying to and trying to lay out because we we need in our culture to justify the Arts and you have to I don't want to do that by talking about high culture talking about something abstract and evanescent that's the wrong way to go about this is vital you know like one of the things that's really interesting about the University of Toronto is that the the one side of the campus where we are is beautiful medieval Cathedral and the other side is God awful Factory and you know and and that and the thing is the attitude towards knowledge has paralleled that architectural transformation you know at one point the humanities let's say were a sacred Endeavor and and so was the art of being educated in the university and that's turned into like mass factory and that's reflected in the architecture this isn't accidental none of this happens none of this happens by random chance you know it's not like there's a conspiracy or anything because there isn't but that doesn't mean that these things aren't Tangled together and the loss of Beauty in the universities is a catastrophe because without that beauty there's no call to higher being you know you this is also why you know i' I've mentioned to people that they should clean up their rooms that's become quite the internet meme but I'm really serious about it cuz it's really hard to do that and I've been cleaning up my room by the way for about 4 months now because my life was thrown into such a catastrophe and and also we were renovating and so but it isn't just that you clean it up you also make it beautiful and be it's really hard to make something beautiful and it's really worthwhile and what's really cool is if you learn to make something beautiful even one thing if you can just make one thing in your life beautiful then you've established a relationship with beauty and then you can start to expand that relationship with beauty out into into the world like into other elements of your life and that is so worthwhile it's just incredibly crazily worthwhile and that's an invitation to the Divine you know you have to be daring to do that and people are terrified of it people are terrified of color they paint their walls beige they're terrified of art they buy some mass-produced thing because they don't want anybody laughing at them for their lack of taste and they would get laughed at cuz they have no taste but you have to well it's right because what do you know right you have to develop it and so you're going to stumble along and make mistakes to begin with and you're going to show yourself cuz if you bu oh I think this is pretty and you know somebody comes over and goes what's up with you it's kind of hard on your self-esteem but but it's a St you're stumbling towards the right you're stumbling towards the kingdom of God that's what you're stumbling towards when you try to make an esthetic decision and to put something in your life that's beautiful and it's unbelievably worthwhile to do that and you have to steer clear of the frauds and the con artists and all of that and art is full of that of course because it's difficult to distinguish between the real thing and the fraud but but it's unbelievably worthwhile and so back to literature I'm I'm I'm telling you this partly because I've been thinking a lot about the humanities and the Arts and practically speaking because I know that artistic types are also entrepreneurial types they're the same personality types and so it's very much worthwhile to make an economic practical case for this sort of thing you study literature in the humanity so that you can familiarize yourself with the wisdom of our civilization man you should do that because people have been working on this thing for a long time and it's Rich Beyond comparison so why wouldn't you do that and you teach yourself to to read and you teach yourself to speak and you teach yourself to think and you teach yourself to communicate and I can tell you if you can read and think and and communicate you are absolutely 100 % Unstoppable and that's another thing that's so interesting about Humanities education that's at the core of the University it's like there's nothing more economically valuable than teaching people how to articulate themselves and communicate because they can identify problems they can formulate solutions they can negotiate to consensus they they can negotiate on their own behalf or on the behalf of others it's like there's absolutely no downside to it except that there's responsibility that goes along with it but it doesn't matter because there's no Escape from responsibility you can either take it voluntarily or you can take it involuntarily those are your options but there aren't any other options and so we need to understand the role of art and literature and and stop thinking about it as an option it's not an option it's not an option what is it said man does not live by bread alone that's exactly right we live by Beauty we live by literature we live by Art and literally not metaphorically we cannot live without it because life is too dismal and and and tragic in the absence of the sublime

Channel: PhilosophyInsights

Views: 615,101

Keywords: art, jordan peterson, modern, change, life, meaning, beauty, beautiful, jordan, peterson, psychology, church, amazing, music, painting, museum, incredible, work, human, civilization, civilisation, culture, toronto, 2017

Id: 7z3mg6fjmzw

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2017