Jordan Peterson: The collapse of our values is a greater threat than climate change — Off Script

[00:00:00] Jordan Peterson: global and even national attempts to deal with climate change are going to cause way more trouble than accumulated carbon dioxide. Not because accumulated carbon dioxide isn't somewhat of a threat, but when it becomes a global planetary threat that's a crisis, then well then it's a [00:00:20] Stephen Edgington: justification for virtually any political action. Hello and welcome to Offscript, my name is Stephen Edgington and today I'm joined by Dr Jordan Peterson, the internationally acclaimed clinical psychologist and best-selling author. We're going to be talking about radical ideologies, COVID-19 lockdowns, the legacy of communism and the mainstream media. Why are you a phenomenon? [00:00:53] Jordan Peterson: Oh God. That's a really good question. I don't really know how to answer that, I guess. It's a puzzlement to me. I mean, some of it is chance and situation, you know, but some of it isn't. I mean, I sprang, I emerged into broad public consciousness as a consequence of getting caught up in a political battle. And although I wasn't particularly political before that, and I didn't really think of what I was doing as a political move. And I think it happened, when it happened, that was the free speech issue with Bill C-16 in Canada, where I was objecting to my federal government's insistence that they had the right to tell me what words I had to use. And I didn't think that they did have that right. And so, and that was a hot political topic. And, and so that became very, very notorious, let's say. But at the same time, in the background, I had been building a presence on the web. I had a hundred hours or so of lectures uploaded already at that point, because I was playing with YouTube. And I had also worked with a television station in Ontario. They'd filmed some of my classes, which was not a standard thing to have done. And I think what happened was that people came to see what I was up to on YouTube, because of the political controversy, but they stayed because of the content. And then shortly after that, I had a book published. And so it was like a perfect storm in some sense. But the fact that I had already uploaded a tremendous amount of content to YouTube was the reason that I wasn't just around for 15 minutes during the political controversy. And then the next thing that happened was a series of interviews that become, became rather infamous or famous depending on how you look at it. And they also had a strange political element that caught the public's imagination. That was particularly true of the interview I did with Kathy Newman, because it was so preposterous, the whole, the whole phenomenon, to use the word you used, was so preposterous. The interview was so absurd. It was so palpably ridiculous that, well, that it couldn't be believed. It was surreal. And then since then, my life, my whole life has just been one surreal event after another since then. So that's as good an account as I can give for it. I mean, my lectures at Harvard and the University of Toronto were extremely popular with students. I mean, the reason that my Maps of Meaning course was turned into a 13-part series by this small Ontario television station, TV Ontario, was because the typical student comment on the post-course evaluations was, and I'm not making this up, this was 95% of the student comments over a 20-year period were the same. All the students said, "This course changed the way I looked at absolutely everything." And so that was lurking in the background, and that's definitely part of what's driving in the background. And so that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. [00:04:11] Stephen Edgington: It's not just the political, though, is it? It's also a personal thing for many people. And you've helped with your book and through your lectures, millions of people around the world. I'm sure you've seen letters and things like that from the most amazing, most inspirational story, right? [00:04:29] Jordan Peterson: Well, it's only political, I would say, in some sense, because what constitutes the political has become far too broad a category in our society. And so I'm speaking to individuals. When I started working on my first book on Maps of Meaning, I was trying to solve a problem. And the problem was, it was the problem of the Auschwitz guard, I suppose. How could you be like that? And the problem I was addressing was, how could I be like that? And then understanding that, let's say, then what could be done about it so it was less likely to occur? And my conclusion from that was, well, it was a conclusion that was mostly psychological and aimed at the individuals. It's necessary for us to recognize our capacity for evil, to deeply recognize that and to become better people. We're too powerful to not be better. And that's political in some sense in our climate, because the discussion about the proper level of analysis for political conversation, for public conversation, has become political. Should it be the group? Should it be the individual? Well, I think as far as I'm concerned about the individual, and for people who are politicizing based on group identity, that's a political statement. But I don't think it is, because the political isn't everything. So I don't think it's a political statement. It's deeper than a political statement. And look, you asked me a question, you know, you asked me why I'm so well known, I suppose, or popular, I don't know what word to use. Why do you think it is? I mean, you wanted to interview me, what the hell do you think is going on? [00:06:21] Stephen Edgington: Well, listen, I've got personal, you know, I don't like to use kind of personal experience in an argument. But I think it's interesting, I've read your books, and I've, you know, I found you so interesting, as a sort of young white man, that sort of cliche thing. And I think that you, you just speak to so many people these days, who feel nihilistic, who, as I said earlier, don't have meaning, or don't feel that they have purpose in their lives. And you must know that you have spoken to millions of people and changed many, many people's lives. And I do want to talk about this phenomenon, and you are a phenomenon, if I may say, because I want to ask whether you feel that there's a danger in that, that there's a danger that people listen to you. Yes, there's a terrible danger. Absolutely. Because the point is, all sorts of terrible. Well, let me describe one of them. People, people may listen to you, you know, these are young people, people forming their opinions about the world, they miss, they may listen to you uncritically, and they may view you as a sort of idol. So do you worry that you can become that there may become a sort of Jordan Peterson cult, [00:07:30] Jordan Peterson: as it were? I can't say that I've had that as a specific worry, because I would have to really participate in that for it to really happen. And I don't want that to happen. And I know why I don't want it to happen. And, and I've known for a long time, I read this paper by Carl Jung years ago, called the relations, relations between the ego and the unconscious. And, and he talked about exactly this phenomenon. And, and he talked about, he wrote extremely lucidly and carefully about the, the danger of over identifying with, let's say, religious ideas. So people come and listen to me lecture. And, and so then the question is, well, who are they listening to? Well, in some sense, they're listening to me because there I am. But in some sense, they're not. I, I'm the embodiment of a, of a set of ideas, just as we all are. We're all embodiments of sets of ideas. And those ideas aren't mine. They're the, they're the collective ideas of the human race in some sense. And to the degree that I can articulate them properly for this time and place, to the degree that I can be wise in my generation, a biblical phrase, a very astute biblical phrase, then I can transmit, I can communicate those ideas to myself and to other people. But I don't want to be mistaken for their source. I'm not their source. And I'm very aware of that. And I, I do what I can to make that clear to myself. And my family helps me out with that a lot. They understand the danger as well. And I mean, there's danger, there's danger to me in this as well. I mean, I think part of, I've been very ill for quite a long time. And I, it's not obvious why, but I think one of the sources was that I've, I just was overwhelmed by insight into misery. So many, I saw so many people that were so well, grateful is part of it to me in the manner that I just described. But it's very affecting when that happens. It's very, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not trivial. It's not a trivial experience, especially when it happens thousands of times. And, you know, I, I'm a reasonably astute observer of people because I had so much practice as a clinical psychologist. I can see what's going on with people pretty quickly if I really watch. And that is my proclivity to watch. That's why I've been able to maneuver reasonably well in these interviews where people have tried to skewer me. So if you're, if you're up to something, I can switch into clinical mode and watch you. And I can usually figure out what you're up to. And in any case, when people approach me, so I can see reasonably deeply into them. And they usually approach me in a pretty open manner. So they're, they're not defended, but it's, it's, it's a lot of emotional weight. I mean, I had some, some, somebody called me this week, he just got my number randomly. And he said, who is this? I answered the phone. He said, who is this? I said, no, no, who is this? Since he was calling me. And he said, he told me his name. He said, are you Dr. Peterson? I said, yes. He said, really? And I said, yeah, yes, really. And he just burst into tears. And he just sobbed like for like five minutes, uncontrollably apologizing. And then he said, his grandmother had died and his mother and [00:11:12] Speaker 3: and that he had become suicidal and, you know, that his, my lectures, he'd watched a lot of them and that, that had helped them guide him through that. And well, I've seen a lot of that. And that's [00:11:30] Jordan Peterson: dangerous, you know, it's dangerous. I'm, I'm not unhappy about it. I'm not unhappy about it. It's an [00:11:36] Speaker 3: honor to be able to help people. Really, it's a privilege. And I'm thrilled that that's what's happening. But by the same token, it's a lot of, it's a lot to see. I have to be very careful to see all that and [00:11:51] Jordan Peterson: to be able to handle it. And so, and it's very dangerous because if I make a mistake of any sort, I'm, I'm, I'm in so much trouble. So I have to walk very carefully. [00:12:03] Stephen Edgington: And you understand the responsibility that you have, because just the fact that some random person could call you up and say, you know, say these most personal things to you and you have to react to that and you have to listen to them and try and, you know, you, you sort of offered your own advice and your own opinions. I don't know what you did in a specific case, but that's been your whole career, [00:12:25] Jordan Peterson: hasn't it? Trying to help people. No, I think, you know, I, that's, that's what I've tried to do. You see, the other thing that protected me, I think with regard to the political controversy was that because I had so many hundreds of hours of my lectures up on YouTube already, it was very difficult to actually pillar me successfully because virtually everything I ever said to students was recorded and public record. And so if my, those people who felt that they were my enemies wanted to demolish me, they could go into that vast archive of material and find something I said that was reprehensible. That's happened to lots of people, but no one could do that. And I think the reason for that is I never said anything reprehensible to students ever. So I hope, you know, I mean, ever is a long time and I taught for a long time and, but, and so I think the other thing that happened was that people came to my website because I was so controversial and then they listened to some of the things I said and they thought, Hmm, this isn't how this man is being described. What, what's going on here exactly? This is ridiculous because this is nothing like I expected at all. And so then there's a mystery there as well. And that mystery has got deeper in some sense. And it, it, it hit its ultimate conclusion this year. I think it hit its ultimate conclusion in some sense when I was satirized, let's say, or parodied in a Captain America comic book as like the king of this magical super Nazis. You know, it, it was, it was, I said, my life has become surreal. That was one of many surreal things that happened. It was so, I mean, when I saw the image, someone sent it to me on Twitter and, uh, I thought this just, this is, there's no possible way. This is true. This cannot be real. Someone must have Photoshopped this. It was such a shock. It just about like, it staggered me literally just about, I just about fell over and it took me a long time to recover. And it took a long time for my family and I to work out what to do about it. It was very, very tricky. And we, we faced dozens of those situations where one misstep and, and we were just, we were just in, in, in boiling water. [00:14:41] Stephen Edgington: So you've listened to these awful stories of people's life, but also hopefully some inspirational [00:14:46] Jordan Peterson: stories as well. And those are often just as difficult in some sense, you know, because the inspiration is contrasted with the misery that made it a redemptive story. And so it's great, but it's, but it's not nothing like you just don't have, it's not that often in your whole life. Typically that someone will come up to you and bear their soul. You have to know them very well. And people are doing that to me all the time. They do it on the street all the time. [00:15:12] Stephen Edgington: Yeah, absolutely. So, and obviously you mentioned that you've been through this awful illness recently, but also in your life, you know, reading your, uh, your books, you can tell that, or, you know, people will know that you've been through difficulties like anyone else. But I think in particular, you've had, you know, some very tough times and people will be wondering, how did you get through these moments? How did you get through these, these recent, this recent illness? What kept you going? Because if you read about what happened to you, it just sounds like hell on earth. [00:15:42] Jordan Peterson: It was, it was, it was unbelievably bad. And, and, and it was, it was complicated by the fact that my wife was also very ill during part of that. And so was my daughter. And also I was under extremely, uh, brutal political attack pretty constantly. So it was a perfect storm in some sense. How did I get through it? Well, um, that's a good question. I have some answers to it. My family has been unbelievably helpful to me, unbelievably supportive. My parents, my extended family, my wife, my daughter, my son, that they've been behind me a hundred percent. And, and, and then my friends as well have gone above and beyond the call of duty for me in a way that just staggered me as well. So helpful to me. I mean, I had a friend, a good friend of mine from college and, and we, we stayed in touch over the years, but not as intensely as we, we were roommates in college, um, way back in Northern Alberta, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And, uh, he, he walked with me every day for five months, like five miles a day, literally five miles a day, because I couldn't sit still. I had to walk. And, and that's just one example. Many people went way out of their way for me. And so, and then there was tremendous public support too, which is also very helpful when my wife was extremely ill, there were people writing all the time that they were praying for her. And my sister printed out a lot of those and put them up on the hospital wall. And like all of that, it was at other people really, really saved my life, you know, and, and my, the people who've been watching me online were part of that because they were so helpful and so, you know, offering words of encouragement and, and, uh, well, all that was, was a big part of it and good medical care, some of it, not good, some of it, good, some of it really good and, and good fortune and, and, and divine providence. I don't, I'm much better. I've been much better the last month. Something has really changed. I seem to have recovered from this hellish condition, which I still don't understand, but I'm much better. And so we're, we're praying it lasts and I'm planning to travel again. I'm planning a tour in January throughout the United States, throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, all over the world, starting in Cambridge. And it was so peculiar too that, you know, the place I got disinvited from was the, it was the Divinity School at Cambridge. I mean, that's a great place to get disinvited from. It's like the best place to be disinvited from in some sense. They changed the entire university policy on inviting speakers. They had a, a, a vote of everyone concerned and 85% of the people who voted, voted in the direction of free speech. And even, even though no one would speak publicly, almost no one would speak publicly in favor of the, of the proposed changes, the vote carried extremely powerfully. So that, that disinvitation may have been a very good thing, all things considered, but it was another surreal event, you know. [00:18:55] Stephen Edgington: Your life is, is one rollercoaster of pure surreal events, I think, to be fair. [00:19:01] Jordan Peterson: Um, it's, it's, it's, it's for, that would also exacerbated my illness to some degree, because I literally could not believe the things that were happening to me. They were so, they're so absurd. They're so over the top that it's jaw dropping and in both directions, right? Terrible things and absolutely wonderful things. The whole expanse. Sure. And, you know, and just getting back onto [00:19:24] Stephen Edgington: this issue of, of you sort of almost being a prophet in a way, do you view yourself as that? I mean, as religion declines, you go on this world tour, millions of people read your books, billions of people probably watching videos online. Uh, do you see yourself as a sort of new religious phenomenon for [00:19:43] Jordan Peterson: people? Not new. Not new. And I see myself as fortunate. That's how I see myself, that I have the opportunity to do this. But are you a prophet? See, to say yes or no, I have to think about how, I think I have to think about how I might be conceptualized, how, what I'm doing might be conceptualized. No, I think I see myself as a psychologist and fundamentally I am a psychologist. I'm a behavioral psychologist and I'm very interested in, I got very interested in psychoanalytic thinking, especially the union variants. And, and I'm a professor and I'm doing that, you know, on a much larger stage, let's say, but that's really what I'm doing. And so it's a combination of those two things. And there's a, I mean, I speak about religious matters, but I don't see myself as a religious leader. I don't want to make that. Although I speak about those things. [00:20:51] Stephen Edgington: Are you worried that that could happen? That you could become a kind of, a sort of pseudo religious figure to people? [00:21:01] Jordan Peterson: Well, you know, this has been going on for quite a while and I don't think it has happened. And so, no, I don't think it'll happen. And, and, and, and I think there's ways of, of mitigating that if with careful attention and careful speech. I mean, it's, and I don't want it that, which is also something, because if I wanted it, then, you know, that unconscious desire would, or conscious desire even, would shape the way that I speak. But, but I don't want that. And, and, and I'm trying to point to things that are clearly beyond me. They're clear. And I, I know they're beyond me. And, and, and that's what I want. And, and, and I want the thing, I think part of what protects me against that, I suppose, is that I'm not trying to produce followers. I am actually trying to help people discover what it is, their relationship with that, that part of them, that awe calls out. And I believe that exists in everyone. I really do believe that. And so in, and so in that sense, I'm, I'm, I'm on equal footing with everyone that I'm talking to. And I do believe that if they brought that out into the world, they can bring that out into the world. And if they did, that would be immensely beneficial for everyone. And so, so it, it, it's not that easy to produce a cult of individuals. And, and so I think the fact that my focus is the individual is the best protection against that. I'm not asking for people to follow, partly because they need to figure out where to go for themselves. They really need that. And I don't know where each person should go because each person is different, importantly different. So no, I don't, I don't think, I don't think that that's, if that was a real danger, I think it would have already happened. It's quite a while now. I mean, this has been going on for five years and I, it, it does in some sense continue to get bigger. I think it's not that easy to see, especially during COVID, but I don't think that that's going to happen. You mentioned COVID there. And I think [00:22:58] Stephen Edgington: it's a really interesting topic to move on to. Were you surprised by the level of compliance that Western societies had to these lockdowns that came in within a matter of weeks, removing [00:23:12] Jordan Peterson: fundamental civil liberties? I wouldn't, I was so ill during the time when that was all happening, that I really didn't have the opportunity to think about it from, from, from above in some sense, you know, so I was probably maybe at my worst when COVID first hit, maybe it's hard to say. So I couldn't think about such things. And I'm, I'm start trying to sort that out in my mind now. I mean, we certainly imitated totalitarian China almost instantly, right? Which is quite striking. Now it's possible that we're primed to imitate the first actor in a crisis, right? Like a herd. And so in a herd, one animal gets spooked and runs and they all follow because well, running means you won't get eaten. And if there's nothing there, well, then you're just a bit out of breath, you know, so it's not a bad mistake. But we did imitate a totalitarian country. And he accepted these lockdowns. But everybody was in a state of crisis and terror. And so who knew how dangerous the COVID virus really was. And then by the time we sorted out how dangerous it was to the degree we have, well, all of that had already been swallowed. I am having said that, I am surprised at I am still surprised at the level of desire for those sorts of lockdowns. And the fact that I, I was talking with, I think it was Steven Crowder this week and about the app in Australia, I'm hoping I get this right. I believe you take a photograph of yourself and you send it to the authorities, the police, and they know where you are. And they know if the background is that place. So you're there. And I was thinking, how do we know that app's not more dangerous than the virus? Because I think it might be. It could well be. And I mean this, I'm dead serious about that. I'm dead serious about that. That is really something, that app. It's really something. And it can spread, it spreads electronically far faster than the virus. And it infects the political system to God only knows what an extent. And so, yes, I'm very concerned about that. I don't like the mandated vaccines. I think that's a dreadful error. I think it's a terrible mistake. And I think it's an indication of failure of policy, especially in a country like Canada, because everybody could just go to the pharmacy and get the vaccines. In some sense, the government and the health authorities have already done everything reasonable they can do. Here's the vaccines. We think they work. It's up to you. And if you don't take them, we're going to open up and away we go, like back to our normal lives. That's how I think it should go. I think the mandated vaccines are a terrible idea. I think they're going to cause far more trouble than than any good they can do. [00:25:58] Stephen Edgington: You've studied the regimes of communism, Nazism of the 20th century, how sophisticated societies can fall into the most authoritarian, terrible, genocidal places. And I think a part of that is governments using fear to persuade people to comply. And I don't want to compare the lockdowns directly and disgust, and disgust, and disgust. It's just fear of contamination. There surely is some kind of comparison, right? [00:26:26] Jordan Peterson: Well, you know, the comparisons are there. I mean, a lot of what the Nazis did were public health. They were in the guise of public health. I mean, the eradication of the unfit. That was public health. That was justification. And a lot of the Nazi whores grew out of that initial justification. I'm not trying to make a cheap comparison to what's happening in Western society with COVID. But, you know, the problem is, is that if you're justification... See, the problem in some sense is if you're acting in accordance with some high ethical standard, I'm going to protect you, and because you need to be protected, you deserve to be protected. Your health is paramount, and even one life is too many. It's like, well, yes, but because that's become an absolute of some sense, in some sense, it's hard to say what that doesn't justify. That's the problem. What doesn't it justify? And the whole reason we have rights, well, there's a lot of reasons. We have rights because we're of intrinsic value, and societies that don't recognize those rights collapse very rapidly. So it's not like they're granted to us. We fail to recognize our intrinsic value at our peril. That's the real truth of the matter. But when you make those rights explicit and grant, what, limit the ability of law to transgress against that, you do that to not allow the sorts of things that are happening now to happen. And so it's never danger, and here's the thing we do about it that's safe. It's danger, and here's something we could do, but that also has its dangers. And then the political conversation is, well, which danger is worse? And I happen to also believe firmly that global and even national attempts to deal with climate change are going to cause way more trouble than accumulated carbon dioxide. Not because accumulated carbon dioxide isn't somewhat of a threat, but when it becomes a global planetary threat that's a crisis, then, well, then it's a justification for virtually any political action. So look out, man, because that's, well, because of the dangers of systems. [00:28:52] Stephen Edgington: Boris Johnson is currently in New York urging the UN to spend $100 billion on fighting climate change. But Joe Biden is saying the same thing. And, you know, this is a huge global movement, as you say. And one of the other things that they talk about recently, and I want to link this in with the idea of governments using crises and what they call existential threats in order to pursue their own kind of agenda. And, you know, recently, it was the 20th anniversary of 9/11. This was another event in which, you know, terrible event. But the US government, the way that they reacted, many people criticized them for passing legislation, which was infringing civil liberties. And to this day, some of that legislation is still there. Mass surveillance from the NSA, for example. But this year, this year, 2021, on the 6th of January, there was what the media described as an insurrection, right? And even on that 20th anniversary of 9/11, George W. Bush was sort of comparing Trump supporters with the Taliban. You've got other Democrats, well, he's a Republican, but Democrats comparing Trump supporters to terrorists, and calling for a second domestic, this time domestic war on terror. Are you concerned about this rhetoric of describing your political... [00:30:16] Jordan Peterson: I'm very concerned about it. Well, part of the argument that I want to outline in my new book, and I'm going to talk about this at Cambridge and Oxford, because I'm also going to Oxford at the end of November. So how much fun is that? I can't believe I have those two invitations. It's so wonderful. My daughter is also going to speak at Oxford. We're going to speak on the same day. So that's ridiculously improbable. You see, I'm interested in what's underneath those problems. I'm really... And one of the things that's happened to us, is happening to us, is the religious... The political has collapsed into the religious. So there's this New Testament statement that Christ makes. It's an unbelievably impactful statement. It's a statement that is, in some sense, miraculous in its effects: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's." And, you know, the entire... the entire formal separation of church and state in the Western world is a consequence of that statement. You just think of that, how impactful that statement was. That's literally the case. I don't care if you're religious or not. It's irrelevant. Historically, that's the case. That statement did that. So that's a miracle, you know, in some real sense. Well, let's say that's true psychologically, as far as I'm concerned, as well as politically, is that there's a domain that's sacred, and there's a domain that's profane. And that's true psychologically. And if you don't keep those separate, then the sacred contaminates the profane. Or alternatively, the profane gets inflated into the sacred. And that's a catastrophe, because then everything becomes emotionally overwrought. Because you're no longer a political enemy. You're an emissary of Satan. I mean, that's essentially what happened to me with the Red Skull, you know. It got pushed that far. It was right to the point of ultimate absurdity. It's like, really? Like, Nazi isn't a bad enough epithet? I have to be a magical super-Nazi? And really? That's really necessary? Well, what's going on? Well, obviously, because Red Skull, you think of that, Red Skull. Red Skull is Satan, for all intents and purposes. It's a matter. It's only a matter of nomenclature. And so, it's not like the Marvel Universe is Christian. But it is, in a profound sense. I mean, all those movies have underlying religious themes, fighting off the demonic, extraterrestrial aliens that are invading the Earth. It's all played out in the domain of religious ideation. I mean, Thor is a god, for God's sake. It's not like this is hard to see. Well, if the profane becomes inflated with the sacred, then you demonize your enemies. You know, and then maybe you sacralize yourself as well. And that's not so good. You know, you're an environmentalist. It's like, well, are you sure you're not the messiah? Are you sure that's not what you're doing? You're the savior of the planet. It's like, are you sure that's so good for your ego? And it's not. It's not. It's not. You know, the Earth has to orbit the sun, in Jung's terminology. Or if it falls into the sun, it's a catastrophe. And all sorts of discussions we're having are becoming inflated with religious concerns. And then, you know, on the materialist, atheist side, let's say the scientific side, although it's not really that, there's this insistence that religion is nothing but a set of mistaken scientific propositions about the nature of reality, which it certainly, that's not a very sophisticated analysis. And I've seen this sort of thing start to happen to people like Richard Dawkins. I mean, he's fallen prey. He's become victim to the collapse of the religious into the political. It's not good. And this has nothing to do with arguments about, you know, do I believe in God? Or does God exist? It's like, that's not the point of this. That's not the point. That's not, that's not the issue here. The issue is we have a religious instinct. And then the question is, why? And then the question is, well, what happens when it's not nourished? Where does it go? What does it do? Well, the rationalist idea is, well, if we get rid of all that superstitious claptrap, we'll just be like straight rationalist materialists, and the world will move in a positive direction. It's like, no, no, wrong, too simple. That isn't it. Where do we get our values? And that's the conversation I'm trying to have with people that that's a big part of it is, look, science does not provide values. We need values or nihilism or reigns. And you want that? No. So where do we get our values? And if there are values, are some values higher than others? And if so, what are the highest values? And what are they opposed to? And how do we embody them? These aren't conversations for children. This is serious stuff. And it's underneath all this noise and terror that we see playing out so destructively. So you see what that does to your soul? You're on Twitter, you get tangled up in these political arguments, it just, it just hurts you. It's not good for you. And so I will, I would like to, I'm trying to figure out what's going on underneath that, and what we, what we need to do about it. And that point about, sorry, just sorry to interrupt, [00:36:02] Stephen Edgington: but that point about being on Twitter and sort of getting embroiled in these arguments, we've all done it, we've all got really angry, we've all got really depressed about, about certain things, I think. And you see many, many people around you, you know, I've got sort of friends, family members who I'm slightly concerned about because they're getting so radicalized by this stuff. They're getting so angry that they can't remove themselves from the issue. And I was speaking to my friend before this interview, you know, what kind of questions should I be asking you? And we had this debate. And it was, it was this, when you're on Twitter and you're angry about these issues, or even if you're not on Twitter and you're angry, and you're angry about wokeism, for example, or identity politics, what do you do? So we came up with two solutions, and I want you to comment on both. I said, well, look, the thing that helps me is to switch off. I just turn off all my devices. I go for a run. I go for a walk. I go on holiday and don't think about these things. And I feel so much happier. And I come back refreshed. And unfortunately, I have to think about these things for my job. But if I didn't, I probably wouldn't think about them as much as I had to. My friend said, no, it's our duty to fight this stuff. It's our duty to try and change the way that society is heading. It's our duty to try and get involved in this debate and get involved in this argument. So what is the solution? What should we do? Who's right? [00:37:24] Jordan Peterson: Yeah, I think you're both right. You know, I mean, you have to see how much you can take and not take any more than that. And so shutting off and protecting yourself against the electronic onslaught, let's say, which is all new technology, right? We have no idea what its psychological impact is, and especially of something like Twitter, because Twitter is a radically new form of communication. And we don't know what it is. We have no idea. Like, does the fact that you can only communicate in 200, I think it's 280 characters now, does that radically increase the probability of the exchange of highly irritable comments? Possibly. I mean, it looks like it. And I've read some research that seems to indicate that. And so, and we don't understand that. And by the time we do, well, we'll be on to some other form of communication that we don't understand. So it won't even matter because we won't have time to understand and get adapted to Twitter before something else comes along. We're in this time of such stunning transformation that no one can keep up. And so unplugging, that's really necessary. And it's very hard for for any of us to figure out, well, how much can you take? I'm up in this northern lake now. And I'm really I'm, I'm, I didn't know if I would ever get up here, we bought this place in February, and I was so sick, I didn't think I'd ever get to see it. And I came up here about a month ago when I started feeling better. And I haven't left, I thought, Oh, looks like I live here. Who would expected that? But it's really nice to be out of the city way better than I thought I needed it way more than I knew. And it's part of this connectedness, right? It's great. It's wonderful. But man, it comes at a price. And then with regard to responsibility, well, your friend is right. It's like, you have a religious responsibility, you have a political responsibility, you have a communal responsibility, and you need to, you need to shoulder those responsibilities for a variety of reasons, partly because none of those systems will work without you. And you won't work without them. And so you, you, you ignore them at your peril. Truly, you ignore them at your peril, partly because you won't be what you could be without shouldering that communal responsibility. And then you'll pay for that in your individual life, because you'll be shallow and immature and weak and clueless and a puppet, and, and a sheep and all of that. And so, and, and it's not a simple matter to get that balance, [00:39:57] Stephen Edgington: right? I mean, it's not a simple matter, because, and one of the things that I think is a danger for people, when they take on that responsibility, and they see these issues, and they want to solve them, for example, which may start with trying to solve the problems in your own life, is it's difficult to know where to stop and where, and how do I word this correctly? Um, well, that was pretty good. Well, they need to, well, I think that what I'm trying to say is people can, can become radicalized, and people can become, you can go too far down the rabbit hole, and you can become entrenched in these issues. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, well, that's part of the, that's part of the danger, [00:40:36] Jordan Peterson: that's part of the danger of the contamination of the profane with the sacred. It's exactly that, because, you see, there's an instinct that pulls you into that, say, conspiratorial and, and radical and overcommitted form of thinking. You're, what you're doing is manifesting religious devotion to, to a set of ideas, let's say, that don't warrant that worship. And worship, what is worship? Worship is what you imitate. That's what it is. To worship something is to imitate it. That's what it means, most fundamentally. Well, be careful what you worship. Be careful. And you think, well, I don't have to worship anything. It's like, oh, that's what you think, is it? Well, don't be so sure that all those people who lived before us, who insisted that you did have to worship something, and that you should be very careful about what it was, don't be so bloody sure they were stupider than you. And so you see, you know, so many people, well, lots of people, for example, are radical about their atheism. And somebody wrote me the other day and said, oh, no, it was a YouTube comment, um, said, you know, I was one of those radical atheists. This is what the guy said. And, but I was like, brutalized by fundamentalist religious people when I was growing up. And lots of atheistic people are like that. And, and I wrote back briefly and said, yes, you know, point taken. I understand that the excesses of a certain kind of religious ideation have produced this counter reaction, this emotional counter reaction, but that's religious fervor. So let's say that we're prone to religious fervor because we need to be committed to what is important. Well, then we need to figure out where that instinct should be oriented. And this is why I'm so interested in the idea of the logos, because that is the Western world's attempt to answer that question. What is this logos? Well, it's the root word of logic. So rationality is embedded in it. It's, it's a, it's a very important part of that. It's also that element of consciousness that interacts with the ground of being to produce phenomena, to produce experience, the world of experience. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a world engendering force. It's an ethical demand as well. So you see that in, in, in your wrestling with your conscience, which is just a virtually universal experience, like what the hell is that exactly, wrestling with your conscience? Why can't you just tell yourself what to do and you listen? Well, you're not like that. Something in you resists. Well, what is that thing that resists? And what's it related to? That's the Jungian self, by the way, technically speaking, it's, it's the totality of what you could be manifesting itself in objection to your narrow-minded rational fervor, let's say something like that, or it's something like that. But so, so you, you want to be religious about the right things. And that's partly, again, why my emphasis is on, is on the individual. I've struggled in some sense with committing to the spiritual or the political my whole life. It's always because I was interested in politics since I was like five, like really, really young. And I always considered a political career. And many people have asked me, I don't think I have the emotional stability for it, frankly speaking. I don't think I could tolerate the stress. And, but in any case, every time I've had a choice, I pick the psychological. It's the, what I would like to, I would, I've devoted my life to, what would you say? Well, psychologists work on individuals and that's what I decided to do. And and that's the, it's safer in some sense to do that as well, right? It's, it's, who doesn't, wouldn't it be better for everyone if, if there were more better people? How could that be worse? [00:44:39] Stephen Edgington: Well, we're getting to the 2024 election. Well, we're not, but in America, you know, they start election campaigning very, very quickly and very, very soon, unfortunately. Uh, and, and people were talking about Donald Trump running again. Would you be concerned about that? Would you, do you think that could cause, and not just because of the man himself, but also the kind of reaction from his enemies? I mean, we saw from, uh, 2016 to 2021, the media were hugely, um, hyperactive, uh, and, uh, I think, you know, we saw a lot of division and we saw a lot of, uh, polarization. So are you concerned we could see a repeat of that if he runs again? [00:45:18] Jordan Peterson: It would surprise me if he doesn't run again. I think it'll happen. I, I'm, I wouldn't claim to be a particularly astute political seer. You know, I've made many mistakes in political prediction in my life and, and it isn't obvious to me what should happen. It wouldn't surprise me if Trump ran again. And yes, that will, there, there will be an exacerbation of these differences because there's an underlying problem. And the problem I think is the one that we've been discussing. And, and, unless we get that straightened out, which is very difficult, it's a very hard, very, very challenging thing to do it because in some sense we have to become more conscious of what was once religious and unconscious. We have to start to understand it explicitly. And that's unbelievably difficult. I mean, I learned a lot of what I learned about the psychology of religion by reading Carl Jung and, and, and some of his students, Eric Neumann in particular, who's extraordinarily brilliant psychologist. It's very, very difficult intellectually. I mean, there's a lot of psychologists have contempt for Jung. They think of him as a mystic. And my experience has been, I don't, I've never, ever met someone who understood Jung, who criticized him that way. Every single person I've ever met who had that attitude had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. And I think a big part of that is it, his books are, they're very difficult. And making this stuff conscious, it's understanding it explicitly. I mean, even with my maps of, my book maps of meaning, there's been four variants of that book written by four different people. I wrote one, Eric Neumann wrote "The Origins and History of Consciousness." It's the same book. Jung wrote "Symbols of Transformation." That's the same book. Joseph Campbell wrote "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." That's the same book. And to explain what's in that book, in some sense, that took me like a hundred hours of lecturing and And I never got to the bottom of it. It's, so we have a daunting, the daunting task before us is to understand the source of our values explicitly, and then to have an intelligent, broad scale, intense public discussion about the ranking of those values, what's at, what's at the top, what's at the bottom. And, and this is, and people are kept, people are captivated by that discussion. That's partly why they're watching my lectures. So we have to sort that out, because otherwise it'll just manifest itself in this, uh, ideological fractionalization, demonization, and increased polarization, and, and increased conspiratorial thinking. This is another thing I've really become aware of. So many people I know, very intelligent people, uh, extremely capable people, have fallen prey to conspiratorial thinking. It's, it's, it's a real psychic plague, and it's, it's, I believe it's caused by the same issue. Again, it's, it's this conceptual collapse of the sacred into the profane, and it's a, it's the major challenge facing our civilization, as far as I'm concerned. It's, it's much more crisis than the climate, that if we solve this other problem, we'll solve that problem. If we don't solve this other problem, we'll just make, we'll just make it worse, way worse, worse in ways we can hardly imagine. And so, and I see this also making it impossible for us to take any, into almost any intelligent environmental action, because everything becomes so hyper moral instantly, that you can't have a reasonable discussion. I mean, I look at what happens with Bjorn Lomberg, who's a very reasonable person, as far as I can tell. Um, you know, he, he accepts the reality of, of human induced climate change, even the IPCC projections, but he doesn't agree with the economic analysis. He doesn't think it's a crisis. And, and he's laid out what seems to me to be the most rational and straightforward, uncontaminated map of the territory and suggestions to move forward with a methodology for that. And it doesn't, doesn't gain any traction at all. Because that isn't what it's about. [00:49:41] Stephen Edgington: So with or without Donald Trump, we're going to be divided anyway, and we're going to face this moral crisis anyway. It's basically, I think what you're saying. Um, just one last question. Yeah, Trump didn't cause that. No, exactly. Exactly. But, but, but, but, but the media has sort of hyped him up as this awful, divisive figure who has caused these, these, these terrible problems. Um, but anyway, listen, one more, one more question. And I want to ask about, uh, something you mentioned earlier in the, in the interview, which is one of the reasons you became famous. And you did these interviews with Kathy Newman. You did an interview, I think with Helen Lewis from GQ. Yes. That, that's a very interesting interview. Worth watching. Absolutely. But, but, but I just, well, oh, sorry, go ahead. Let me just quickly ask the question and then, and then you can comment on all of that. Okay. Um, it's interesting because these are British, I don't know if that's relevant, left wing female journalists who, uh, will really grill you and go for you. And people found, uh, watching those interviews, entertaining, interesting, and they went hugely viral. I mean, I'm talking about tens and tens of millions of people watching this stuff. Why still? Oh, well, it's extremely interesting, [00:50:57] Jordan Peterson: all of that. And it isn't irrelevant that they're British at all. Um, uh, because of your, there's a particular viciousness about British journalists that's quite unique and, and it's not all bad, but, but some of it's bad. Um, it's both of those interviews are extremely interesting psychologically, uh, independent of politically. With the Kathy Newman, the Kathy Newman interview is simpler. What's going on psychologically is simpler. So I can tell, I'll tell you what happened that day. Okay. Because it's relevant. It's relevant to why it's, I think it's been watched 30 million times. It's still being watched. Like the numbers grow and grow and grow. Cause I keep an eye eye on those two interviews. The Helen Lewis interview is now much more widely watched than the Kathy Newman interview. And that's because it's what's going on there is deeper. The Kathy Newman interview was simple in some sense. So I got there with my wife. I was doing a bunch of interviews that day. We sat in the green room and Kathy was in there and she was very friendly in a professional sort of way. And, and that's interesting because not all the journalists who've, you know, come after me were friendly and professional to begin with. But she was and a good credit to her. And then we went on air and she, she just flipped and came after me. But I'm a clinical psychologist and I just turned into a clinical psychologist about two minutes into the interview. I thought, Oh, I have learned that if you say something to someone and they don't listen, and that happens a couple of times, then you are not where you think you are. And you're not talking to who you think you're talking to something you're somewhere else and you better clue in quick, or you're going to make a fool of yourself at least. And so I just watched her and I thought, Oh, I see what's going on here. And so then the interview wasn't a problem. And she was, she's animus possessed in, in the, in the technical term. And, and I don't want to get into that, but it, but it's, it's a kind of emotion driven, it's possession by an emotion driven argumentative spirit. And the, the desire of the spirit is to attain victory. It's not to have an, and, and dominance, essentially psychological dominance. And the arguments that are utilized are tools to obtain that end there. It's not a rational discussion. It's not designed to further understanding of a particular topic. And so that's what was happening there. And it didn't work because I saw what was happening and I didn't do that. And I, I was lucky because fortunate because I could maintain my sense of humor during that interview as well. And that's protected me. And so, but she wasn't all that sophisticated in her ability to do that. I mean, she's, she's very extroverted and somewhat disagreeable and could poke and, and was willing to do that. So that was part of her temperament, but she wasn't armed with very sophisticated arguments. And all she could really do was come up with, you know, absurd things that I might believe and tell me that that's what I believed. And so, and, and so they were so preposterous that it was easy to defend myself. Now with, with Helen Lewis, Helen Lewis is more sophisticated thinker and she's deeper, she's better educated, and she was still doing the same thing. And maybe even in a more vicious manner, because when I came to that interview, I could tell as soon as I walked into the room that something was up and she was not friendly to me. She was hostile way before the interview even started. And she like, she had something personal against me and, and her professionalism couldn't rise above that. With Kathy Newman, it was more of a game that she was playing, you know, it's not that I'm justifying it, but it was more of a game. Lewis was a lot more serious, I'd got under her skin, or what she thought, I thought had gone under her skin a lot more deeply. But she was way more sophisticated, but she was still doing the same thing. She was using intellectual arguments to win a dominance battle. And that's, and people see that when they're watching the video. And that's partly what they're watching, even if they don't know it, that's partly why it's still attractive. And so much, and that's, so much of our political discussion has that aspect of it too. It's victory over a perceived enemy and, and the desire for dominance. And, and there's some gender issues happening there as well that are contaminating the whole situation psychologically. So, and she was, she was much more sophisticated. And that's why that interview has had, has over the years attained greater popularity than the original Kathy Newman video. [00:55:42] Stephen Edgington: So, well, listen, we've got to end it there because it's getting late in the UK and I really appreciate your time. And I think you've had a really interesting, perhaps unfortunate insight into the world of journalism and how journalists work, particularly in Britain. [00:55:58] Jordan Peterson: Yeah. Well, I've, I've had great experiences with journalists too, you know, [00:56:01] Stephen Edgington: absolutely. I think it does something the whole gamut. Well, I think it does something to people, you know, that this industry, I think it really changes people. Um, and not necessarily in a good way, but anyway, look, thank you so much, Jordan, for your time. I really appreciate it. [00:56:14] Jordan Peterson: Thank you for the invitation and for the questions and for the, for the courtesy. It's much appreciated.