Welcome to season two observe sixteen of the Jordan Be Petersen Podcast. I mean A Petersen, Doktor Peterson's dotterine collaborator this week, episode is a bit of a continuation of last week's. You haven't heard last week's episode. I'd recommend listening that one first and then listening to this one, we ve come and a commentary on claiming believe in God and then a discussion with Dennis brighter, both from the May twenty nineteen Programme ii summit The better send this video, because it has been going on with my mom if you ve been listening I guess you know we ve been doing with some really serious health issues. So that's part of the reason for a state of being. That being said, I hope you enjoy it and leave just a little mine blown- I swear, I'm always mind blown around dad. Me into the human. I am today enjoy when we returned dad's conversation with Dennis Bragger,

Please welcome my father, Doktor Jordan Be Petersen, so I think I'll tell you what I ve learned. Over the last year, I have travelled to a hundred and sixty cities since Last January, with my wife, Ganem and spoken to about three hundred thousand people that live events, and so the first thing I learned was. For some reason I can travel two hundred and sixty cities and speak to three thousand people, that was a shock in itself that It's a continual shop everywhere we go there. Is a massive hunger

for whatever it is that I happened to be talking about. Then you know, I think about that constantly. When discussing what I'm discussing with me audiences trying to understand what is this. Driving this. I do that a variety of ways. You know one of the things that do is listen for silence. If you have thirty five hundred people in the auditorium. And they all fall dead silent. What that means is that you ve touched on something of that's a universal importance in that moment. Anyways because it supersedes the topic. Supercede anything else. That's being considered super it's the desire to shift your position in your chair supersedes the desire to whisper to your neighbor it

it grips your attention completely enforces the silence and It's a very interesting thing to do to listen for that, because You see that people are in the grip of something and then. You have to puzzle out what it is there in the grip of. I can tell you some some about that. You know there's this idea that became very popular in the nineteen sixties. Just talk to Bishop, a bishop, Bishop Baron, about a week and a half ago for my Youtube, video channel and, for my part, cast an. I told him that I was a strange psychologist because I never told my audiences that now expect individuals in the,

I didn't. I never tell someone there. Ok, the way they are. You know there's this idea that came up in the sixties that you're ok, the way you are an agenda. Oh, I like that idea very much and I think it's a very bad idea, especially when you talking to young people who are lost in nihilistic and depressed and suffering. Aimless and ideologically, possessed and print Surely cynical, because they're not ok, the way they are, and if you too, them that they are then they take. While this is it, that's it that's life. It's like. I have hit the pinnacle at eighteen. I dont know anything about the world. I haven't contributed anything to it. But there's no up, because I'm ok the way they are the way I am the snake. You're, not ok, the way your space, if you're, eighteen, Sixty years to put yourself together and knew better,

better be better at the end of that than you were at the beginning or something is gone seriously wrong. So it's not an optimistic thing to tell people that thorough cave the way they are it's a pessimistic thing, because what you do is denigrate what they could be for what they are, and I know that is a terrible idea, technically speaking from a psychological perspective, because it's who you couldn't be then imbued your life with meaning the only thing when you have your friends in your family, but they expect something from you too. You know expect the best from you expect a certain amount of improve MT, especially if you have children, but even if you are a child, you might expect some improvement from your parents as well but that's what you hold for, as you hope that the person can manifest what's best in them and if they don't do that, then you disappointed in them. Just like you would be Inexhaustibly or are

Inexhaustibly disappointed in yourself. If you dont manifest, what's best in you, and I think, if that's very Trusting moral law, no, I talk to my audiences about what I believe to be an incontrovertible facts, and I think that the fundamental in country or income, regrettable fact is that life is suffering, and I think that that's why that's a primarily primary axiom of religious belief. I'm since almost regardless of the faith. Life is suffering- and everyone knows that, but they don't necessarily like to admit it or to talk about it. You don't have to scrape beneath the surface

Foreign someone's life, to find a tragedy lurking if the person that you speaking with doesn't have something pretty awful happening. Damn right at the moment economically and socially or within their family are physically or mentally the probability, someone they love has the problem of that sort is extraordinarily high and if you happen to be among the forging minority for whom that isn't true, while all you have to do is wait and it will be true soon enough and sooner than you think can and worse than you imagine, and so. And everyone knows that, and so. It's easy to understand why people become cynical and better and

hurt and nihilistic. I think there's a progression in life. You know, if your naive, you think that Life will be easy and that people are basically good, and then you have some experiences if you're not shouted too much, and that gets taken away from you, because you betray yourself or other people betray or are you in you're a tragedy in then. You know poverty is shattered and the most likely place that you'll go from. Errors into something approximating cynicism, because you don't no, the alternative in your initial phase, which was not faith, but naivety is shattered. By the terrible reality of what you encounter and they need, as a cynical person, you're more widely than you are as naive person a then. The strange thing, because your worse in some sense than you were, you know.

You're, not as optimistic in you noticed, filled with hope, and your life is more difficult and you're, probably harder on other people and with more of a tendency towards cruelty, and none of that seems positive, but There's a wisdom in cynicism that the naive lack but the MS there, that cynicism is not a useful antidote to, let's say tragedy in malevolence, because our places that you go past cynicism as you approach wisdom and its wisdom that you need in order to fabricate yourself, this sort of vessel that will keep you afloat

during stormy times and saw. I talk to you, I already and says about wisdom, and I think I got some other things that I believe to be true so like well, life is difficult. Its tainted malevolence and its cast in tragedy, and you need something to offset that because it Did embitters you and if you're embittered, then you become vengeful and cruel. Inevitably and then you make everything made you worse, worse In turn, and there's no bottom too bad. You know as as in one whose Stephen them moderate student of history soon comes to understand.

There is an idea that hell is a bottomless pit, and the reason for that is that there is No situation that so terrible that there is some damn fool thing that some idiot can do. That will get far worse and its reasonably problem. All the year that Idiot. And so the question is- what might constitute an alternative to that. If there is an alternative and. No, I learned, while back long while back reading religious mythology, mostly that there is a difference between thinking and paying attention and of the two paying attention, is much more cordoned it! It's not the same thing is thinking like when you pay attention. You're, looking for what you don't know like you,

a detached yourself and you watch and you listen, you see things are the way you think they aren't you. You hope they are because life is easier. If, if things are the way you think they are, but if you find out that they're not and you're paying attention than you can you can we, then you can bob and you can adapt and you can learn, and so you have to learn to pay attention and. I just asked people when I'm speaking to pay attention to what they already know here is something that everybody knows. No in a world that concern- suffering in malevolence? Who is it you admire or who is it that you don't admire, the same question, if you, Who you dont admire? Well, then, you have a negative model and you can go for the opposite and if you know you admire well, then you can copy that and the instinct,

Four admiration is an instinct for imitation and we're very. The date of creatures and are Our instinct for admiration is the instinct for imitation and what would you call it a deeply biologically and metaphysically rooted guidelines to the proper path of life? A question is: is there a proper path of life, well, there's certainly pathways that make things worse got something to know you could avoid those and if there's something that, if there are ways that make things worse than their there. There are the opposite pathways, even though those don't be so clear. I think that's why often so enamoured of of evil characters in in in fictional representations is because its clearer it's easier in some sense to make what constitutes the dark path clearer. It's easier for people to understand. Where is the path? Its positive is mercury and.

Were difficult to ascertain, but at the very least you know it's the opposite of that. So a who do you admire, or we could start by who? Don't you admire? Well, you dont admire an adult who won't take responsibility, For himself or herself, and could I understand their people that are so broken and hurt that they need help constantly? Because they can't take responsible, for themselves or they can in small ways, but not not completely. But you don't admires someone who won't take responsibility for themselves. In fact, you have a sense of contempt for that and, if you but to be that person and you wake up in the middle of the night. Berate yourself with what's left of your conscience for fame to undertake your moral duty here in town, is moral duty and you can't scape and not so interesting, know that you can't

that if you are the creature who could invent your own values as nature suggested as an antidote to the death and got them Forgive your transgressions and you wouldn't suffer the bitter pangs of conscience, but you do, and the reason you do is because you're doing things that are wrong and you should stop, and you know it, maybe you can't, and then Well, let's say that the opposite is that you admire someone who can take responsibility for himself or herself. That's us the men maybe, my someone even more. If they be forged there, character sufficiently to move past cynicism so that not only they take responsibility for themselves, but they can take responsibility for their family no one, and there are there for the people who love them When its necessary, If you do that, then you have something,

I wouldn't say necessarily be proud of, but at least you have one less thing to upbraid yourself with not something, and then you can move past that you can say. Well. Maybe if you put yourself other enough carefully enough spoke the truth. Enough were courageous enough in, in spite of the reasons you have not to be that you could also be. Someone of benefit to yourself and your family and your community in you, partaken structure, things in a harmonious manner by living in that way. It's it's not an individual, focused ethos It's an ethos of harmony among levels. You should do what's good for you, but it has to be what's good, for you

family at the same time, and it has to be what's good for you and your family and your community at the same time, works. Musically, you know what makes all the level work in harmony. And you can tell when that's happening, and this is another thing- that's a great utility to notice that when you're in that place, where you're thing in the proper manner and near facing things courageously and you're speaking the truth. You're imbued with a sense of fundamental meaning, not meaning is the antidote to the catastrophe of life and its than it. Antidote psychologically, because you have to have meaning because Otherwise, your life is too dark too dreadful and they will corrupt. You So it's the antidote psychologically

but it's also the antidote practically because we're not nothing as human beings. You know they say that were made in the image of God, it's hard to say what that means, but it means, at least in part, to participate in the process of bringing the good into being Can all be that the opposite? And if we accept our responsibility, to ourselves and other people to our communities and we live That load up then We live lives that are meaningful and that, talks from being corrupt hid. It provides, With the medication against catastrophe and it also practically proves the world ass, the other thing it- it's not just psychological with you can make things worse, everyone those that You have

many ways, but you can make things better and they actually get better, and there's a reason for hope and there's some to be sent to know that you're, the sort of creature that can look mortality and catastrophe in malevolence straight in the eye, so to speak, nonetheless stand up and do what's right. And that's all there is in that is good, and that's what I've been telling me. Thank you very much, so everybody. Well, I never in person. I never met the Jordan Petersen in person, but

said to him when we met right before lunch,. Something that has said to me by so many people who meet me for the first time. I feel like. I know you and that is the highest compliment. In effect, I now understand what a compliment. That is what I receive it, because I never gave its somebody before you and I have watched you for hours and listen to you and read your book and in fact I didn't just read your book. I heard your book from you So I want to tell you something without embarrassing you, but I think I'd like to open your heart and your mind, and so do I. When I was very young, I realise that God

nature had given me when I have called a goodness detector. I knew I always knew when I was in the presence of a good person. Because that's all I really care about, I think brow and your wildly overrated. Wildly. That's why I think you you're not bright if you join Mensa. Why you would want to announce to the world. Your iq he'll, bizarre to me that I, I I'm sure they're nice people but I don't understand it, but I always picked up that and have always been right. It's it's a a thousand essentially and when I heard you read your book. The passion.

Comes from. I just want to help people leave a better life and its really it's it's quite Overwhelming you, you didn't just read that book, you What are you saying it, but I like that you use music come very much into music to. So this is the man that I am honoured to have this dialogue with cause. You're up. Everybody knows your bright, but I know you're good. I wanted to say that at the outset I have something to say about that. Good, that's good!. See, I don't think it's true,

this is why I got, motivated to do what I've been doing. I've been doing. What I've been doing, for, I would say, since about nineteen, seventy nine one form or another to sing, Take a long time to generate one of the things I learned in their early eighties was that people have a great capacity for evil and I did really understand that of myself until. The early eighties, something like that after meditating on it for a long time and. So I would say. It's not that done. I would we claim to be good. It's dangerous, but I did become terrified of how terrible I could be

I mean I became too terrified about how terrible human beings could be. That's one thing, but that's easy, Is it a confused that with other human beings, you know it different thing too, to stand that its true of yourself. I have to reckon to my students that they read history as a perpetrator and not as a victim or a hero. And people very seldom. Do that, and it's no wonder but I would say perhaps that I came terrified enough from learning what I learned that I tried to. Void, the pathways that lead people to the dark places. They go Something in that that might approximate good does approach to make good. I I would agree with that. The parallels between in us are so eerie to me that in my book on happiness,

came out a ninety nine. I actually have a chapter On the necessity of having a tragic view of life, Did I hear you speak of light just now. This tragic view of life. And ironically, if you don't have that you can't be happy, so Just another example of of of the sin that you're getting this message out if you want to, Imagine that please, if not all of the one I use you you're such an. I watch you and you're such an intense listener. I dont know when you're going to react so if you will this old idea.

You knew. You all know this idea. It's an idea, that's expressed, for example, in the classic Disney Movie Classic Disney movie, which I really like called Pinocchio, and you know one Pinocchio is attempting to free himself from the forces that manipulate him as a puppet and to become an autonomous being. He is required to go to the darkest place to fight the worst tat the worst monster and face that voluntarily and in doing so he rescues his father. That's a very old idea- I dont know how old is its. It's one of the oldest ideas we have in written form and- and there is no doubt that in its pre written form, it would be tens of thousands of years older.

That- and it's very strange idea that you have to journey to the darkest abyss to free the spirit of your father, but there's a reason for it and it has to do with the tragic view of life, which is that you can't discover what your capable of being or withstanding standing and those are the same things without if you hide away from any of the things about life that are terrible but true and and and the he's a new can discover who you are, now doing that is that only necessity will force that out of you and in it I mean that I mean that, from the perspective of learning You go work in a palliative care onward. You'll learn. To deal with death, you'll learn this.

Ecological strategies necessary that the steps you become more in form but its deeper than that even We know now from a biological perspective that if you put self in new situations in new and challenging situations that, You genes turn on and you're nervous system and code for new proteins that produce new neurological structures, and so you can't even be what you are fully biologically unless you expose yourself to everything that you can expose yourself too, as you journey through life, The old idea of a pilgrimage was predicated on on that idea, as is walking the in short cathedral thee labyrinth. The idea that you walked elaborated in

Turn you come to the centre is that you traverse every corner of the world quarter by quarter, and then you come to the centre and the centre is the center of the church and its the center of the crucifixion, it's the centre of suffering and you can't get to what that centre signifies without having journeyed everywhere and so The tragic view of life is necessary. Because it puts you on the journey that. Reveals to yourself who you could be if you were courageous, as courageous as you could be in his truthful as you could be, and that's equipped, to discovering to revivifying you're dead Father, because you are an ancient creature in some sense and and perhaps one with a spark of divinity. Inherent in it, but you will never release that

unless you're willing to go everywhere that you have to go only necessity, we'll call that out of you, and so you can't be happy, you can't be complete, Without you can't know what you could withstand you can't everything proper sense of self respect Unless you know what you can tolerate and if you avoid everything that you have reason to avoid, but should nonetheless not avoid you won't know who you are and then you can't live properly. So you were you have said on a number of occasions and in every EC on every occasion that I've watched you say it. Not a single person. In the panel you often talk on panels. Not one person has ever actually reacted too. I totally get it

Nevertheless it's one of the most important things you regularly say you live as if there is a God said correct. When people ask me if I believe in God You know I just didn't I I mean a release podcast about that, because I answered that question for about two hours in Australia, because people. Asking the question which I really don't like, I don't like that question So I said I thought about it for a good while, and I tried to figure out why in and then I thought well here you believe you see. I thought who would have the audacity to claim that they believe in God,. If they examined the way they lived. Would dare say that too to believe you think to believe in the christian sense to our,

This is why I need you said there was only ever one Christian and that was Christ has the audacity to claim that means that leave it out fully and that's that's an unbearable task. In some sense. I just debated Slavoj Zizek about a week ago, although wasn't really much debate. It was. It was a strange event, but he said something very brilliant and to me the justice the entire event, at least from my perspective, he talked about Christ's moment of crisis on the cross when he cried out to God that he had been forsaken and what she said was that. That meant was that the conditions of human existence are so tragic even God himself in human form? Lou lost faith for a moment in the goodness of being.

And I thought that was a remarkable observation, because while I ve got him would lose faith under such conditions. What we do expect from normal human beings confronted with what we're confronted by an tube. Able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering that goes along with it and the disappointment. And Betrayal and and none nonetheless less properly right to aim at the good. With all your heart right too, to dispense some malevolence and your desire for destruction and revenge, and all of that and to face things courageously and to tell the truth to speak the truth and to act. That's what it means to believe that, it means it. Doesn't.

It doesn't mean to stated it means to active out. And unless you acted out, you should be very care about claiming it, and so I never comfortable, say anything other than I try to act as if God exists, because God only knows what you'd be, if you truly believed me Think about it in some sense, It's the central idea in Christianity is that if you were a kid, full of believing it would be a transfiguring event. A true the transfiguring event, and I know people experience that the one degree or another I have no idea what the limit of that is, that we have no idea what the possibility is within each person if they live a life. That was Maximally, courageous and maximally truthful know me. Maybe you're running at sixty percent or seventy percent or twenty percent, and at cross purposes to yourself.

God only knows what you'd be, if you believed, and so well, I act. I try to act like I leave, but I'd never claim that. I manage it because It's too it's it's! Lord to manage properly and you have to be cut. What about claiming to manage things that you can manage, and so that's part of the answer to that. The great answer like you were to react to something that is very operative in my life I just an end. I always tell people on my radio show PETE totally field for heat, say sorry. I really know don't find that the tenable or whatever you our we want to react, am I

My my route as an adult to God has been completely circuitous. I have come through the back door as wrote twenty five years ago, how I found guarded Colombia I realized in the seventies graduate School of Colombia that I was being thought nonsense, literally nonsense, things that make no sense and it drove me easy because they were all bright bright, people taught me nonsense one day, things through Colombia, every time I ever had. I wouldn't say I never had a fee often, but I did have an epiphany all of the sudden one of verses from my yeshiva education in Brooklyn, New York, the cloistered orthodox world of my child and I don't use cloister and I don't like foster, but I'm not using it as a pejorative way, I'm just explaining what I had and the sudden one of the verses that we said every morning in kindergarten, first grade and second grade for the

four times a second grade came to my brain, receives my your other. My wisdom, begins with fear of the Lord changed. My life. No wisdom at Columbia because there's no God at Columbia, and that has been- That is one of the ways I knew all without God look what happens with God look what happens morally, intellectually in terms of wisdom, and I my biggest reasons for belief and God are, watching what happens when people don't so I'd love to have your reaction is its, yes? Louis? Was it see us Louis who said that. If you seem to believe in God, you start to believe in anything that was out of the blue, yesterday I just think you like yeah. Well, that's, that's! That's good! That's a good way of looking at it. I mean it.

Catholicism, you know I've gone to lots of Catholic Cathedral in Europe and, of course, their stunning creations and butter, gothic and strange, and the doctrine is yuri and and complex and Surreal and an end, the biblical writings are the same. You think of a book like revelation, for example,. But I think that the council, almost ism that's insane is people can get broadly speaking, is that we need a metaphysic narrative metaphysic to hold us together and it has to be predicated on thing that's transcendent an absolute and if

lose that, then you fall for something else. You fall for something else or you ll fall for nothing which is which is no better and I learned that from reading nature- and I learned that from reading does- and this is the and with the rationalists like SAM Harrison and and and and the atheists Dawkins, no, they believe that if we dispensed with our superstitions we'd all become Harrison Dawkins rational beings devoted towards the good. However, we conceptualize that for rational reasons, and I dont believe that, because I don't believe that we are a rational beings, fundamentally, I think we're deeply

irrational. It's amazing that we can also in this room together without tearing ourselves into shreds, and I mean that its really quite remarkable thing that all of us who come from all over North America can sit here. Peacefully and concentrate on a single thing without any tension or trouble, the improbability of that should not be underestimated, the the unlikelihood that that might be the case and then the issue of God as well as that, there has to be something up. Fundamental worth There is something that you consider fundamental worth knowing. I think that regard for other people, for the consciousness of other people, for the conscious being of other people is, is is in that realm. If you're going,

You have a relationship with yourself if you're going to build the love someone else. If you're going to be able to take care of your family and your community, you half do a tribute to human beings, a value that might as well be described as divine, given that it has to be the ultimate value that hope, and I see it seems to me that it's not unreasonable to associate that value. That is intrinsic inhumanity with something that's of metaphysically. That's metaphysically, real! That's part of the structure of reality itself and my senses being that its it makes. If you watch how people act when their acting properly the

Part that there is divinity within us that reflects divinity itself is the only conclusion that makes sense. That works and so I think the evidence the evidence suggests that you know. You said you look. What happens when societies lose their bearings slake, yeah yeah! That's what convinced me he does did I became a religious person? I didn't wasn't as if I discovered It was more like I discovered Satan, discovered the devil and certainly believed that very powerfully metaphysically you're, not you don't have to read that much about what happened in Nazi Germany or what happened in this. You know what happened in Maoist, China would continues to happen in many places around the world to be convinced that there is a great darkness, It seems to me that if there is a great darkness than there has to be a great light and

the first part of that is. True beyond any hope of Few days second seems to be alone nickel necessity. In the light of the first two powerful that you you did, I feel so obviously the same Wanna talk to you about the darkness, so I have often said all of my life really that we have a wrong metaphor and calling evil dark, because it's actually so bright that people can stay in the face, the number of canadian or american students at the most persisted. Universities who could identify pol pot or even the glue like archipelago, let alone the great leap forward, Were than China is so small, the knowledge of each

it is now up to over a quarter of kids, never heard of Auschwitz it'll be a half very soon. It will be three quarters in a generation. They don't know evil at Berkeley, I was had a dialogue with two left: the students, my last quest to them was: do you believe people were basically good and they said yes- and I said it's showed demonstrably wrong that belief that there's One possible explanation for why you hold it because you live in such a good country get well, that's the that's the goodness of naive day right and it's something! That's that's. Encouraged. No, you encourage that by. Producing safe spaces around people? You produce that by sheltering them you want to preserve that childlike innocence

but once you no longer a child, it's not child like it's just childish, and- and that's that's not to be a forty year old child and to think that people are fundamentally good, it's it's. The good is very difficult its by new In the default position, what's the default position entropy catastrophe, tragedy, malevolence and death. The default position good struggles up against that. That's new seeking to manage. To think about is intrinsic it's an intrinsic possibility, but it's not something that you it's not something that. It's not something that you can manage without faith and commitment and and or phase in the more commitment, the better and the deeper the better and it's the most difficult of things to do, and it is its appalling, too,

Each people, the alternative- and I know that speaking, I think speak of this clinically you Know- the people who are most prone to posters, Extra disorder are naive. People it is well known clinically it's it's nothing, This states. That sum is questionable. Braun Orthodox, if you, leave the people are basically good in that the world rewards goodness with good in return. If that's your phenomena, I believe that does not really any such thing is evil, and you encounter, someone malevolent It could be yourself, That's often what happens to people who develop post, traumatic, stress disorder. You know, they're there, it's very common that people develop PTSD because they ve done something so

incomprehensibly, morally repugnant, that its damaged them. Cycle physiologically and they cannot recover. Very common among soldiers. It's not they saw, although sometimes it is it's what they did. They have no framework within which to conceptualize it if you We have no theory of evil. You have no theory of good and evil. If you have no metaphysics and someone malevolent touches, you you're done and so telling people that. Human beings are basically good and that evil doesn't exist, makes them ripe fruit. For that king by the malevolent nothing about that. That's positive, its mere our this masquerading as virtue it the devouring mother and from the Friday in perspective or keep you innocent, I'll keep you young, a naive and

Nothing will ever come to harm you slept per. The opposite is the case in life that why I truly That is why I truly believe that a twelve year old at a traditional christian or jewish school is wiser and more likely to be happy than a secular professor of philosophy who is fifty old. Just because I knew I went again to you, Shiva so half the day in Hebrew, jewish, these have the day in English, secular studies. I knew at six. People were not basically good Giscard said so in Genesis when he decided to destroy the world to turn the rotten. So I knew at the earliest possible age. People were not basically good and not only affected my belt and show I world view. It made me happy

because then I realized wow meeting good people, despite the fact that people about basically good I really Do I but people in my life and my lucky or what yeah without that's it. That's a really good! That's a really good point, because You see when I said that it was a miracle that we can all sit here peacefully really like. That is how I look at it. I, like, I think, every day when I walk out into the world and it's not rock and ruins and and floods that it's a bloody miracle, I mean it that we hold this together. It's not an easy thing to do and release to think of pieces. Default position is a form of deep insanity like its width. It requires work to do to to maintain peace, and you can't property grateful unless you understand. How unlikely it is that what we're not.

In the throes of world war, three we're not still in. Depths of world war, two that the cold, war is mostly over that the ECB The conditions of people everywhere on the planet are improving at a rate that can only be described as miraculous and they Most things are going in a positive direction. If you assume that that's normative than you think well that's life, but and you have no reason to to be wide eyed. To have your eyes wide open in admiration and gratitude at the fact that the worst, which is frequently manifested itself, is not. Knocking at your door at this moment, because that's the story of humanity and not peace and prosperity so here we have it, and here we should preserve it and here should spread it, we should do every

we can to live in a manner that makes that most likely, and we should do that because, while you said what did you say, fear of God like throughout the old testament to know it's one story after another. Is that people developed societies and they become arrogant and they wonder off the path and assume they wander off the path all hell breaks loose and if you are fortunate enough to be where all hell isn't breaking loose, you should do everything you can to help ensure that we stay the course and walk the straight and narrow path So I have a year so I have a very deep worry in light of our absolute unanimity. If you could speak of unanimity among to people, but

we're so confident in this. This is shocking. How good things are and yet United States and I follow Canada a lot but not speak up America right now in the United States have at least half of young people think they are living in a rotten society, sexist intolerance, xenophobic, homophobic Islamophobia, gracious, bigoted, that's six, her! That's my acronym for what I just said. This is frightening to me and I want to know. Is it frightening to you? Well.

You know. I always try to give. The devil is. Do an idea that the West is oppressive, patriarchy characterized by the sins that you just described, is true, in others, if we look through our history, personal or political, There is no shortage of things to be appalled by that's, not the question: exactly or that's not the issue. The issue is compared to what no. I was Churchill this time. I've got this right. Who is Churchill who said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other forms of government.

And I would say that about our societies. Is that there's? No? We have every reason to be awake and cognizant of our errors. Whether their political or economic or person, but. Compared to how it could be. Now it has been in many bases and how it is most everywhere in the world and how it was for much of the twentieth century. Things are so good here that it's absolutely beyond comprehension and so on. Without careful awareness of the flaws of the patriarchy. Let's say should be an unbelievable gratitude that we could wake up in the morning and the lights are on and the freeways are running in theirs.

Starvation directly. Facing us in that our children, will live and that the probability that any one of us will die a violent death is negligible The thing that bothers me about one of the things that bothers me about the modern university is the absolute lack of gratitude that characterises its teaching like its half the story, you know like people are oppressed by nature and people are oppressed by culture and people are oppressed by their own dark need their own dark side, it's an existential reality, but you have to you. The balance that you have to understand that nature has its benevolent element and that's what's given new life, and you have to be grateful for your culture for everything that is provided to you and you have done,

stand that people can be good as well as adversary. Ireland malevolent and you have to be grateful for that, and this dam is theirs there's a damn naval shortage of gratitude Under an academy and that's based on I even iii or a resigned, that's so deep that it's almost incomprehension and I naivety and resentment and a wilful, lindeness to the reality of history that so deep that it's almost incomprehensible. So if we ask you, Sir, it maybe you may see based Rikers absurd, but I'm gonna ask it anyway except for technical knowledge like medicine or engineering. Mathematics. Obviously, any Natural sciences law. If nobody went if all North Americans grand

waiting high school, decided, I'm not going to college with the with North America. A better or worse place, if you took away the stem feels young taking away the Stanfield, I think that universities, not colleges necessarily Think that universities do more harm than good know that, and I'm very loath to say that you know, because I've been part of the academy for thirty years and taught him great institutions. But the the postmodern collectivist doctrine is so psychologically and politically toxic. That I think that.

Academia now does more harm than good, and it's not only what it teaches, which is the ideology, this ungrateful ideology which denies the existence of the individual one of the things. I may tell you just so. You know this. As you know, the you hear that there are debates about free speech on campus, about who should talk and who shouldn't and people think that's what the debate is about about should talk and who shouldn't, but that's not what this debate is about that that's not even scraping the surface of the debate. If that's what you think it's about that. Don't campuses about whether or not a human being has the capacity to communicate in legibly as an individual or not. And the answer for the post collective types, that. There is no such thing as an individual and there

for the very notion of free speech is absurd, because free speeches Predicated on the idea that each of us have something to say that's hours, that's a consequence of our unique individuality, not our group, identity or or the multiplicity of our group identities, but something that that's that Something that we have that speaks from our spirit that can speak the spirit of another and produce a negotiated peace and that's what's being debated, that the war that's going on so softly or theological in the canvas is far deeper than you think it, though the entire notion of the reality of the individual, which is, I think, also the entire notion of the idea that human beings are made in the image of God, most fundamentally, that is what's being attacked. It wasn't

nothing that data called western culture fell, logos, centric fellas for skin logos, spur logos for truth and courage and centric for central that was a criticism from his perspective. The of the sovereignty of the individual, if you have the idea of the sovereignty of the individual, because there's no individual, there's no free speech. Oh you are is an avatar of your group interests and if I not in your group is not in my interest to let you speak, there's nothing we have to say to one another: there's nothing but power, its obviously a nightmare of group against group and that the post, modern doctrine, and so it's to call an appalling is to barely scrape the surface. It's it's an assault it and is. It is truly an assault on the most fundamental principles by which the West

is governed. It's not surface level philosophy it all the way to the bottom. This is partly, why have been concentrate, On religious themes, in my lectures, let's say because the argument goes all the way down to first principles is. There is in is the idea of the sovereignty of the individual, correct. The western answer is it's the great discovery of the west. The western answer is that the most fundamental truth that is exactly what's under assault at universities, the reason that the collectivist types hate me is being

I've got their number. I know what the rough and I think I think further, that they do not wished to shoulder the unbearable responsibility of being a sovereign, individual, so. Not only is it and that accounts for the cowardice, and that accounts for the attempt to weaken the spirit of the people that their teaching by over protecting them. They are not willing to take on the responsibility it and that the Fault House delight, swear. I think that's a good judge of someone someone's character in general. It's like

The world is in a messy state, let's say, and the question is: whose fault is it an answer? Is yours? That's the right answer: it's not the patriarchy! It's not some identifiable group, it's not some structure, it's gone wrong, even though those things can go wrong and that's the other fundamental truth of the west is that things would be a lot better if you were a lot better have to decide if you're willing to accept that and in it. Have every reason not to it. It's a terrible thought do

the soldier nets and I think this is a paraphrase, but its close enough. He said that one person who stop lying could bring down a tyranny and that that when I first read that I thought that can possibly be true and as I understood it, I thought that can't possibly not be true, because the only thing that can break the spine of a tyranny is the truth. And now only. Listen that and the only way that the truth can be told is that some individual tells it it's always necessarily the case. The territory is broken by the truth of the individual, but then the question is: what is going to be you it's going to do that. Its note the thing you know people come and tell me very frequently and they write me and they say: well, you know

I agree with what you say and this terrible thing is happening in my workplace, and you know I dont know what to do about it and I don't want you do make my story public and because of the potential for repercussions, and I think tat. While I mean I understand your position, it's no joke to its no joke to stand up, win, win, win the when they, when the amateur totalitarians are knocking on your office door, but if you don't than sooner sooner than you think, it'll be the professional totalitarians and then you'll be in the sort of trouble that that unless you ve tried to imagine it, you can't possibly imagine so me. Limits remaining were asked a few personal questions, as I did do with the late great joy

crowd hammer at one of our weakens, because people like including me just fascinated so here's one. What was the city city and Alberto Robin? Well, it wasn't a city exactly little town. It was called it's called Fairview, about eight hundred miles north of the american border, so so long ways up there right. So: how often, if at all, do you think when people stop you at airports and go around the world lecturing. Jordan Petersen from fair view. It's hard to believe that happen I live, I live in a constant state of disbelief. I mean I'm done did serious about this, like I think it's a form of posts, aromatics, post, traumatic shock in some sense

when my life in the last three years has been just a a continual series of surreal impossibilities. I mean on the one hand, I've been involved in a play. The scandal of some sort for we're good year and a half. It was at least twice a week and then for the end, higher three year period. It's been at least once a week. It's not, Stop and some its national and sometimes its international, but its continual, and so that's all give you an example. This is funny little story. My son came over one day about a year and a half ago. When I was having a kind of a rough day, because two hundred of my colleagues,

the university and sign the document trying to get me fired, and then they gave it to the union and the union presented it to the administration without even informing me, even though one the fact that the union- and so I said to my son, Julie um No two hundred of my colleagues today just signed a letter saying that I should be fired and he said now don't don't worry but that it was only two hundred I thought we'd, that's where we were, I to know, was like all, that's not Not stenzel. Now is a light day with I was ok, you know, And then so so, there's that and and the fact that it doesn't quit. That's another thing I can't understand it's like always blew up around me around Bill C. Sixteen and I thought well, I've had my fifteen minutes or my. Then it was like well, I've had my weak and then it was like all

I must have had my months and then none of that happening just kept expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding and everyday. I wake up, and I think, while this is gonna come to an end, but it doesn't just expands and not just doesn't seem credible in the least every time I come to an event like this, or I mean when I was in Australia. I will speak to audiences of fifty five hundred people and it's like how in the world can you believe that it's like you hurt what I just said, who there, who, in there mind would come and listen to someone who just told you what I told you know it's dark and its demanding? You wouldn't think that people would line up for block didn't, spend their hard earned money in income. Does it some

a marital anniversary. That's what they say. This was our anniversary present to each other, I think People, you might you're completely out of your mind and so and then I think to let you know that that that the state of disbelief is necessary and maybe that's an advantage to being older, cuz, I'm too old to adapt rapidly. And this isn't the sort of thing that you should adapt to write. I should be in a constant state of shocked disbelief because it keeps my head on straight. I don't know. What's going on exactly, I dont know why it's the case that what I am saying is so necessary apparently, but seems to be untrue. To figure out why, but I am certainly not for a second, I think, take very little for granted, and I mean

I think I'd take even less for granted, then you might think I told you that I don't take it for good. That you can all sit here peacefully. You know I and that is how I look at the world- is that if, if it isn't, if it isn't burning in rack and runes, then I think it's a bloody miracle and the fact things have gone well for me and then Still standing which is also a miracle of sorts. You know I mean there are probably thirty different, scandalous episodes. That had every that end. One with any sense would have thought would finish me and they ve all backfired.

And that's also. I also don't understand that it's like I don't just stand that I get attacked in New York Times and my friends call me who are New York Times readers and they say you you you you ve had at this time is that was the New York Times. Not going to recover from that- and I think that's probably true- I mean expecting it to happen all along, and then I wait and then you know everybody, climbers out me, and then I don't respond too much to that and starts die away, and then all the supporters come out and then there's a hundred people who clamour and ten thousand support

and you know here is something I can tell you about my life. That's really remarkable! So you know, if you just read the press law. You'd have all sorts of ideas about me. You know that I'm a big it in the broadest possible sense and so that in a racist sexes, homo phobic ass, no centric, wait nationalist all right as long as we have heard all of those things and you'd think that there is just nothing but hatred. Although I have been treated well by many journalists, but you you can easily get that sense, that I live in a world where I'm surrounded by hatred- and that is absolutely not true. It so True that that its.

You know there are lies and in their earth there there are anti truths, anti truth- is even worse than a lie. It's like the ultimate form of and that is what my life is like at all. When my life is like that. I travel with my wife and wherever we go, and I mean that literally wherever we go, we ve been too. I don't know how many countries in the last year slight, I don't know how many thirty forty many countries If I go down the street, nor if I mean an airport or if I'm in a cafe or five minutes, movie, theater or five minutes mechanics shop. Some person comes up to me every ten minutes and says I hope, I'm not disturbing you and their very, very polite, and they say I've been listening to your lectures or

watching your youtube videos- or I read your book- and I was in this dreadful place six months ago, and then they tell me a little bit about the particulars of that little corner of hell. They were ensconced in and then they say, oh well, I've been trying to develop a vision for my life or I've been trying to take responsibility or been trying to be grateful for my job, mundane though it may be or have decided that I'm going to try to put my family together and make peace. I really been trying it's really working and things We better and thank you, and so what's so, helping to have not happened, continually stir difficult to believe. But

John believable positive, you know I mean it's. If you could imagine, if you could ask for when you wanted to, you could have anything you wanted, you might think it would be lovely if I can give my life in a manner so that, wherever I went in the world, perfect strangers would come up to me, One after the other and tell me that they are suffering much less that their families, better shape. That. Their lives are on course because they took the they took too hard some, something that I was communicated. That's as good as it gets.

As far as I can. I really, I don't want to ask anything else. I think this was so powerful and if that didn't prove my instinct is right, nothing will Jordan Petersen, you are a good man. You are doing a lot of good. I thank God. He may

you think you. If you down this conversation, meaning you might think about picking up debts but maps of meaning the architectural bully boys newer, best seller, Twa wars for life, an antidote to house both of these works down much deeper into the topics covered in the Jordan me Petersen, podcast siege. May Petersen, DOT, com for audio e book and text links for pick up the books, it your favorite bookseller, hope you enjoy this podcast. If you do please leave a rating apple, pod gas, commenter review or share this episode with a friend next week. Gas is going to be a throwback to one of dads. Twelve rules for life, lectures from London, Ontario recorded on July, twenty first twenty eighteen eggs, centennial home state to thanks for this I hope you have a wonderful weak. Follow me on my. U to channel Jordan, be Petersen on Twitter at George

be Petersen on Facebook at Doktor George be, and of Instagram adorning dog be dark Petersen. Details on this show acts. To my blog information about Latour dates and other events and my list of recommended books. Found on my website. Jordan, Petersen dot com, my online writing programmes designed to help people straightened out their passes. Stand themselves in the present and developers to get a vision and strategy for the future can be found itself authoring, dot, com that self authoring dot com. From the westward one podcast network.