welcome to the Larry Orange Show on the
Hillsdale College podcast Network I
would be Larry Arne president of
Hillsdale College
and I have a great and mighty guest
today and his name is Jordan Peterson
Jordan Peterson is a psychologist and an academic
academic
and he's had two careers I think it's
fair to say
and one he taught some at Harvard and uh
whatever he taught later for a long time
at Toronto University of Toronto and
wherever he taught he leaves a trail
behind him of students who love him and
they testified at what it is about him
that they love and you're going to see
it for yourself in a few minutes
in his second career it starts when a
few years ago he took a stand about
something which was a law
in Canada that would require people
change all kinds of things
that defy everything ordinary gender
stuff mostly and he stood up against
that and of course a firestorm came
and he didn't Retreat into any hole he'd
never been any good at being in a hole
he decided to go public
and what I like about I I admire him
very much and know him well I'm
privileged that way
is that his public career follows the
same pattern as his academic career
he's a teacher and he's Relentless and
he's curious and he knows a lot of stuff
and he teaches people and they are
grateful except for the ones who don't
want teaching to happen and they are
enraged and he's courageous in the face
of that welcome Jordan Peterson thank
you sir because you're a teacher and
because I'm curious about it I want to
talk about psychology about what it is
and I know that you like Carl Young
and because of that I never did without
knowing much about him I've been reading
up on him some and I want you to explain
the general thing what is the discipline
of psychology and then something about
him if you care to say well
we all exist at multiple levels simultaneously
simultaneously
right we exist at
subatomic level in the atomic level in
the molecular level and
the level of organs and the level of our
body and
and we have motivational systems and
emotional systems and cognitive systems
and perceptual systems and
psychology is the study of
the the integration of all of those
subordinate levels into the individual
right so you can study all those levels
right up to the level of the individual and
and
and you're in the domain of psychology
and so I like that that integrative
function of psychology and so when I was
in graduate school in particular
the PHD work I did was really quite
biological I was looking at the genetic
the psychological manifestations of the
genetic predisposition to alcoholism and
anti-social behavior and alcohol is a
pharmacological agent and it spreads
through the brain like water because it
crosses the blood-brain barrier it's one
of the few chemicals that can do that
and so to study alcohol's effect on
psychology you have to study alcohol's
effect on the brain but it affects every
bit of the brain and every bit of the
brain is quite a lot to study and so as
I was studying alcoholism and the
predispositioned alcoholism I was
simultaneously studying how the brain
works to understand how Alcohol and
Other Drugs changed its function and
that got me deep into the study of
Neuroscience and affect of Neuroscience
in particular that's the Neuroscience of
emotion and motivation and that was a
burgeoning field at the time and I read
some of the great early classic Works in
that field and at the same time I was
reading a lot of work on the clinic
front great clinicians including the
people you mentioned Freud and Jung and
I was integrating across those which was
something that that hadn't been done and
my first book maps of meaning was an
attempt to integrate across all those
levels from the biological to the
narrative that's a good way of thinking
about it uh
young do you call yourself a union
to some degree yes um I would I don't
describe myself that way but it's
definitely the case I mean I I
started reading Freud before I read you
and I liked Freud a lot for a variety of reasons
reasons so
so
we we could go back to Nature to explain
this more properly so Nietzsche back in
the late 1800s announced that God was
dead and what he meant by that
essentially was that the unity of
conception that had
brought us together psychologically and socially
socially
was disintegrating and Nietzsche knew
what the consequence of that would be
he knew that the consequence of that
would be nihilism and hopelessness on
the one hand and a turned towards
totalitarian certainties on the other he
nailed that Dostoevsky knew the same
thing and Nietzsche saw a way out he
thought and his way out was that human
beings would have to become they would
have to adopt the men of what they had
deposed and so he thought that people
would have to become gods in some way
and that we could do that by creating
our own values that we would have to
take it upon ourselves to create our own
values since they were no longer handed
down on high from some Transcendent
source and
all of the arguments that Nietzsche laid
out were very powerful including that
one but reading Freud helped me
understand why Nietzsche was wrong
because Freud
noted more clearly than anyone else at
least at that time that we were not the
Masters in our own houses
and that the notion that we could
produce our own values
was predicated on an assumption that in
some manner we were intrinsically
unitary masters of our own destiny our
own cognition our own perceptions our
own emotional states and Freud really
flipped that on its head he said
no we're more like a haunted house full
of autonomous spirits and those Spirits
have those would be complexes in the
psychoanalytic term and those complexes
those autonomous Spirits some of which
are motivational forces let's say or
emotional uh emotional systems they have
an autonomy and a will that can easily
supersede our own and so it isn't
obvious at all that because we're
masters of not Masters in our own house
that we can in any way create our own
values and Freud
Freud
I think the weakness of Freud
was that he pronounced one motivational
system superordinate sex and you could
say with some real truth that Freud
replaced the god of his ancestors Yahweh
Freud was Jewish he replaced the god of
his ancestors with with sexuality and
put that at the Pinnacle of human of the
human psychological hierarchy and Jung
who was a student of Freud's although
also a student of Nietzsche's and
perhaps more deeply a student of
Nietzsche's objected to that he did not
believe that
it was appropriate to
make the presumption that sex ruled
overall and I read a lot of you when I
especially when I was in graduate school
I think he had I think there's 20
volumes in his collected work something
like that I read every single one of
them and I didn't just read them
I actually understood them and that took
a lot of work I read archetypes of the
collective unconscious it was the first
book by Jung I wrote I read
um little Freudian slip there um
um
I read it three times before I knew what
the hell he was talking about because
what Jung is talking about is so strange
that it's almost impenetrable and then
when you do penetrate it it's terrifying
that's why psychologists don't like you
that's why people in general don't it's
like he's very hard to understand and
then when you do understand him he's
very very terrifying because
Freud made the case that we were haunted
by ghosts and Jung made the case that we
were haunted by demons and gods and
that's much more accurate and when you
start to understand that man the world
is not the same it is seriously not the same
same
so uh we're going to talk about sex some
today because that's all over the place desire
desire
estrangement from and fascination with
sex today have to do with Freud
um it has to do with what Freud observed
because and Freud was correct in that
sex is a dominating Force Nietzsche said
every Drive attempts to philosophize in
its Spirit brilliant brilliant aphorism
he was really something and
when when the world collapses into
materialist atheism let's say it's
highly likely that sex will arise as the
dominant goddess likely goddess it's
likely on the feminine side more more
accurately if you think about it
historically now did Freud bring that about
about
partly because Freud made the case that
there was no metaphysical reality let's
say there were biological realities and
that the prime biological reality was
that of sex and so he laid some of the
groundwork for those metaphysical claims but
but
even though he believed that sex was a
dominating force it isn't clear at all
that he believed that it should be now
if you pushed Freud and what he thought
should be at the Pinnacle of the moral hierarchy
hierarchy
he would say something like the ability
to work and play
and that's not bad you know that's not
too bad and he had a wisdom and Freud
was also a very practical clinician
but he also viewed see Freud was deeply
anti-religious in the enlightenment
tradition and he told Jung at one point
that it was necessary to make of the dog
of the doctrine of sexual motivation and
unshakable bulwark against a black tide
of occultism and it's an interesting
interesting phrase because there was a
black tide of occultism coming and we've
certainly seen that unfold over the
course of the 20th century but
it's also
highlights one of Freud's metaphysical weaknesses
weaknesses
and it was the weakness that separated
Jung from Freud was the and that was
that Freud's
materialist deterministic atheism
made him incapable of contending with
the realities of the religious World
properly and that undermined his
what would you say his ability to sit at
the proper Pinnacle of the of the
psychoanalytic hierarchy so Jung
believed like Jung believed that he had
a conception that he put forward as the self
self
and the self is you
it's the four-dimensional you and so why
four dimensions well because
here you are now in this room at this
time but you are something that extends
across time from birth till death and
the totality of you is that entire
being is stretched across time
and Jung self is the four-dimensional
totality of the person Jung was a very
sophisticated thinker and he believed
that Christ was a symbol of the self
now what Jung believed religiously
that's a very difficult thing to put
your finger on because he was a very
sophisticated thinker
um I would put him firmly in the
Christian Camp
but he's not a normal Christian by any
stretch of the imagination
when he says something like Christ is a
symbol of the self he meant something
very deep he meant that
well he meant for example that at the
highest level of conceptualization the
human being is something doomed to
suffer through death and hell and to
emerge Reborn
and he really believed that and not in
the way that you believe something
Preposterous because it's an element of
Faith but because he saw that as
the deepest form of wisdom and he also
saw it as something that was inevitably true
true
the soul is by nature Christian that was
certainly something young believed
now let's try to relate that because so
something amazing is going on in the
world uh we are trying to transform
ourselves into whatever we want to be
sexual and everything else and you've
taken a stand against that I'd like you
to why and also what in Psychology has
led you to well don't do that when when
when when you say so
there's a battle right now going on in
our culture about self-definition I am
whatever I say I am which is by the way
what God said to Moses when he
proclaimed his identity right and that's
not a trivial comment on what's
Happening Now Jung believed that the
logical conclusion of protestantism was
that everyone would become their own church
church
right and he really meant when Myung
said something he meant it like all the
way down and so the logical conclusion
of you being your own church is that
you're your own God and that you get to
Define yourself and you might say well
why can't I Define myself an answer the
right answer is
what the hell do you know about who you are
are
and you think that there's something in
you that's yourself that's defining you
but how do you know you're not just a
pawn of that thing you think is yourself
and so the Fatal weakness on the
self-definition front is oh I see you're
gripped so firmly by your sexuality that
your sexuality now proclaims that it's
you and you believe that and you think
that's you you don't think that you're
worshiping a polytheistic Pagan goddess
or that or that she's got you in her
grip you think that's you because you
have an intrinsic theory of yourself and
your theory of yourself is whatever you
want hedonistically in this moment rules
everyone including you and that's right
and that everyone who opposes that is
nothing but a a demon essentially that
means everybody who opposes that doesn't
get the same favor they can't they can't
Define themselves the way well that's
that's the incoherence problem but uh
but the radical types the narcissistic
radical types they don't give a damn
about incoherence because what they give
a damn about is that they get to exactly
what the hell they want with whoever
they want this moment and if that's now
this is this is where the rubber meets
the road you might say well what's the
problem with that
it's like why can't I just do whatever
the hell I want whenever the hell I want
to do it with whoever I want to do it
with and the answer is because
everything goes to hell if you do that
including you
and you say well I don't believe in hell
and I say well keep acting the way you
are and you will
right for sure now everyone with an
ounce of sense an iota of sense and this
is actually what defines sense knows
perfectly well if they only do exactly
what they want to do in accordance with
the whim of the moment which then
becomes their God right because if
you're motivated by the whim of the
moment and you place that above all else
that is now your god well what's the god
well in this case let's say it's sexual
motivation well if sexual motivation is
your god you will end up in something
indistinguishable from hell because you
will you will misuse other people you
will make them objects of your own
narrow and immediate desire and you'll
have no relationships you'll exploit
everyone including yourself and there's
that's no way to live well why is that
no way to live you're just moralizing
it's like no live like that for two
years and find out what happens no one
with any sense will want to be within 20
feet of you
and that's because you'll do nothing but
exploit including and the thing you'll
exploit will include that higher self
whose existence you don't you you don't
even imagine right because you've
already subjugated yourself to the
immediacy of your idiot whim
and the people who identify themselves
on sexual grounds do that all the time
my Paramount Feature is who I'm sexually
attracted to it's really that's your
Paramount Feature is it that's your
definition of your intrinsic self to
call you primitive is an insult to
so
uh I want to suggest what's been swept
away by all this uh in classic
philosophy in most philosophies since then
then
the idea was we have a nature everything
has a nature
and the nature and our happiness and
well-being depends upon fulfilling our
nature my little bit of reading of young
suggested he thought roughly like that
in other words if he was going to give
somebody therapy he tried to help him
become a better person like a person
would be well that word nature is
interesting because uh it comes from a
Latin word it means birth
it means the process of begetting and
growth by which we come to be
well if you lose your nature
then you have no purpose outside your
own will and now my question
you've been particularly helpful and
popular with men young men especially
why is that do you think well
well
you you can't lose your nature exactly
you can lose your higher order
integrated purpose-driven nature here
are some Natures you won't lose pain
pain
anxiety like you can lose your higher
nature all you want and
all of the negative elements of your
nature will predominate and you're not
going to rationalize yourself out of
pain and anxiety this is the thing about
those who believe life has no meaning
it's like I see so you think you can
argue yourself out of your pain
because Pain's a meaning now you might
say well it's not a meaning I want to
pursue it's like what does that have to
do with anything pain is an undeniable reality
reality
well if you allow your higher order self
to disintegrate you just you
disintegrate into a landscape
characterized by pain anxiety and
hopelessness that's the metaphysical
desert by the way right that's the place
you end up devolving into when your
tyrannical presuppositions are
disintegrate which is why people cling
to their tyrannical presuppositions
because you know there's a mystery well
you don't want to end up in the
landscape of pain anxiety and
hopelessness and I actually mean that
technically because what happens when
you lose direction
the biological systems that mediate
negative emotions signal loss of
Direction that's What anxiety is it's a
signal of loss of Direction so if you
lose higher order Direction you become
anxious well and you can argue with
anxiety all you want with your atheistic
nihilism but it isn't going to go away
and neither is your pain and so one of
the things I've told my audiences is
you have to be a fool if you doubt the
reality of pain and anxiety pain and
Terror let's say are they real
it's like well
of course that's an ontological argument
they're real enough so you'll act like
they're real if they come knocking so
maybe we can suffice
we can we can satisfy ourselves with
that Proclamation and you say well are
they the Ultimate Reality pain and and
suffering and that's a good question
that's a tough question and I would say no
no
the things that transcend pain and
suffering are more real than pain and
suffering well what transcends
Suffering The Eternal verities transcend
suffering and the higher order nature of
man is the antidote to catastrophic
suffering it's the antithesis of Hell
well what is that is that real well if
pain and suffering are real and if you
can transcend them
through Allegiance with a higher order
self well then the higher order self is
obviously not only real but more real
well what is that well this is why Jung
said Christ was a symbol of the self how
do you transcend the Eternal realm of
suffering right how do you escape from
hell it's the same question
um how about
voluntary self-sacrifice how about that
well that's absolutely no different than
the image of the crucifix those are the
same thing well why does the spirit of
voluntary self-sacrifice
protect you against suffering well
I need to sacrifice my idiot whims in
the moment to serve
that element of me that is continuous
across time this is like kant's
categorical imperative in some ways
if I'm wise and mature then I don't make
decisions now
that will cost me tomorrow or next week
or next month or next year or five years
down the road I I contemplate my
extended self which is like a community
across time and I bind my decisions in
the present by my Covenant with my
future self and there's no difference
between doing that that means I
sacrifice my the whims of the moment to the
the
to the optimization of the medium and
long run and I do the same thing in
relationship to other people those are
the same thing there is no difference
this is this is a gospel equation in
some ways there is no difference between
treating you properly and treating
myself properly and that's because in
the final analysis
there's actually no difference between
you and me not not not fundamentally the
classic account of this an American
account for most of our history is
that's because we're the same kind of
thing we're equal and that and in what
way are we equal we're equal in our natures
natures
uh and and
the troubled part comes this way
if our Natures include how we come to be
then the differences between the Sexes
are also part of our rights
and also therefore our obligations
and that's what you're telling me this
morning about a law that's proceeding in
Ireland and uh
they're going to make it illegal to
possess books that claim that sex is an
innate feature or that you don't get to
choose your own is that what it is
that's part of it yeah yeah well that's
it depends on how they Define they it
defend depends on how they
end up defining hate speech but that's
already built into the law that the the
idea that making a distinction between
men and women that's categorical that's
already part of hate speech yeah yeah
well it is in part it isn't part of
spring this is again where you see the
weakness in Nietzsche's argument well
here's the values we've created
well that's not a very good replacement
for God our replacement for God is
narcissistic radicals get to do whatever
the hell they want whenever they want
all the time and if you oppose it then
it's prison for you well you know that's
not much of a substitute for what we had before
before
so and that was our I went to the Church
of this Holy Sepulcher in Rome and
that was the first established church
and it became the model
for European Society so it's so
interesting the way it's these
conceptions are laid out let's say
architecturally rather than conceptually
so at the very center you have the
crucifix the cross and that's that's
what would you say that's the point where
where
all of reality comes to a point and it's
the point of maximal suffering and it's
more than that it's the point of
voluntarily accepted maximal suffering
and the notion is that
that's a sacrifice
why is it a sacrifice you have to sacrifice
sacrifice
you have to sacrifice your lower self to
your higher self in order for you to
proceed in a healthy manner to be
resilient but also for you to
participate in the Covenant that would
make for a United Society you have to
and that there's no difference between
that maturation because a lot of what
maturation is is
to give up the attractions of the
immediate present in the service of something
something
broader and higher and that would be you
in the broader sense and what's in your
best interest but also the community
simultaneously those are the same thing
so at the center of the community you
have a sacrifice the voluntary sacrifice
of self that's the center around that
you have the church you have the altar
then you have the church then you have
the town and around the town you have
the state and then you have the nation
and that's all
resting on this Spirit of voluntary
self-sacrifice right and that's the
foundation stone of the community Jung
knew that young knew that and Freud
didn't and because Freud was he was a
materialistic deterministic atheist of
the 19th century and Jung is a 20th
century thinker maybe he's a 21st
century thinker even that's certainly
possible so Churchill said uh it wrote
once in a book called my early life you
must nail your life to a cross of
thought or action now he ended up doing
both but in other case whichever way you
go so you could say in your life Jordan Peterson
Peterson
uh it was more thought in the beginning
and it might be more action now but in
another case it's a cross that's how you
think of it
well you can either lift up a cross or
have one dropped on you yeah
right there's no non-cross option in
this world
and that's really worth knowing too and
I tell my audiences that consistently
it's like
you all know perfectly well that your
idiot henism Hedonism your idiot
immature Hedonism is going to vanish in
a puff of smoke at the first sign of
trouble you know that and you know that
it's thin gruel that's why you're
hedonistic and hopeless at the same time
know that you need something beyond that
why because life in some ways is unbearable
unbearable
and so you need something worth bearing
to make it bearable and life is very
heavy load and so that means you have to
carry something very heavy to justify it
now I see this in the biblical Corpus
for example quite clearly laid out in
the story of Abraham which is very
interesting story of course Abraham is
the founder of Nations and so and you
might say well is that true it's like
those are such stupid questions that
that's such a stupid question it's a
definition in this story so the
definition is
the spirit of Abraham
is the founder of Nations right that's
the that's the Declaration of the story
and you're you're to come to understand
that when you read the story
now you might say well what did the
people who wrote the story mean by that
and the answer is well they didn't know
and that's why they wrote the story like
the story is the explanation okay so
what's the story well
Abraham is a human being and that means
he's like a natural human being and that
means he's useless and lazy and if he
can have it easy he will and so Abraham
is like the first case of white
privilege there's a good joke he's Rich
his parents are rich and he can just lay
around his tent all day and eat peeled
grapes and have like beautiful slave
women wave palm fronds over him and do
nothing and he does that for like 83 years
years
and then one day a voice comes to him
right a spirit he's inspired by a spirit
and what's the nature of the spirit well
it's the spirit that calls him to Adventure
Adventure
and it says to him get your lazy ass the
hell out of the tent You're Made for
More Than This
and so Abraham in a great Act of Faith
abides by the intuition of this spirit
and he leaves his comfortable infancy
right because he's an infant he lives in
an infantile Utopia that's right well
what do I want well I never want to be
hungry and I never want to be thirsty
but I never have I never want to be
deprived it's like well great you're an
infant sleeping in a crib you've got
infant Paradise is that what you're made
for right the mere cessation of your
needs that's your vision of Utopia is it
well that was Abraham's vision of utopia
and a counter Spirit came along and said
get your lazy ass the hell out of your
tent and get out there in the world and
of course it's a complete catastrophe
right like he faces tyranny and War and
the necessary sacrifice of his son and
and collusion among the aristocrats to
steal his wife and like it's just a
disaster in 10 different directions
but it's an adventure
it's an adventure right and so what's
life is it like is it is it hedonistic
infantile Bliss this is something
Dostoevsky objected to or is it a
romantic adventure well what do people
go watch when they go see a movie
they watch a romantic adventure well why
because that's what they want in their
life they don't want
peace and tranquility and guaranteed
basic income and the pleasures of
infantile gratified infantile dependents
they want a bloody adventure and if they
don't get a real Adventure they'll take
a false one and wreak havoc and we have
no shortage of false adventures in our
culture so the the woke culture and the
transgender movement and all these great
things that have come upon us so hard
uh are they going to suppress that for
people you're not going to get to have
your adventure you're gonna well they
put forward a false adventure and the
false Adventure is wave a placard and
save the world
that's right look great isn't that
wonderful all you have to do you know
how I stopped getting protesters to my
events at University
I held them in the morning
it's great no kidding eh I'm the Messiah
yeah really well as long as you don't
want me to get out of bed before noon
yeah so that's the false Adventure sold
to young kids it's like well the
planet's going to hell in a hand basket
that's the claim it's like yeah yeah the
planet's always been going to hell in a
hand basket right the apocalypse is
always nigh and that's because we die
and so does everything else and so well
the apocalypse is nigh and you can save
the world by protesting against those
who are at fault that's the what the
universities sell young people well it's
an adventure right they have a Messianic
urge at that age and that really never
goes away and people in some fundamental
sense but it's particularly acute when
adolescents late adolescents are trying
to catalyze their identity and the left
offers these false Adventures you can be
you you print out a sign that says I
oppose poverty as if anyone doesn't and
you wave that around publicly which is
the same as praying in public right it's
a great sin and you Proclaim your moral
virtue and bang that's your adventure
and it's a cheap it's a cheap Pathway to
to reputational accomplishment and and
part of the reason young guys do it you
know perfectly well is because they're
trying to impress young women and it's
kind of uh what would you say there's a surface
surface
a surface
attraction to being a kind of rebellious
quasi-shake guavera type and to be
taking on you know the evil corporations
of the world when you're 18 you know
instead of
working at 7-Eleven and handing out
sugar water to kids do you think that
there's something that young people
really need that will ultimately redeem
them from this and not enough enough of
them at least to save the world you
think that they need a burden they need
a burden absolutely and they want one
yeah absolutely well and you can explain
that to them in some ways the way I just
explained it it's like look guys you're
gonna suffer and most of her already
suffering so they know that it's like
and you want to suffer stupidly too
because that's even worse and then you
do you want to contemplate for a moment
What's going to
be your Ark when the storms come well I
can tell you what it is and you already
know this because you've consulted your
own conscience when you're awake at
three in the morning thinking about what
a useless bastard you are how many sins
you have on your conscience if you're
fortunate there'll be a few of your
adventures come to mind where you think
well you know I didn't do so bad then
you know maybe there's something to me
and so what what do people remember when
they have those memories they remember
the times when they stepped outside of
their narrow cells and took on some
bloody responsibility at least for
themselves and then maybe for someone
else too
and then maybe for a lot of other people
and so if you tell young man look you're
going to find the meaning in your life
by adopting
by adopting maximal responsibility right
that's going to be extremely difficult
because you're so bloody useless you
can't even get your own house in order
and you're and you're going to be called
upon not only to get your house in order
but to do that well enough so some woman
can stand having you around for more
than like 15 minutes in the back of a car
car
and then maybe you're going to have to
do it so that you could be a good father
to a family and a pillar of the
community and that's not just empty
words like if you do that
nobly there'll be something to you and
then when the storms come
you won't be blown over by the first
four foot wave and young men think
huh mean I could be something that
wasn't blown over by the first four foot wave
wave
they think oh well that's that's
that's
inspiring maybe that's worth doing a
little work towards it on the off chance
it might be true
and the thing about it is it is true
so it's not that difficult once you
understand it to make a case for it it's
true and it's also true that
you grow in proportion to the weight you
take on voluntarily and it's also true
that we have no idea what the upper
limit to that is right so you know you
you've met remarkable people in your life
life
people can do remarkable things and
they're inevitably people who take who
took on remarkable burdens and because
they did that
their development was forced by
necessity they were forced by necessity
to grow beyond what they were and who
knows what the limit to that is
people uh so I something I see in the
college business uh our College
Hillsdale College has got about the same
number of boys and girls few more boys
and they come from a pool of applicants
that are equal size and equal
qualification almost nobody has that
right and the boys do just about as well
as the girls although they do get in
contests doing things like throwing deer
urine on each other and stuff they've
done that
but some of the best boys I've ever met
have done that as a matter of fact
they're in the Marine Corps now stupid
boys and they and and the thing is
people will say how are you successful
with boys
and I say we treat them like boys
you know they want to be treated like
boys they and and girls women we've
always had boys and girls here women and
men here right and they've always done
well and their intellectual capacities
are you know they're the same kind of thing
thing
and their physical uh paths are not the
same and they can wish them the same if
they want to but
they don't they don't really they don't
I mean I you know what I find is and and
you know
uh I have two daughters uh you have one
I think and she's your daughter is like
my daughters very tough
very assertive
uh very womanly you see and
so in other words the the classic
account is
they're good at being what they are
and that's a service you know human
above all but also male or female and
that's a service that burden you're
talking about
the first burden everyone carries is how
do you become a good one of these
and by if by thinking it that's all as
you say that's no burden
so no satisfaction uh
uh
I think
predict the future for me a little bit
what's what's gonna happen
seems to me things are coming to a point
do you think so
yeah well I think things have always
been coming to a point
but they're coming to a point way faster
and I mean that's partly a consequence of
of
the technological Revolution I mean we
know that
well we have Moore's Law right computing
power doubles every 18 months
it's like no no you don't understand
computing power doubles every 18 months
that's not some casual phrase that's an
absolute bloody revolution in every
possible Direction and it's not just
computing power it's storage power and
there's all sorts of doubling State
taking place and we're now at the point
in in the course of technological
progress where those doublings are
happening multiple times within the span
of a single life and so it's pretty
obvious and that means the ancient
archetypal battles are accelerating
that's exactly what it means the battles
between good and evil is accelerating
and it's always been there it's the
apocalypse nigh it's like well it's
always been nigh but it might be a
little more nigh than it has been in the
past and you've been talking about
artificial intelligence and recently I
have become more concerned about that uh
what what are your concerns and what are
your hopes for it well I suppose my
fundamental concern is that we'll
automate a super intelligent tyranny
right and I mean that's not a concern
that's limited to me that's the that's
the motif of endless numbers of Science
Fiction dystopias and you know science
fiction is where you where Engineers
dream right and sometimes it's where
they have their nightmares and Engineers
are notoriously atheistic and so they
turn to worship of Star Wars for example
as an alternative but they're nightmares
and dreams are in the popular culture in
popular imagination and dystopian
science fiction is the nightmare of
Engineers and
the nightmare of Tower of Babel building
Engineers is that we'll automate a super
intelligent tyranny
the Chinese or hell-bent on doing that
they're doing it at the moment could we
do it here absolutely are we yeah yeah
will it will will that
dominate we'll see you know my sense and
I learned a fair bit of this from Jung
by the way you know what one of the
things I learned from Jung was that deeply
deeply
was that salvation Redemption was an
individual Enterprise which is why I'm a
psychologist and not a politician
because I believe that to be true I
think that
hell is
what would you say kept at Bay one
person at a time and I do believe that
people have
a Divine Destiny let's say and
one of the proper elements of our divine
Destiny is to keep hell at Bay and you
do that by
you do that as a consequence of your
choices as an individual I also believe
that every single individual is
is in that
up to their necks you know Dostoevsky
said something very strange at one point
he said every man is responsible not
only for everything he does but for
everyone everyone else does and of
course that's insane right in that crazy
Dostoevsky way that is more sane that
Insanity that's more sane than sanity
that's Dostoevsky in a nutshell and I
think there's something true about it is
that we each have an archetypal Destiny
and the work the fate of the world rests
on each person's shoulders like
genuinely and when I'm traveling around
the world talking to people I'm trying
to tell them that it's like no no you
don't understand this is up to you now I
don't understand how it can be up to you
because it's also up to me and I don't
exactly see how it can be equally and
finally up to both of us but that's okay
there's lots of things about the world I
don't understand and I suppose being
what would you say touched by a spark of
divinity which is I suppose what
characterizes us each of us Bears an
infinite responsibility
and people need to know that and that
it's this is no game
so you have to carry the burden for more
than your own sake
well well it it
you're you're in this this you're into
your sake is indistinguishable from the
sake of the totality see the Buddha
figured this out right because Buddha
uh what would you say he he he achieved
Enlightenment under the bow tree he was
in Nirvana he was in paradise and he
could stay there that was on the table
and that's a hell of an offer to be able
to stay in paradise and he rejected it
and the reason he rejected it was
because it was in his estimation and he
prepared us that it didn't include
everyone wasn't the real paradise and so
he left Nirvana to come back to earth so
to speak to serve as a teacher to drag
everyone else along on the road to
Nirvana and that's
well that's that's that's correct is
that that that
it's correct in that there in the final
analysis there is no distinction between
you and someone else
it's a terrible thing to contemplate
they're the same thing
and that's why you're supposed to love
your enemy I suppose and and what does
that mean to love your enemy well first
of all it might mean to begin with to
hope that he wouldn't have to be an
enemy because why not have a friend but
it's even more than that is that to the
degree that it's possible your actions
even in the presence of your enemy
should be devoted towards the Redemption
of your enemy
that would be better for you and for
them I mean if you're good and your
enemy is not good
you'd be right to oppose them
for the sake of the good and those who
represent it but well you redeem what
you can redeem and you reject the rest
right and that's the separation of the
wheat from the chaff that's it well I
learned something a while back about
there's this idea at the end of Genesis
when God throws Adam and Eve out of
paradise he sets these cherubs up to
guard the gates of paradise and their
monstrous forms these cherubs and they
hold swords that are on fire that turn
every which way it's a very horrifying
image and what does it mean it means
that well a sword cuts and Cleaves and
butchers and kills but a sword can be
used to carve so you can think about a
sword as an Implement that separates the
wheat from the chaff and a burning sword
well that's even worse right because it
burns the dead wood away and so a burn a
flaming sword is a sword that cuts all
that isn't necessary away and burns all
the Deadwood off and of course that's
the case because everything unworthy has
to be cut away in order for it Paradise
by definition and all dead wood has to
be burned away
before the living Essence can enter
Paradise that's another way of thinking
about it and if you're 99 Deadwood and
pathology it isn't obvious that the
encounter with the Flaming sword that
turns every which way won't just do you in
in
and that's that's the issue of evil in
some regard
you want to redeem what can be redeemed
but you need to reject what's truly
Serpentine and that's Eve's sin by the
way she doesn't do that she hearkens to
the serpent itself and that's a
narcissism of compassion that's her sin
it's a pride of compassion my womanly
Embrace is such that all things can be
classed by breast including the
poisonous serpent it's like well yeah
maybe maybe not including the poisonous serpent
serpent
right and I see that playing out in the
world now because we have this epidemic
of narcissistic compassion where
everything can be in invited to the table
table
it's like well maybe not everything
everything
right right and maybe there's only a
small remnant of what is truly hellish
hellish
that has to be rejected
that there's no hope of redeeming I mean
this is an ancient theological issue
right but
this was played out quite recently in
the case of Nikola sturgeon right
because sturgeon in the Scottish prime
minister you know she famously
proclaimed that well any man who says
he's a woman
is a woman
it's like I'm so compassionate it's like
people can do whatever they want it's like
like
any man eh
how about
Psychopathic serialist serial killing
sadistic rapists how about them
well when she was asked that question
which she was she had to hand wave
partly because for someone like her no
one like that exists not really
but the problem is is that people like
that do exist or Spirits like that exist
so there's an immediate thing we see
here coming from artificial intelligence
and it's
it can do a passable job writing a term
paper we can stop that here we have an
honor code and most most kids won't do
it almost all and if they do it's not
too you know eventually it'll be
indistinguishable I'm told oh yes but
it's there already but you know oral
exams but here's what I'm worried about
uh uh this is the the chairman of
Microsoft who I used to think was a
pretty good guy he proclaims well he's
not going to write your final it's going
to write your draft but writing your
draft that's where you do most of the
learning that's where you read all the
stuff that surrounds your subject and
decide what's relevant yeah yeah yeah
and that means that and it goes back to
something you've taught me and that is
if you can't write a draft of a paper or
write your own paper
you become a well that's see
that's the fundamental issue in the
argument it's it's
because you could say well why not just
let if your point is the degree why not
just let AI write your paper and and
hand it in and get your a and it's
I think it was Alfred North Whitehead
who said this is very very wise thing
you think so that your thoughts can die
instead of you
okay now this is biologically true this
is what makes human beings different
from all other creatures
right maybe this is the spark of God in
some sense tied to the biology so the
prefrontal cortex which is the part of
the brain that generates abstractions
grew out of the motor cortex which is
the part of the brain that enables you
to voluntarily sequence your actions so
what thought is thought is the space in
which you create avatars of action
right so what a thought we think because
we're materialist atheists and we think
we're scientists we think that a thought
is a description of the objective nature
of the world and that was isn't what a
thought is a thought is a micro
it's a microcosmic avatar of you
that's what a thought is and if it's a
stupid thought
if then you could act it out you could
embody that Avatar and then it would
become you
but if it's if it's a faulty Avatar and
you act it out
then you'll die
or worse because there are worse things
than dying you'll end up in something
like hell
and so
why think so that you can generate
virtual selves
then why think critically so you can
kill off the idiot virtual selves before
you enact them why do that so you don't
die or end up in hell that's why so why
should you think so you don't die and
end up or end up in Hell how do you
learn to think well not by having AI
write your damn papers the reason you're
learning to write is because there's no
difference between writing and thinking
and the reason you're learning to think
is so that you don't not only so that
you don't fall into a pit but so that
you don't pull everyone you love Kicking
and Screaming into the pit with you and
so you have cheat
cheat go ahead see what happens
so so what you do with a liberal arts
education which you do very well here is
you say
don't cheat because you'll put your
Immortal soul in danger and people say
well I don't believe in that so that's like
like
go right ahead
take your chances you know you
make the presumption that you can
manipulate the World by lying and
cheating go out there and enact that and
watch what happens
you know we're having an argument about
your culture in our culture about what's
true it's a deep argument
the scientists say well objective truth
is true but that's problematic because
objective truth gives us no direction
and the postmodernists say well there's
no overarching meta-narrative and
everything is relative and they do that
to justify their Hedonism and the truth
of the matter is we don't know how to
define what's real and most of us are
materialists the material world is
what's real
here's a different proposition
proposition
what's real leads you away from hell
now that's actually a definition right
it's a it's a proposition that your life
will be conducted most fully
fully
if you abide by the dictum that what's
real is what leads you away from hell
and you might say well why would you
assume that hell is real and I would say
if you were there you'd think it was real
real
right so and I don't really know what to
make of that metaphysically I mean I
believe it's true and I've believed it
for a very long time because I read a
lot of literature about hell and you
think well hell isn't real it's like
read about unit 731.
that was a that was a Japanese medical
unit in China you read about Unit 731
and I would recommend by the way for
those of you who are watching or
listening that you don't do this because
you'll regret it if you do you read
about Unit 731 and then come and tell me
you don't believe hell is real
if you read enough about
atrocity and totalitarian catastrophe
you will absolutely walk away from that
thinking that hell is real and then if
you have any sense you'll think well
whatever I'm going to do in my life I'm
going to do whatever takes me as far
away as from that as I can possibly get
you know when when this political
Scandal blew up around me in Canada
people come up to me and they say this
they say you're so brave and I think you
don't understand the difference between
you and me is I know what to be properly
afraid of
right and I know that
when the cat gets your tongue you will
end up in hell you lose control of that
logos right because that's your capacity
for voluntary speech voluntary thought
you lose that link with the logos
you are headed for hell and that is
definitely worse than death how many
could you estimate how many hours have
you spent in private therapeutic
counseling I mean doing counseling doing
fifteen thousand dollars I say that's
seven might be more than that seven full
working years and uh
eight but uh here's one that's a that's
a conservative estimate that's why I
asked the question was when you talk like
like
uh academics have a good education which
I fancy I do are pretty good at
understanding the implications of prop
propositions you know like uh if if you
said that we're material beings if we
were purely material beings of course we
couldn't know it dogs don't know that
they're dogs uh but so we we're good at
things like that right
you're good at describing the
consequences as they appear in
individuals and it's very dramatic and
what is this is one thing you know
it's in in many ways it's terrifying to
be a therapist and there's a variety of
reasons for that I mean one of the
things you learn
if you're
if you're a therapist is that
you really learned something about the
intrinsic worth of people like some of
the best people I met in my therapeutic
practice the best people morally were
people who were the mo who were on the surface
they have nothing going for them no
nothing worldly going for them they
weren't attractive they weren't
intelligent they weren't accomplished
they weren't popular in fact they were
often friendless they often had
devastated families they had terrible
developmental histories
they just had devastated lives and yet
there was still a core of ethical
goodness to them that was
stunning under the circumstances
miraculous and so you really
that really takes you back to see that
that can happen right to see that sent
that essential nobility of the human spirit
spirit
um and so so that's a terrifying thing
to see and then
and that that goodness can shine through
in places that just look dark and and
that no one is attending to and
the next thing you learn is don't impose
impose
your Notions of
someone's Destiny on them you do not
know how that person's life should
unfold you're there to help them think
that through you are not there to give
them advice
that's it's a theft giving someone
advice especially if your therapist is
theft because
it's theft because if they succeed well
then it's your success and it's corrupt
theft because if they fail they bear the
consequences and you don't so so that's
terrifying and then
the other thing I learned that was
terrifying was I never saw anyone in my
therapeutic practice ever get away with
anything even once
like you know there's that old idea that
God has a book and and everything you do
is written down it's like that's not
just an idea
you get away with nothing and of course
it makes sense it's like
reality is real and you distort and bend
it at your peril and you may produce a
riff temporarily but that will snap
closed on you and you may not even
notice the connection between your
initial sin failure to meet the target
to hit the target and the consequences
of that but the consequences are
inevitable and it's even worse than that
because not only are they inevitable
they tend to multiply
and so all of that to to the degree that
I've been capable has scared me straight
let's say it's like no I'm not going
down that path
and so and you learn to as a therapist
you learn the ancient truth that
the truth is Redemptive right and this
is this is another of the Great
accomplishments of Freud because Freud
shed new light on the logos in some ways
right because Freud understood that
true speech heals
right I mean that's his his entire
therapeutic approach is bring people in
and don't
disturb them when they're trying to tell
you something let them say anything
absolutely and that's what he told his
clients too is like say whatever comes
to your mind right let no matter how off
color off-putting embarrassing shameful
aggressive sexual
find out who you are that's the first
draft lay yourself out on the table and
while he had them lay themselves out on
a couch he hid from his clients so they
couldn't he was afraid that if they saw
his face they would censor themselves by
watching his emotional reactions so he
sat off to the side of his clients so
they could just
say what they had to say with no
interference and
you know this because you're an educator but
but
people cannot
organize themselves and come to who they
are without laying themselves out and
they can't lay themselves out without
thinking or talking most people think by
talking in fact you learn to think by talking
talking
you can't talk if no one listens most
people most people have no one to listen
to them yeah if so you know education is
a little bit different than therapy but
sometimes not and one way it's different is
is
now education is a common project
that people share
and each has to do his part or he won't
get any benefit from it but better
together as you say and so around here I
there's a we have a lot of psychological
counseling here when we but also the
kids cancel each other and that's and
that's a different thing because
they're in the same boat they're trying
to get the same thing done they want to
understand the most important things
and that's a form of therapy actually
when you think about it because well
actually therapy is a form of that yeah
right right because yeah sure sure I
mean the therapeutic Endeavor is dialogue
dialogue
right and it's
I guess the advantage if you have a good
therapist which is very rare in becoming
more and more difficult as it becomes
illegal to be a good therapist which it
already is by the way
um because it's now illegal to tell your
clients what you think and so that's the
end of that Enterprise because that's
all there was to it so but
therapy is
it's it's dialogue in search it's dialogue
dialogue
look it's a religious Enterprise it's
motivated by love
what's our aim here therapeuticate to
make things better why because we think
it's worthy it's a worthy Enterprise to
make things better that's the
proclamation of love right love aims at
making things better love aims at making the world more abundant it aims at
the world more abundant it aims at reducing unnecessary suffering right
reducing unnecessary suffering right it's an enobling Enterprise love and so
it's an enobling Enterprise love and so the therapeutic process aims at love and
the therapeutic process aims at love and uses truth and that's a religious
uses truth and that's a religious Enterprise it's a logos Enterprise it's
Enterprise it's a logos Enterprise it's a dialogical Enterprise and it's a form
a dialogical Enterprise and it's a form of secularized religious practice so I
of secularized religious practice so I have one last question
have one last question uh I know you're doing things you're you
uh I know you're doing things you're you go all over the world you got
go all over the world you got friends and fans everywhere you started
friends and fans everywhere you started in some kind of organization
in some kind of organization uh
uh my last question is how are you going to
my last question is how are you going to save the world
save the world one person at a time
one person at a time right that's always how it's happened
right that's always how it's happened you know what's the leftist Mantra the
you know what's the leftist Mantra the Long March through the institutions well
Long March through the institutions well how do you combat that with the longer
how do you combat that with the longer March through the individuals
March through the individuals right there's the rest of it's an
right there's the rest of it's an illusion in in a way
illusion in in a way there are individuals
there are individuals right that's where the rubber hits the
right that's where the rubber hits the road
road individuals suffer
individuals suffer individuals bear responsibility
individuals bear responsibility right one of the
right one of the one of the
one of the gifts I suppose that
gifts I suppose that the biblical Corpus gave to the UK the
the biblical Corpus gave to the UK the UK transformed into Political wisdom and
UK transformed into Political wisdom and transmitted to the U.S was the
transmitted to the U.S was the proposition that the individual was the
proposition that the individual was the proper unit of analysis the fundamental
proper unit of analysis the fundamental unit of analysis and I believe that
unit of analysis and I believe that that's the case which is why I'm a
that's the case which is why I'm a psychologist as I said and not a not a
psychologist as I said and not a not a sociologist or a or a political
sociologist or a or a political operative it's it's the the road it's
operative it's it's the the road it's it's always been the case that the route
it's always been the case that the route to heaven and Away From Hell
to heaven and Away From Hell is the root of the individual soul
is the root of the individual soul and I I believe that that's it's
and I I believe that that's it's theologically true it's metaphysically
theologically true it's metaphysically true it's philosophically true I also
true it's philosophically true I also believe that it's
believe that it's materially true right insofar as
materially true right insofar as that sort of Truth can be instantiated
that sort of Truth can be instantiated materially it's true at every level
materially it's true at every level simultaneously
simultaneously in agreeing with that I will say
in agreeing with that I will say all of the greatest philosopher
all of the greatest philosopher political philosophers and all of the
political philosophers and all of the greatest greatest Statesmen thought
greatest greatest Statesmen thought precisely that
precisely that the purpose of the nation or the regime
the purpose of the nation or the regime is the happiness of its people
is the happiness of its people and they come together to help make it
and they come together to help make it but each has to make his own and that
but each has to make his own and that that hey I think that's a very beautiful
that hey I think that's a very beautiful way that's how the founders of America
way that's how the founders of America organized the country and
organized the country and uh my own view is
uh my own view is beautiful things cannot abidingly lose
beautiful things cannot abidingly lose their luster and I will say that in our
their luster and I will say that in our time which is of desperate time
time which is of desperate time your success and influence is one of the
your success and influence is one of the Key signs that I'm right about that
Key signs that I'm right about that thank you for being with me thank you
thank you for being with me thank you sir it's always a pleasure to be at
sir it's always a pleasure to be at Hillsdale and to see you
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