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Psychology, Sexuality, and the AI Revolution - Jordan Peterson

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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YouTube Transcript:Psychology, Sexuality, and the AI Revolution - Jordan Peterson

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Psychology, Sexuality, and the AI Revolution - Jordan Peterson