Dr Jordan Peterson Their doomandgloom warnings were utter nonsense
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00:00 65% of voters feel America is on the wrong track.
00:04 And 37% of them feel the country's problems have gotten
00:07 so bad we're now in danger of failing as a nation as we come
00:11 up on a 250th year anniversary.
00:14 >> That's right psychologist and author doctor Jordan
00:16 Peterson is here to react good morning, good morning, thanks
00:19 for joining us what is your reaction to this.
00:21 >> Well I think if you spend 40 years demoralizing people that
00:25 it works.
00:26 And we've spent probably more than 40 years since the mid
00:30 60's we've been on a campaign to demoralize people.
00:33 I think it started with the club of Rome types who claim that
00:37 the world was overpopulated that we're all headed to hell
00:39 in a handbasket and there's no evidence that any of that is
00:42 true in the idea was that by the year 2000 everyone would be
00:45 starving to death in the commodity prices would shoot
00:48 through the roof and that the planet couldn't tolerate 3
00:50 billion people or 4 billion people in.
00:52 All that turned out to be utter nonsense were richer worldwide
00:56 than we ever were before there's absolutely no shortage
00:59 of resources commodity prices have gone down the world record
01:03 harvest this year and all you ever hear is doom and gloom.
01:06 Yeah, you know, I mean I've been thinking about that a lot
01:09 and and because I tend to think about things psychologically
01:12 obviously and my sense is is that people who want to garner
01:16 power to themselves use fear and I think that's how you can
01:19 tell real leaders from
01:20 want to be tyrants is that if they're trying to terrorize you
01:25 into granting them all the power then they're essentially
01:28 tyrants and not leaders and you see that happening everywhere.
01:31 Jordan who are the 35% who think we're on the right track.
01:35 Well those people. They're probably people who are
01:39 temperamentally optimistic, you know, I mean some of some of
01:42 what
01:43 determines people's attitudes about the future varies with the
01:47 circumstances, but some people you know they're so optimistic
01:50 by central temperament that even if they're in a crisis,
01:52 they're not going to be upset so that's a good thing. Yeah,
01:55 they also tend to be conservatives because we know
01:57 as well that the most unhappy people the most unhappy people
02:00 are liberal men and then I think the next most unhappy
02:03 people are liberal women.
02:05 Well so the happy ones are are optimistic and they tend to be
02:10 conservative.
02:11 >> I know you told me you spend time Boston lot of time Boston
02:14 but you're Canadian but you spend a lot of time in America
02:16 to get a sense of both.
02:17 Is your sense that America feels negative about our own
02:22 country because of a outgo a deliberate plot to make us not
02:27 like what we have feel guilty for we've obtained to resent
02:31 our past was this something just happened. But you think
02:34 it's someone scripting this.
02:36 >> Well, I think there's 2 things that are happening is
02:38 that
02:39 the culture war is a war between systems of ideas and
02:43 and it's a essentially a war between
02:45 the ideas that are part and parcel of the classic Western
02:49 tradition that's grounded in in the biblical corpus
02:52 essentially so Judeo Christian culture and the counter
02:56 reaction to that which is kind of what what post enlightenment
02:59 Marxism and so you have a war between 2 sets of ideas.
03:02 But then you also have people who are acting directly in you
03:06 know a cause I conspiratorial manner the club of Rome types
03:10 for example from the 1960's who decided back then that
03:13 like as I said earlier that the planet is going to hell in the
03:16 handbasket and that something has to be done about that
03:19 emergency and so we're the problem.
03:21 We're the problem. Yeah, there's too many human beings
03:24 on the planet that's a good way of identifying people who are
03:26 definitely not your allies if people think people who think
03:29 there are too many people on the planet that is not a good
03:32 thing to think that's like something with genocidal
03:35 that's got genocidal implications just just about
03:38 our country in particular. There's so much to like we
03:40 used to be a country that was to boastful people like enough
03:43 with the America.
03:44 >> Enough with America being the greatest and we walk on
03:46 water. We didn't see our problems now all we see is
03:49 problems like what happened to that school of thought where
03:53 your team was the best team and the problem maybe for critics
03:56 would be the arrogance of Americans now we have no
04:00 self-esteem which one to apologize to everybody when did
04:02 that happen or do you see not see I think that emerged out of
04:05 the 60's as well I think the university's had a lot to do
04:08 with that there's the left wing tyrannical types are
04:12 particularly good at manipulating guilt and that
04:14 actually works quite well on conservatives because
04:17 conservatives tend to be more conscientious and so if you
04:20 accuse a conservative of moral impropriety on the guilt front
04:24 they're likely to take that seriously notice if you say to
04:27 someone who's more conscientious look you know
04:29 you're probably a little more sexist than you could be in
04:31 your problem or racist than you could be the conservative type
04:35 who's conscientious is going to think well, you know, I'm
04:37 really not perfect and there are ways I could improve that I
04:40 could look at myself and and that's fine because you should
04:43 look at yourself, but the problem with it is is that it
04:46 allows the psychopathic types who are manipulative and power
04:50 hungry to use you to use your guilt as a lever and the left
04:54 in particular, especially the radical left and those are
04:56 where the real psychopathic types hang out. They're
04:59 unbelievably good at manipulating guilt.
05:01 And so yeah, they're unbelievably good at it,
05:04 you know, and I've left everybody's got something to
05:06 feel guilty about which is also something that tyrants know and
05:09 so not easily. Yeah, no. My son. Yeah, have you repented or
05:17 have you quit indulging in them. I put indulging.
05:21 >> Between me and my guy right right right right as it should
05:30 be I didn't ask you about the marriage statistics and the
05:32 statistics for ruling out children, one in 4 now ruling
05:35 out kids. I wonder if they'll change their minds when they
05:38 get older because I know I did I focused on my career and then
05:41 the children came you know I wanted to have kids in my late
05:44 30's but then 2 out of 5 think marriage is an outdated
05:48 tradition that's pretty sad.
05:49 >> Yeah, well, I mean if you convince young people as we
05:53 have that the planet's going to hell in a handbasket that there
05:56 are too many people and that your children do nothing but
05:58 produce excess carbon dioxide and that you're contributing to
06:01 the destruction of the planet, you know by planning to have
06:04 kids then the moral kids are going to start wondering about
06:07 whether or not that's appropriate and then the
06:09 irresponsible kids have an extra reason for not doing
06:12 anything that's vaguely mature. The problem with that is is
06:15 that what the hell is the alternative.
06:17 People who are alone, especially involuntarily they
06:21 just go crazy right because we all need people around us to
06:25 tap us into shape that's actually how we stay safe.
06:28 I think some people are just staying in relationships and
06:30 not getting married you look at the statistics divorce 50%
06:34 even higher than that in the church. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
06:36 well.
06:37 Yeah, well people also will assume that what is it.
06:43 The unmarried people who stay together make a big mistake
06:46 because they never they never commit formally to each other
06:49 and there's a strange idea lurking under that because to
06:53 me the process of living together means something like
06:56 this so I tell you well we'll move in together and see how it
07:01 goes because that's what you mean when you say let's move in
07:04 together, you're basically saying something like.
07:07 Well, we'll take each other for a test run like a like we might
07:11 with a used car but we're each going to keep to ourselves the
07:14 possibility of shifting upward if we can find someone better
07:18 and that's really not much of a basis for a long-term
07:21 relationship you have to say yeah, that's right I have the
07:23 right upgrade you'll do for now, but I have the right.
07:26 Well absolutely they don't well.
07:28 The thing is is that you do it's a real it's a real insult
07:32 to the person that you're with and it's an insult to yourself
07:35 to plus you don't really commit right because you always got to
07:38 back door open and the problem with not committing to a life
07:41 a long-term relationship is that the bloody thing is going
07:43 to fail in this year all in
07:45 because life is very difficult and with something like you
07:48 know a relationship that's supposed to spend the decades
07:50 if you're not all in it's not going to work.
07:52 Yeah, exactly when you keep your eye on the.
07:56 Yeah, right well that's right if there's any back door if
08:00 there's any back door at all and any reason to take it you're
08:02 going to take it so like if I know I can leave you that I'm
08:05 not going to have to discuss anything difficult with you,
08:08 but if I know if I'm stuck with you for the rest of the lot by
08:10 if I better sort things out and I might have enough.
08:12 I have another you know you always want to give a contract
08:15 to you always want to play a playing for a contract in the
08:18 final year. So if every year they're playing for renewal.
08:21 You could get a better performance year to year you
08:24 don't take anything for granted.
08:25 >> Well I think you can't take anything granted within the
08:28 confines of marriage, I mean maybe I misunderstood what you
08:30 meant, but you can't take things for granted in a marriage
08:33 either because of the force was well unless you continue to
08:36 renegotiate you lose track of each other and then things
08:39 wander apart. And so you have to be on your best game all the
08:42 time if you want to keep your marriage alive should be
08:44 anyway, I'm not saying that.
08:45 >> Jordan, I we've been over the last couple of days talking
08:48 about the survey this come out, you know a lot of people think
08:50 that kids who are in college are predominantly leading way
08:55 to the left. Yeah, now there's this new survey that has come
08:58 out that has shown that 12th grade high school boys are
09:02 trending conservative whereas 12th grade high school girls
09:06 are trending
09:07 to the progressive side. Yeah, so why suddenly are these
09:11 young men about to enter college of the workforce or
09:15 whatever becoming more conservative.
09:17 >> Now because they've been listening to Joe Rogan.
09:19 Yeah, well, really that that well that's definitely part of
09:23 it, I mean there's there's a kid. No, I'm not kidding,
09:27 I'm not kidding at all there's a counter cultural conservative
09:30 movement is very very powerful and and I also think that the
09:33 young men who are tilting in that direction at the
09:36 forefront young women will fall, it will be a 5 year lag
09:39 something like that but the young men get there first.
09:41 >> Well, that's how it looks like that sports for getting
09:45 into that the combat sports you see Zuckerberg and now doing it
09:49 a lot of people get trying to all right if if society is
09:52 trying to feminize me I'm going to push back in some other way
09:56 and they might be fun to conservative movement for that
09:58 yeah, well there's some danger in that too because you know
10:01 there are people who are more extreme on the sort of pro
10:03 masculine side and you take people like that sort of spring
10:06 to mind that become a truck to men that are being the man like
10:10 feminized in the manner that you described and so.
10:13 >> Well I on the note of what you're talking about the
10:15 pendulum swinging when does it swing back the other way with
10:17 schools and teaching sex to our children at an early age,
10:21 you know a lot of you have a problem with what Ron de
10:23 Santis did down in Florida. I didn't because I have a child
10:26 going into second grade we're not talking about sex we don't
10:29 talk about that at all. She just knows got what they be
10:32 doing in a in a in a mom's tummy.
10:33 >> I think what's happening in the States is that the answer
10:36 to the problem of sex education in schools is we'll just take
10:41 our kids out of the dam schools.
10:42 I think the whole system will collapse. I also think if the
10:45 Republican governors have us a lick of sense,
10:49 especially with regard to long-term planning that they
10:51 would take teacher certification away from the
10:54 faculties of education because the faculties of education are
10:58 what you say they're sort of rotten central in the
11:00 university system and they have a complete hammer lock on
11:03 teacher certification and therefore you know grip on the
11:05 whole education system so just real quick because I want you
11:08 to talk about your online universe, yeah, starting with
11:10 you. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, I'm not very happy with
11:14 what the universities have done over the last let's say 20
11:16 years that you've been part of yeah, yeah, well, yeah until
11:20 about 6 years ago. We're trying to put a system online
11:25 Peterson Academy that will drop the cost of a bachelor's degree
11:28 to $4,000 we think we can find the best lectures in the world
11:31 and bring them to people and also instantiate a set of
11:35 extremely what would you say severe and high quality.
11:39 Accreditation standards for the graduates so that people who
11:43 graduate from our university be stamped with with with a
11:47 credential that indicates genuine competence literacy
11:50 intelligence conscientiousness and so forth and I think that
11:53 whole system is right for an extreme upset how do we get it
11:57 it's way too expensive. We'll have to get online to be
11:59 online at Peterson Academy likely in November.
12:02 >> Only for the whole for the whole 4 years, but we hope we
12:05 can do it cheaper than that but yeah, that's the plan is there
12:09 a political tilt or tent to it.
12:12 >> Not purposefully I mean there hasn't been a purposeful
12:14 political tilt anything that I've done I've been just tried
12:17 to say what I thought was true turns out that that tends to be
12:20 more conservative now and in the climate that's been
12:23 generated politically so that wasn't purposeful I never
12:26 thought of myself as a conservative are you selling it
12:29 as if you want to think like me.
12:30 No I'm selling it if you want to think
12:34 good area, you know, and you know it's a tricky issue
12:38 because it's really it's really not obvious why you would want
12:41 to think because it's rather painful right so hard these
12:44 days why think because acting out stupid ideas is even worse.
12:49 I know, but that's really the answer is why should you debate
12:52 with people why should you have difficult conversations with
12:55 yourself and the answer is to straighten things out before you
12:58 put them into action because bad is thinking is not thinking
13:01 is worse and people are taught that well either and we'd like
13:04 to make that clear to people who are saying rolling in this
13:07 university, you know think or die
13:09 or suffer those are really your options.
13:12 >> I don't want to think interacting is key to so you
13:15 could yeah, but you want to hear what people have to say
13:18 and then maybe test you and make you go deeper in your
13:20 beliefs or or whether there is a much difference in speaking
13:24 with people, especially having difficult conversations and
13:26 thinking and even when you think internally what you're
13:29 really doing is you're setting yourself, you're setting an
13:31 internal dialogue up in your head. So you know you you make
13:35 yourself an enemy of the position that you hold you let
13:37 your enemy have his say and you listen if you're thinking
13:41 verbally and you're actually thinking that's what you're
13:43 doing might be 2 or 3 people at the same time, you know having
13:46 at or in your head, but most people think by talking which
13:49 is why free speech is so important right you can't speak
13:52 freely. You can't think and if you can't think then you
13:55 suffer. So that's the that's the cause that we need to be
13:58 doing at home with our children, what are your parents
14:00 do with you.
14:01 >> They were they were encouraging.
14:04 You know, I think one of the things that really
14:07 distinguished my family to the degree that it was distinguished
14:10 was that my father in particular my mother was very
14:13 accepting and a very loving person. But my father was a
14:17 very encouraging person with relatively high standards but
14:21 his proposition was something like
14:23 well you can be doing better.
14:25 But I think you can do it and that's that's that
14:29 encouragement is extremely useful and I think part of the
14:31 reason that my work is being popular online.
14:34 And in the public domain is because it's encouraging now
14:38 and I don't tell young men for example, this is back to the
14:40 issue young man, I don't say well you're OK the way you are
14:43 because what the hell what young man wants to hear that
14:46 every young man who has any sense at all goes perfectly
14:48 well that he's not OK the way he is if he was OK the way he
14:52 is women would be flocking to them to him and they're not and
14:55 the reason for that is he has a lot to learn still you know,
14:59 but you can say well you have a lot to learn, you know look at
15:02 you you're a mess you have a lot to learn, but you could
15:05 learn it and if you did well, maybe make something yourself
15:08 and then you then there's some hope in that message right,
15:11 you know because you think well if you just accepted people the
15:13 way they are they be happy it's like no they wouldn't because
15:16 they have nothing to shoot for and people who have nothing to
15:18 shoot for aren't happy because happiness actually is a
15:22 consequence of moving towards something that you're aiming
15:25 for so no way in no happiness that's another good thing for
15:29 young people to know to do is that is what is this
15:33 technically technically happiness occurs when you see
15:36 yourself moving towards a value goal that's how it works
15:40 neuropsychologically that's how it works chemically it's an
15:43 indication of progress towards a goal. So the higher your goal
15:47 the higher your possibility for happiness, even though you have
15:49 to you're never going to have it that's right if you that's
15:52 exactly right let's don't set a goal you'll never be happy we
15:56 have we are really happy that you would drop by wide range of
15:59 conversation now let's have some cheese.
16:01 >> Peterson we thank you very much for joining us live my
16:05 pleasure.
16:06 >> I don't want to go more.
16:11 >> I look at the university. I think we're all going to be a
16:15 great information about that go to Peterson Academy. Yeah,
16:19 okay, good.
16:20 >> I'm Steve do see I'm Brian kill me and I mean clear heart
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