Jordan Peterson: From the Barricades of the Culture Wars - Modern Indentured Servitude is the equivalent of a higher education

12 Rules For Life

Modern Indentured Servitude is the equivalent of a higher education 

The book TWELVE RULES FOR LIFE

so I assume you're all here to talk

about the early work of Carl Jung and

this man's carnivorous diet and the

Soviet art he collects um no in all

seriousness I'm I'm really excited to be

here with you we've never met before

your official title is that you are a

clinical psychologist and a professor at

the University of Toronto you've written

two books one called knops meaning and

the best-selling twelve rules for life

which is currently being translated into

40 languages but this description does

not capture what you become which is a

kind of phenomenon when I was reading 12

rules for life in a cafe in the locker

room of my gym it was sitting out on a

bench people were coming up to me and

saying this book saved my life

and yet there are other people in the

country including some of my fellow

journalists who insists that you are

actually a gateway drug to the far right

so I'm excited to be here with you not

the mists of you but with the man and

I'm hoping we can use this hour or so to

talk about your views on meaning on

gender on feminism God Higher Education

and I'm sure we can solve all of that in

under an hour so I want to start with

the book twelve rules for life which I'm

hoping some of you have read here are

some of the messages in that book gender

isn't a social construct people should

strive for meaning in their lives not

happiness life is suffering but there

are ways to transcend it stand up

straight

make your bed now all of this to me

seems pretty common sensical and yet i

don't think that there is a Canadian in

the world that I've read more think

pieces about I don't think it's a

stretch to say that you are sort of the

most loved and loathed public

intellectual in the Western world moment

so I'm wondering if you can talk a

little bit about what that's like and

your understanding of it you just come

from two days in Vancouver where with on

an event with Sam Harris talking for

over two hours about the question of

truth and 5,000 people showed up to

those events not exactly a sexy Beyonce

concert

what's going on how do you understand it

and your place in it well I think you

don't want to underestimate the role

that technological transformation is

playing in this you know I've been

thinking about YouTube and podcasts

quite intensely for about two years so I

started putting my university lectures

on YouTube in 2013 and I did that for a

variety of reasons mostly curiosity

because and the drive to learn and I

found that if I want to learn a

technology the best way to do it is to

use it and I'm always learning new

technologies because well not that that

makes me particularly unique but and I

had some success with my lectures on

public television in Canada so I did

some lectures with a series called Big

Ideas on Canadian public television and

there's about 200 of those lectures and

I did five of them 210 by 200 different

people but I did five of them they were

regularly in the top ten of the most

viewed lectures and so I knew there was

some broader market for let's say ideas

and I thought well I might as well put

my lectures up on YouTube and see what

happens and then by April of 2016 I had

a million views and I thought huh the

only reason people are watching these is

because they want to watch them because

they're actually really hard and a

million of something is a lot if you if

you sell a million copies of your book

well first of all that never happens

right I mean it's very very rare you're

very happy you never have your paper

scientific papers cited a million times

you rarely have a million dollars it's a

very large number and I thought well

fair enough fair enough and it's of

course it's not as uncommon as it once

was but it's still a significant number

and I didn't really have any way of

calibrating that I thought well what am

I supposed to do now that I hit a

million views how am I supposed to

conceptualize that what is this YouTube

thing anyways that was once a repository

for cute

out videos so what does it mean to have

a million views on it I thought and so I

really started to think about it because

you know there were a lot of people

commenting as well and they were they

were into the lectures and and following

them avidly and I thought okay so what

is this YouTube exactly I thought well

for the first time in human history the

spoken word has the same reach as the

written word and not only that no leg to

publication and no barrier to entry

that's a major technological revolution

that's a Gutenberg revolution that's a

big deal this is a this is a

game-changer and then it was soon after

that that I discovered the podcast world

which is about ten times as big as the

YouTube world and the podcast world is

also a Gutenberg revolution except it's

even more extensive because the problem

with books and videos is that you can't

do anything else while you're doing them

right when you're reading you're reading

when you're watching a video you know

you can be distracted but you have to

pay attention to the video but if you're

listening to a podcast you can be

driving a forklift or a long-haul truck

or you can be exercising or doing the

dishes and so what that means is that

podcasts free up say two hours a day for

people to engage in educational

activities that they wouldn't otherwise

be able to engage in and that's about

one-eighth of people's lives so podcasts

hand people one-eighth of their life

back to engage in high-level education

so then I thought well people actually

want to do this there's a massive market

for high level intellectual engagement

that's much deeper and and and more

desperate let's say than anyone

suspected we really saw that it out in

Vancouver you know I mean the discussion

I had with Sam Harris the two

discussions we talked about the

relationship between facts and values

was really there and science and

religion more peripherally but the

dialogue was conducted at the level I

would say approximately at the level of

a pretty rigorous PhD defense

and we were only supposed to talk for an

hour and then go to QA but the crowd

didn't want us to stop and so we talked

the first night for two and a half hours

and the second night for two and a half

hours and the crowd was 100% on board

the entire time and it and it wasn't

because Sam was winning or I was winning

neither of us in fact we're trying to

win we were trying to learn something

and we were actually trying to learn

something we weren't just pretending to

do that and you know the place erupted

at the end and I think one of the things

I've realized in the last couple of days

as I've been thinking this through is

that the narrow band width of TV has

made us think we're stupider than we are

and so people have a real hunger for

deep intellectual dialogue and and that

can be met with these new technologies

and that has revolutionary significance

and that's starting to unfold I wonder

about you love to quote this line this

Nietzsche line that Oh anyone who has a

why to live for can endure almost any

how yeah what's your why what is driving

you you are the most busy man I mean to

get you here you know I think you're

like important wherever you were last

night in Portland tomorrow like I don't

know you're alive frankly right now what

is driving you like what what is this

relentless Drive what are you pushing

toward I'm trying to well when I spent

15 years writing the first book I wrote

which is called maps of meaning and it's

a it's it's akin to twelve rules to life

although it's a much more difficult book

the audio version of that book is out

now by the way it's been out since June

12th and I would if you like twelve

rules or you were interested in it and

you could try that

I think the audio version is much more

accessible because it's a difficult book

getting the cadences of the of the

sentences right is an aid to

comprehension I spent 15 years reading

that book about three hours a day

writing and a lot more time reading and

I was interested in solving a problem

which was I was interested in the great

atrocities of the 20th century the ones

that were committed on the right and the

ones that were committed on the left but

I was interested in that psychologically

and what that meant was had I been there

what could have I done to not

participate and so that's what I've been

trying to figure out how so because for

me what happened in Nazi Germany and

what happened in the Gulag Archipelago

and in Maoist China many places was

sufficient definition of hell convincing

as well and I wanted to understand what

the opposite of that was and not

sociologically or politically or

economically because I think that in the

final analysis those levels of

explanation are insufficient but

psychologically how is it that you must

conduct yourself in the world so that if

the opportunity to participate in such

things arises you won't and you know

when the Holocaust museums went up there

was there was a motto that went along

with them which was never forget and I

thought yeah fair enough but you can't

remember what you don't understand and

so I wanted to understand it but I

wanted to understand it you see when

people read history they either read it

as a detached observer or they tend to

read it as well maybe the heroic the

heroic protagonists people like do it

imagine that they would be Schindler in

Schindler's List but that's wrong so

because the probability that you'll be

the perpetrator is much higher

especially merely the perpetrator who's

ensconced in silence when silence is not

the appropriate thing so I wanted to

having figured out what constituted hell

and the pathway to that which would be I

suppose the cowardice that produces the

cowardice and resentment that produces

either complicitous in those events or

failure to oppose them when they emerge

I wanted to understand what the opposite

of that was because I think that's what

needs to be learned from what happened

in the 20th century and so that's why I

wrote maps of meaning was to understand

that and to lay out what the opposite

was and then that turned out to be

extremely helpful to me and

then to the people I started to teach

about that because it's useful to know

what the opposite of hell is and I've

been teaching those things to people

since 1993

such 25 years and the response from the

students has always been the same sort

of response that I'm getting now absent

some of the negative characterizations

let's say which which have emerged that

for particular reasons but the students

have always said one of two things and

this is the vast majority of them this

isn't cherry-picked responses it's been

the same everywhere they tell me and

this is the same response I get from my

audiences now too is they say you've

given me words to explain things to

explain and understand things that are

always new to be true or I was in a very

dark place for one of the seven reasons

that people might be in a dark place

alcohol or drugs or failure of

relationships or lack of vision or

nihilism or or hopelessness or

depression or anxiety if you know the

pitfalls that people can encounter and

I've been developing a vision for my

life and trying to adopt responsibility

and trying to be careful with what I say

and things are way better and that's

what drives me so you know it's so

interesting watching what's happening

because you know you said I'm the most

loathed and the most loved man it's like

I'm loathed by a very small percentage

of very noisy people and so and there

are people who either don't or haven't

or won't or on taking take a look at

what I'm doing partly because it doesn't

fit within their conceptual scheme you

know whenever I'm interviewed by

journalists with with that have the

scent of blood in their nose let's say

they're they're very willing and able to

characterize the situation I find myself

in as political but that's because they

can't see the world in any other manner

than political and the political is a

tiny fraction of the world and what I'm

doing isn't political it's psychological

or philosophical or theological the

political element is peripheral and

if if people come to the live lectures

let's say that's absolutely self-evident

there that's not what they're about that

isn't why people are there that isn't

what they talked to me about afterwards

it's fundamentally irrelevant the only

reason this ever became political is

because in Canada our provincial and

federal governments had the unspeakable

arrogance to propose compelled speech

legislation in a British common law

system where that had never been done

ever even once and despite the fact that

your Supreme Court in 1942 made some

such things unconstitutional no that was

explained to people here what what

actually happened which is that you

oppose this law which was going to

compel you you say to use preferred

pronouns of people that are transgender

is that accurate it's it's accurate but

partial so there was a there's

provincial laws that were already in

place to compel this sort of thing but a

federal law had been generated and I

went and read the policy guidelines

within which the federal law was to be

interpreted and those were produced by

the Ontario Human Rights Commission

which is a radical leftist Inquisition

fundamentally and they had documented

out a very large number of policies that

were that it would make anyone sensible

hair stand on end if they read them

which they didn't but I did and not only

did I read them I understood them and

having read them and understood them I

made videos just one night I got up at

about 3:00 in the morning because it was

really bothering me for a variety of

complicated reasons including the fact

that a number of my clinical clients had

been bullied into states of ill mental

health by radical social justice

warriors at their various workplaces and

this was long before I was embroiled in

any of this controversy by the way so it

wasn't a sampling bias and so and at the

same and at the same time the university

my University had the gall the

unmitigated gall to mandate unconscious

bias retraining for their Human

Resources staff despite the fact that

unconscious bias measurements are not

reliable or valid even by the testimony

of

formulators and despite the evidence

that there is no there's no data

whatsoever lending unconscious bias

retraining programs even the vaguest

shred of credible outcome so I made

these videos and because I was annoyed

about this and I thought wow what will

happen if I make a video I'm so this is

one of the things that I feel or maybe

you can answer it for us I feel because

of this incident you are often

characterized at least in the mainstream

press as being transphobic if you had a

student come to you and said and they

said to you I was born female I now

identify as male I want to go I want you

to call me by male pronouns would you

say yes for that well it would depend on

the student and the context and why I

thought they were asking me and what I

believe their demand actually

characterized in all of that because

that can be done in a way that's genuine

and acceptable in a way that's

manipulative and unacceptable and if it

was genuine and acceptable then I'd have

no problem with it and if it was

manipulative and unacceptable then not a

chance so and you might think well Who

am I to judge well first of all I am a

clinical psychologist and I've talked to

people for about 25,000 hours and so and

I'm responsible for judging how I'm

going to use my words I judge it the

same way that I judge all the

interactions that I have with people

which is to the best of my ability and

characterized by all the errors that I'm

prone to so you know I'm not saying that

my judgment would be unerring but I have

to live with the consequences so I'm

willing to accept the responsibility so

but but also to be clear about this that

never happened I never refused to call

anyone by anything that they had asked

me to call them by and so although

that's been reported multiple times it's

a complete falsehood and it did have

nothing to do with the transgender issue

as far as I was concerned it it and

besides that if it was if it would have

only to do with the transgender issue in

Canada the probability that this would

have had the impact that it had is a

zero so that wasn't about that at all it

was about something far more

far deeper and far more insidious and

everyone knew it which is why it didn't

go away what should have happened is

there should have been a bit of

controversy around it maybe even a

protest and everyone's attention should

have gone away like a week later and

that didn't happen even a little bit so

there's more going on here then as I

knew there's far more going on here then

this little bill would have would have

revealed one of your rules in 12 rules

for life is I hope I'm getting this

right choose your words carefully and be

ironic if I got that one wrong be

precise in your speech okay be precise

in your speech which is you know you got

it right okay sort of yeah well you have

to gist of it that's the crucial thing

one of the things that's happened to you

in the past two years is that every

utterance of yours and Caitlyn alluded

to this in her introduction is analyzed

maybe manipulated how do you live with

that reality well how do you even have

the confidence to sort of continue to

from my perspective rush into the breach

on all sorts of what have become third

rail issues knowing that so much of what

you say is going to be mischaracterized

and then I have a follow-up to that mmm

well I mean about 25 years ago thirty

years ago maybe 1985 I guess that's how

far along ago is that it's long time

years yeah I decided that I was going to

be very careful with what I said like I

noticed when I was thinking through some

of these ideas that I already described

trying to understand what tilted people

towards vengefulness and and and cruelty

I was contemplating that personally you

know what would tilt me towards that or

what did tell me towards that and at the

same time I developed what would you

call an acute awareness of my speech it

was part of it because I'd asked a

question me and when you ask yourself a

question if it's you really ask a

question is you start thinking up the

answer whether you want to think it up

or not and you and the answer that might

you might generate might bear very

little resemblance to the answer

that you would like to generate and I'd

ask myself a question which was well

what's the pathway out of this hell

let's say and how might I be tangled up

in that and one of the things I started

to realize was that I wasn't very

careful with what I said and that that

seemed in some way to be related to that

it's not surprising because you know

it's not really obvious that the Nazis

for example were all that careful about

what they said in terms of its

relationship to the truth quite the

contrary

in the same with ideologues in the

Soviet Union and so the idea that there

was some relationship between

carelessness and speech lies and

deception and that sort of thing or self

aggrandizement or any of the things that

you can indulge in if you're careless

with your speech and the weakening of

your character to the point where you

might get tangled up in great and

terrible sociological movements that

seem to me to be a problem that seemed

to me to be reasonable had many people

had commented on that like Solzhenitsyn

for example can so I started to

experience discomfort with what I was

saying

and what seemed to happen was that I

started to realize and could feel it I

was reading Carl Rogers at the same time

and he actually suggested that

psychotherapists pay attention to

exactly this sort of thing I started to

understand that many of the things I was

saying weren't true I didn't really

believe them they weren't really my

thoughts they didn't make me they made

me feel weak when I said them can you

give an example okay that's a good

question can I give you an example oh

maybe I would engage in an argument with

someone at a bar on an intellectual

issue for the purpose of displaying my

intellectual superiority or at least

hypothetically displaying it you know so

you know sometimes people like to argue

and they like to argue because

hypothetically they would like to win so

you don't mean though that you were

mouthing platitude oh sure I was doing

that okay oh yes all the time and

sometimes they weren't even platitudes

you know they might have been things

that I picked up in books that weren't

cliches but they weren't mine I didn't

have any right to them like just because

you read something doesn't mean you have

a right to it you have to understand it

and understanding something that steep

means a deep transformation means you

have to live it and so just because you

know if

so fickle concept and you can say it

doesn't give you the right to utter it

as if it's yours

you have to earn that and I was a smart

kid and so I my head was full of ideas

that I hadn't earned and I could lay

them out but that doesn't mean they were

mine or me and so there was a falsity in

expressing them and so I I couldn't tell

for a while because I would say things

and part of me would be all critical

about what I was saying you don't

believe that that's not accurate it's

kind of a lie that was saying that to

almost everything I said and I took a

risk I thought okay I'm going to assume

that the part of me that's critical

about what I'm saying is right even

though that was terrible because it

really was often admit I could hardly

speak and then I learned to only say

things that didn't make me feel weak and

then I decided that that's what I was

going to do so I've been careful with

what I've been saying for a long time

but and I'm having a hard time with what

you're saying right now because

shouldn't the test be I'm only saying

things that are true not I'm only saying

things that don't make me feel weak what

am i misunderstanding in that

formulation

well you're what you're misunderstanding

in part is how do you know the things

that you're saying aren't true and I

would say one of the ways you know was

that they weaken you and you can learn

that you can learn to feel that Carl

Rogers talked about this a lot in his

work in psychotherapy he said that one

of the primary roles of a

psychotherapist was to be congruent and

by by what and what he meant by that was

that there was no disjunction between

what you felt in a situation let's say

and what you said that it was all one

piece and that was a an embodied unity

not merely a conceptual unity so I

really do think that there's there's

something to it

psychologically weak not weak in terms

of power

I mean psychologically we okay yeah yeah

yeah I mean I mean I mean morally weak I

mean weak and character that sort of

thing yeah that's what I mean okay yeah

and so and so you know I got very

careful with what I said and at the same

time I was spending a tremendous amount

of time writing and so I was very

careful with what I wrote so in maps of

meaning I think I rewrote every sentence

in that book at least 50 times and so

that's great and every sentence I yeah

are you sure oh yeah that's for sure now

you know I take the sentence out and

then I write a bunch of variants of it

and then I would pick the variant that

was best and then I would try to come up

with all the arguments I could about why

the sentence was stupidly so tell me you

still do this yeah I still do this okay

did you do that 15 15 versions of every

sentence and 12 rules for life also I

said 50 Oh 50 excuse me I was more like

I meant to be precise in my speech okay

listen it was more like 15 with 12 rules

for life so it was less but I'm a better

writer than I was then so I didn't have

to do it quite as often so I kept

writing it until I couldn't make the

sentences any better

that doesn't mean they were good it just

meant that I got to the point where if I

was rewriting them it wasn't obvious

that the rewrite was better than the

original sentence so then I had to stop

so my question of a few minutes ago was

how has knowing that you're going to be

intentionally the your words are gonna

be sort of intentionally torqued and how

has that changed you well it's made me

even more careful okay you know it's

exaggerated the cake the care but you

know I had been quite careful and the

evidence for that is quite clear so you

know when when all of this political

controversy surrounded me and that

swirled around me well it still is maybe

it's even exaggerated to some degree but

it was very intense in Canada for a good

six months and people were going over

what I had put on YouTube with a

fine-tooth comb and there was 200 hours

of videos there and you think well with

some creative editing and and with

motivation in mind you think if you went

over 200 hours of someone's lectures you

could find a smoking pistol even if you

had to chop out a sentence no one found

anything and the reason for that was

there wasn't anything there that's why

they didn't find it and so I would had

already been very careful and I

discussed all sorts of unbelievably

contentious issues you know because my

classes were very intense we went with

like the maps of meaning class in

particular it's like

it's you know it get caught it's it's

basic presupposition partly what I was

trying to do with my students was to

convince them that had they been in Nazi

Germany in the 1930s they wouldn't have

been on the side of the good right

that's a hell of a thing to drag people

through but it's statistically

overwhelmingly likely so it was a very

serious class and certainly a place

where you could step badly at any given

moment you know and I talked about

gender differences and and the

biological substructure of consciousness

and all these things that could easily

become politically contentious but as I

said there weren't any smoking pistols

but now for the last two years I've been

even more careful and I have people

watching me you know I mean my family

watches me and what I'm doing they keep

very careful track of it and if I

deviate a little bit from what they

think I should have from how I should

have behaved then they tell me and I

have friends who are doing the same

thing and I listen to them do you feel

that you deviated from how you should

behave when you said oh uh I think it

was Mishra in the New York Review of

Books know that well let me just share

what you said which is I'm trying to be

precise in my speech but I believe you

said you're a sink what did you say that

you were if you really abstract ammonia

spray and if you were in the room up you

yeah so you don't regret that not a bit

okay and I'll tell you why okay well

look it's really complicated you know I

have this I have this friend who's a

native Carver and he he's he he comes

from a very rough background like way

rougher than you think and and maybe

some of you have come from rough

backgrounds or you know people who've

come from them but he comes from a

plenty rough background and I started

working with him buying his art 15 years

ago and he was a survivor of residential

schools in Canada and we got pretty

close and he helped me design the third

floor of my house and and and anyways

that the long and short of it was that I

got inducted into his family about two

year and a half ago this big ceremony up

and in a native reservation in northern

Vancouver and you know we've been

through a lot together and a lot of it's

been pretty rough

and you know this whatever the hell his

name was Mishra sure whatever the hell

his name was had the temerity to say

that I was Romancing the noble savage

it's like watch your step buddy you

don't know what the hell you're talking

about not even a bit and so had I been a

left-leaning what personage and he had

made a comment like that there would

have been hell to pay

so which isn't to say that I'm a

right-leaning personage by the way so I

don't regret it a bit I think that what

he said was absolutely reprehensible and

that he should have been called out on

it and so I don't regret it at all now

people said you know maybe it would have

been better for me not to have made that

comment it's possible that they're right

but I actually thought about it and I

thought there's no excuse for that you

don't know what you're talking about

you're meddling with things you don't

understand and you're making a casual

aspersion not only on me but on my noble

savage friend

it's like ya know so speaking of things

that people have said sort of to defame

you you're currently suing Wilfrid

Laurier University because you'll

correct me if I'm wrong but I think

administrators there in their meeting

with Lindsey Shepherd who was a TA who

showed a clip of you

they sort of interrogated her accusing

her of creating a hostile teaching

environment for showing a clip of you in

her classroom and during that

interaction which she recorded they

compared you to Hitler no they compared

me to Hitler or Milo you nopales excuse

me

right now it's important and the reason

it's important is because look these

people to one of the 13 just and just

just to finish that question

maybe you'll braid this in you are one

of the most outspoken champions I would

say a free speech right now I would like

for you if you can to sort of grapple a

bit with being believing in free speech

so strongly and yet also suing this

university for slander yeah well so

first of all they compared me to they

said playing a clip of Jordan Peterson

was like playing a clip of Hitler or

Milo innopolis and I thought

well let's go a little easy on the

Hitler comparisons there guys we might

want to save that for when it's really

necessary because you don't you don't

use it's it's sacrilegious to use an

insult like that except in situations

where it's justified it's not

appropriate to use a catastrophe like

that casually especially when you're

doing it under the guise of moral virtue

there's no excuse for it and then the

second thing is you're a professor both

of you get your damn words straight

which is it my Hitler and my lowly

innopolis seriously those are not the

same people in case you didn't notice

one of them was the worst barbarian in

the 20th century with the possible

exception of Stalin and Mao and the

other one is is a provocateur trickster

who's quite quick on his feet and and

and is what would you say is stirring

things up in a relatively non

problematic way they're not the same

creature and so to combine them in a

single careless insult during an

administrative what would you call

investigation which was entirely

unwarranted by the way and was

predicated on an absolute lie there

hadn't been a student complaint as the

university admitted there was no excuse

for that and if they weren't professors

then well it wouldn't have been so bad

but they were and the reason that I sued

them there's a whole bunch of reasons I

mean that the Hitler comparison the Milo

u Nautilus comparison were only two of

about forty things that they tarred me

with and and they're all listed in the

deposition and the only reason I brought

the lawsuit forward but seven months

later something like that was because of

what happened with Lindsay Shepard

so what happened to her at Lynne's at

Wilfred Laurie is absolutely inexcusable

everything they did to her was

predicated on a lie then the University

apologized and so did the professor and

then he lied during his his his apology

which was a forced apology anyways and

therefore a very little utility they

were subject to no disciplinary action

even though the statutes of the

university required it and they made

Lindsay Sheppard's life a living hell

even after they apologized to her and

told her that she did nothing wrong

and that they hadn't followed their own

procedures so I read her deposition and

I actually read it on YouTube where it's

got about 500,000 views by the way and I

thought you people haven't learned

anything you've learned absolutely

nothing and so if one lawsuit doesn't

convince you maybe two will so and then

with regards to free speech it's like

free speech is still bounded inside a

structure of law and the P these people

broke the law or at least that's my

claim so I don't see the contradiction

there at all you can't just slander

someone defame them lie about them you

can't incite people to crime there's all

sorts of reasonable restrictions on free

speech that are already codified

essentially in the British common law

system so but wilfred laurier learned

nothing but this isn't over yet

but isn't it creating a chilling effect

which is something that those of us

cares so much about free speech want to

sort of stay away from you could say

that these sort of defamation lawsuits

are a really really dangerous slippery

slope and I'm sort of surprised you

don't see it that way well you know I do

see it that way which is why I spent

seven months thinking about it before I

decided to do it but I thought that

there's always risk in every decision

there's the risk of doing something and

there's the risk of not doing something

and both of those risks are usually

catastrophic in every decision you make

in life it's like ice I weighed up the

risks and I thought no the risk here of

not doing something is greater than the

risk of doing something have had they

shown any sign look one of the things

that wilfred laurier did in the

aftermath of this scandal which by the

way was the biggest scandal that ever

hit a canadian university by a large

margin and it was an international

scandal I rarely go places where people

haven't heard about this and so it was a

big deal and they had plenty to learn

and they learned nothing they set up a

panel hypothetically to clarify their

position on free speech and its

relationship to inclusivity etc and the

only two people on the panel who were

advocating for the free speech position

resigned in frustration and I know that

because I know who they are and so and

so well that's just one of the pieces of

evidence that they didn't learn anything

and then they continue to

Street Shepherd continually like her her

deposition it's like in it's like a

novel of stupidity you know it's like

and my sense was had there been any sign

whatsoever of let's call it true apology

and procedural rectification that she

would have left them alone and so would

have I but there was zero in fact if

anything what they did was double down

and go underground here's our apology

here's our procedures that's what they

showed the world here's how nothing at

all has changed it's like no not good

enough since we're on the subject of

universities you recently said that what

universities have done is beyond

forgiveness I wonder if you can explain

what you mean by that

and a second file connected question is

should we I'll put it starkly should we

abolish universities or all they'll do

that themselves okay let's hear a little

bit about what they've done that you

think renders them beyond forgiveness

well they're overwhelmingly

administratively top-heavy and and they

don't spend any more money on the

faculty than they did thirty years ago

and the cost of that administrative top

heaviness which is well documented not

by me by other people and it's been that

way it's been accelerating over the last

twenty years has been a radical increase

in tuition fees especially compared to

the radical decrease in price of most

things over the last twenty years now so

they become administratively top-heavy

the way and this is especially true in

the United States the way that's being

managed is that unsuspecting students

are giving given free access to student

loans that will them through

their 30s in their 40s in a and the

universities are enticing them to extend

their carefree adolescents for a

four-year period at the cost of

mortgaging their future earnings in a

deal that does not allow for escape

through bank

see so it's essentially a form of

indentured servitude

there's no excuse whatsoever for that it

means the administrators have learned

how to pick the future pockets of their

students and and because of because they

also view them in some sense as sacred

cash cows and fragile let's say because

you might wonder why the students are

being treated like they're so fragile

it's like well we don't want them to

drop out now do we and we can't if they

drop out then we don't get our hands on

their future earnings in a way that they

can't escape from and that cripples the

economy because the students come out

overlaid with debt that they'll never

pay off right at the time when they

should be at the peak of their ability

to take entrepreneurial risks so they

can't do that because they're too

crippled by debt and so that's

absolutely appalling they're

gerrymandering the accreditation

processes so that the degree no longer

has it's credible value they're enabling

the activist disciplines which have zero

academic credibility whatsoever in my

estimation and I'm perfectly willing to

defend that claim they're there and by

enabling the activist disciplines there

they're allowing for the distribution of

this absolutely nonsensical view that

Western society is fundamentally a

patriarchal tyranny which is absurd on

at least five dimensions of analysis but

is becoming increasingly the thing you

have to believe if you're allowed to

speak in public well that's what else

that's that's a good start that's there

they're not teaching students to read

critically they're not introducing into

great literature they're not teaching

them to write it's like the list goes on

and on and on do you think in a way that

you are a symbol of higher education

failure meaning the reason maybe that

people are showing up 5,000 people to

listen to you it's gonna be 20,000 in

London and July is because there aren't

that many people who uh neurotically are

talking about what it is to live a good

life and asking questions about how to

live a meaningful one if you would say

that in most universities I feel that

you would be laughed out of the room

well would depend on how you said it and

to who but if you say it to students

then then they're so happy to listen to

you that they

hardly stand it because even the most

cynical students come to University

hoping that there's something there

worth learning and the reason that

they're exposed to great literature for

example because there is such a thing

it's not all power claims is because

great literature contains the key to

wisdom and you need wisdom in order to

live without undue suffering so yes I

mean so but I do what I say that what's

happened to me is a reflection of the

failure of the universities it is in

part although I did teach this the whole

intellectual dark web hmm the fact that

people listen to sam harris talk for

hours and like i mean all of these these

people well i think i think it well i

think you know you you want to go for

the simple solutions before you go for

the complex ones and you want to go for

the solutions that are associated with

ignorance rather than malevolence first

and i would say that we don't want to

end or estimate the degree to to which

what's happening in YouTube and with

podcasts as the consequence of a

technological revolution like I've known

for years that the universities under

serve the community because for some

reason we think that university

education is for 18 to 22 year olds

which is a proposition that's so absurd

that it's it's absolutely mind-boggling

that everyone anyone ever conceptualized

it it's like you know why wouldn't you

take university courses throughout your

entire life I mean what you stop

searching for wisdom when you're 22 I

don't think so

you don't even start usually until

you're like in your mid-20s so I knew

the universities were under serving the

broader community a long time ago but

there wasn't a mechanism whereby that

could be rectified apart from say books

and of course that that was part of the

rectification so I think you don't want

to underestimate the technological

transformation but then and then I would

also say I mean I was teaching this in

university you know so it isn't like

there isn't anybody in university still

teaching this sort of thing there there

are plenty of qualified professors who

are still doing a good job but they're

being pushed out very rapidly and

terrified as well by that by the

activist disciplines so you speak and

write a lot about how masculinity is in

crisis what are some of the main signs

of it and

we'll open it up to questions soon and

is Trump a symbol of that crisis or a

corrective to it well I don't really

think that masculinity is in crisis I

think that to the degree that

masculinity per se is regarded as toxic

that that will produce a crisis which

isn't the same thing I think there's a

there's a crisis of meaning let's say in

our culture but that's not new that's

that's been the case for quite a long

time but I don't think it's specific to

masculinity that's been a story that's

kind of aggregated around me and the way

that happened was well the people who

don't like what I'm saying look at my

audience and they say oh well he's

speaking mostly to men therefore he must

be speaking to men it's like well no the

baseline rates for YouTube utilization

about 80% male so the fact that most of

the people who were watching me on

YouTube were male is an artifact to some

degree of the fact that most of the

people who watch YouTube are male now it

may also be that the sorts of things

that I'm saying are more pertinent to

men although I'm not convinced of that

most of my students throughout my

university career have been women

because psychology is fun you know was

is dominated by women to a great degree

and ever since I published my book the

proportion of people who are coming to

my lectures that his female is reliably

increasing it's probably up to about 35

35 % I would say now from about probably

20 so I don't think it is a message

that's particularly germane to men

although it is germane to men and I

don't think I don't think that there's a

like an independent crisis of

masculinity there might be a crisis of

concepts of masculinity and I think

that's hard on young men in some ways

and the reason for that is you know you

you're you're you're supposed to be

duty-bound as a virtuous person to buy

the doctrine of the tyrannical

patriarchy it's like well look first of

all every hierarchical system tends

towards tyranny that's a universal

truism and our structures have the same

problem obviously and we have to be

eternally vigilant so that they don't

devolve into tyranny but that doesn't

mean that they are tyrannies and always

have been and

of course also compared to what compared

to your hypothetical ideological utopia

yes compared to every other society

that's ever existed on the planet

including most of the ones that exist

now definitively not but anyways if you

buy the that idiot uni-dimensional idea

which is a pathological error and you

see your your your culture as a

tyrannical patriarchy then you see any

attempt to move up that hierarchy has a

manifestation of patriarchal tyranny now

the problem is is that a lot of the ways

that you move up a modern functional

hierarchy is through competence and if

you take young men it doesn't happen as

much with young women for reasons we can

go into but if you take young men and

you say every manifestation of your

desire to move up the hierarchy is

nothing but proof of your participation

in the tyrannical pipe patriarchy then

you tend to demoralize them which is

exactly what you're trying to do by the

way if you if you take that stance to

begin with because I really think that

at the bottom of the most of the most of

the most pathological manifestations of

the collectivist dictum is an assault on

the idea of competence itself and that's

another unforgivable sin that the

university is committed like everything

look there's no doubt that human

hierarchies are error-prone and they

tilt towards tyranny obviously but that

doesn't mean that they are unit

dimensionally patriarchal tyrannies not

they're neither patriarchal nor

tyrannies so but that's received wisdom

now and to question it means that you're

a misogynist fascist so well so I tell

young man it's like no no no no no it's

like there's something to competence man

speaking as a as a woman who has read

your book and I'm with you for for so

much of it and then you start to lose me

when you talk about archetypes the way

you talk about archetypes in the book

and again forgive me if I'm being

slightly imprecise but I'm trying to

gloss it for an audience who might not

have read it is that in this sort of

Jungian archetype a world chaos is

feminine order is masculine and the

subtitle of your book is an antidote to

chaos

so as a woman reading that you know I'd

like for you to explain to me maybe what

I'm missing there because that's when

you started to lose me a little bit as a

reader why does there need to be an

antidote to the feminine in that way

well there has to be an antidote to

anything that's manifesting itself in

excess and it's chaos that's manifesting

itself in excess at the moment in our

culture and so and so that's what I

decided to address in this book and

mostly that was because I suppose it was

addressed at least in part to younger

people and what younger people have to

contend with generally speaking is an

excess of chaos because they're not very

disciplined and so you need to you know

we kind of have this idea that while

you're free as a child and then you let

me see if I can if I can put this

properly that you have a certain

delightful wonderful positive freedom as

a child and then that's given up as you

approach adulthood but the truth of the

matter is is that you have a lot of

potential as a child but none of that is

capable of manifesting itself as freedom

before you become disciplined and

discipline is a matter of the imposition

of order and the order is necessary

especially for people who are hopeless

and nihilistic and lots of people are

hopeless and nihilistic way more people

than you think and part of that is

because no one's ever really encouraged

them and so the book is in part a matter

of encouragement it's like lay yourself

lay a disciplinary structure on yourself

get the chaos in in in check and then

you can move towards a state that's

freer because it's disciplined first

like look if you're going to become a

concert pianist there's going to be

several thousand hours of

extraordinarily disciplined practice

that's the imposition of order on your

potential let's say but what comes out

of that is a much grander freedom and so

in virtually every freedom that you have

in life that's true freedom is purchased

at the price of discipline and so

because I think that it's it's nihilism

and and hopelessness that constitute the

major existential threat especially to

young people at the moment then I was

concentrating on the necessity of

discipline and order

so and the issue with regards to the

metaphysical or symbolic representation

of chaos and as feminine well that's a

very complex problem and the first thing

you have to understand is that there's

no a priori supposition that order is

preferable to chaos in any fundamental

sense they're both constituent elements

of reality you can't say ones bad and

the others good you can say that they

can become unbalanced and that's

definitely not good too much chaos is

not good obviously too much order is not

good

equally obviously those are the two

extremes that you have to negotiate

between and I'm not making a causal

claim with regards to the idea that

reality is an amalgam of chaos and order

I don't think that there is any more

accurate way of describing the nature of

reality that's the most fundamental

maybe not the most fundamental truth but

it's certainly there's there's two

there's two fundamental truths reality

is composed of chaos and order and your

role is to mediate between them

successfully

that's metaphysical and symbolic truth

but it's more than that because that's

actually how your mind and your brain is

organized not only conceptually but

emotionally motivationally and

physiologically so and I don't really

understand how that can be because it

isn't obvious to me how the most

fundamental elements of reality can be

chaos and order but the evidence that

that is the case is overwhelming I can

give you a quick example which is quite

interesting so you have two hemispheres

there's a reason for that their

fundamental reason for that is that one

of them is adapted for things you don't

understand

that's roughly speaking the right

hemisphere and the other is adapted for

things that you do understand that's the

left hemisphere and so that's a chaos

order dichotomy and the fact that you're

adapted to that that you're that the

very structure of your brain reflects

that bifurcation indicates as far as I

can tell beyond a shadow of a doubt

because it's also characteristic of

non-human animals many of them that that

differentiation is fundamentally true in

some sense now you might ask well why is

that conceptualized as masculine versus

feminine because it's not male versus

female by the way those are not the same

thing because one's conceptual that's

extraordinarily complicated I think the

reason is is that we're social cognitive

primates and that our fundamental

cognitive categories a priori cognitive

categories are masculine its masculine

feminine and child it's something like

that that's the fundamental structure of

reality because we're social creatures

and we view reality as something that's

essentially social in its nature and

then when we started to conceptualize

reality outside the social world which

wasn't very long ago by the way and

which is something that animals

virtually don't do at all

we use those a priori social categories

as filters through which we interpreted

the external world and we're sort of

stuck with that in some deep sense and

you might say well why do we have to be

stuck with that it's like well because

some things are very difficult to change

like if you go watch a story and the

characters in this story slaught

themselves into those archetypal

categories then you'll understand the

story and if they don't you won't

because your understanding is predicated

on an application of the archetypal a

Priory's to the story you wouldn't

understand it otherwise so you can't get

under that there's no under that not not

and not to remain human so and I can

give you a quick quick example I like to

use Disney movies for a variety of

reasons mostly because everybody knows

them but it's not accidental that the

Evil Queen the Evil Queen in Sleeping

Beauty is not an accidental character

she's the way she is because we

understand her and the reason we

understand her is because we see the

world through the categories that I just

laid out and you can say well what do

you think she has to be a queen and not

a king no if she was an evil king she'd

be different she'd be like scar in the

Lion King

he just as evil man but not the same

character

right yeah I guess I'm struck that it

seems like a lot of your intellectual

project is reasserting difference in an

age where we're told that everything is

the same yeah but it's almost different

to say okay well look look I'm sorry to

be so blunt but look it's a problem the

problem with some of this the problem

with some of this some of it's willful

blindness but some of it's just

ignorance so let me just let me just lay

out a couple of things so for example

I've been taken to task along let's say

with James d'amour who had actually been

highly influenced by my videos before he

and my classes before he did what he did

it Google you know I've studied

personality differences between men and

women for 25 years and written papers on

the topic it's actually an area of

expertise of mine and substantial

expertise too and not pseudoscience

expertise thank you very much I'm not a

pseudo scientist so my publication

record puts me in the top point 5% of

psychologists so I'm not a pseudo

scientist by any stretch of the

imagination and I have 10,000 citations

and that's not a million but it's a lot

and a hundred published papers so so let

me lay out one of the the personality

differences between men and women

because it's worth understanding and you

might say well there can't be

personality differences between men and

women because that's anti-feminist it's

like no it's not we might have to

actually understand that there are

differences between men and women so

that we can let men and women make the

choices they're going to make without

without subjecting them to undue

manipulation okay so one of the reliable

differences between men and women cross

culturally is that men are more

aggressive than women now what's the

evidence for that here's one piece of

evidence there are 10 times as many

people men in prison and what's that a

socio-cultural construct it's like no

it's not a socio-cultural construct okay

here's another piece of data women try

to commit suicide more than men by a lot

and that's because women are more prone

to depression and anxiety than men are

and there's reason for that and that's

cross culturally true as well they're

more likely to try to commit suicide but

men are way more likely to actually

commit suicide why because they're more

aggressive so they use lethal means okay

so now the question is how much more

aggressive are men than women and the

answer is not very much

so the claim that men and women are more

the same than different is actually true

but this is where you have to know

something about statistics to actually

understand the way the world works

instead of just applying your a priori

ideological presupposition to things

that are too complex to fit in that

rubric so if you if you drew two people

out of two people out of a crowd one man

and one woman and you had to lay a bet

on who was more aggressive and you bet

on the woman you'd win 40% of the time

okay so that's quite a lot it's not 50%

of the time which would be no

differences whatsoever but it's quite a

lot so there's lots of women who are

more aggressive than lots of men so so

the the curves overlap a lot so there's

way more similarities than differences

along the dimension where there's the

most difference by the way right but

here's the problem you can take small

differences at the average of a

distribution the distributions move off

to the side and then all the actions out

the tail so here's the situation you

don't care about however how aggressive

the average person is it's not that

relevant what you care about is who is

the most aggressive person out of a

hundred take a hundred people and you

take the most aggressive person because

that's the person you better watch out

for and what's the gender men because if

you go three standard deviations out

from the mean on two curves that overlap

but are slightly disjointed then you

derive an overwhelming preponderance of

the over-represented group and that's

why men are about ten times more likely

to be in prison it has nothing to do

with socialization so and then and and

then there are other differences too so

it turns out the differences in

aggression and agreeableness also

predict differences in interest and so

it turns out that men are more

interested on

average then in things then women are

and women are more interested in people

on average and that's actually the

biggest difference that's been measured

between men and women it's nothing to do

with ability it has to do with interest

and so the way that manifests itself is

that women are more likely to go into

disciplines that are characterized by

the care of others and you can tell that

by the way occupations are segregating

all you have to do is look at the data

for like 15 minutes

women overwhelmingly dominate healthcare

and that's that's accelerating by the

way and men dominate engineering let's

say and so you say well that's

socio-cultural it's like no it's not and

here's the proof so so now now what you

do because you want to test this

hypothesis right it's like and bleed and

the other thing that you want to

understand is that left-leaning

psychologists generated this data and

you think well how do you know that

that's easy there are no right leaning

psychologists except for you well that's

what people say you know and so and

that's been well documented and so

people have published this data

despite their ideological proclivities

and despite the fact that this is not

what they expected to find or what they

wanted to find so what you do now is you

you stack countries by how egalitarian

their social policies are right from the

least egalitarian to the most and you

say well the Scandinavian countries are

the most egalitarian and by the way if

we don't agree on that then there's no

sense having this discussion at all

because we don't agree on what

egalitarian means if you don't think

that what the Scandinavians have done

have has been a move in the direction of

egalitarianism then I have no idea what

you mean by egalitarianism no you could

say well they haven't done it perfectly

it's like yeah yeah that's true but it's

not relevant to this argument so what

you do is you stack countries by how

egalitarian their social policies are

and then you look at occupational and

personality differences between men and

women as a function of the country and

what you find is as the country becomes

more egalitarian the differences between

men and women

increase they don't decrease and so what

that means is that the radical social

constructionists are wrong and it's not

a few studies with a couple of people

done by some half-witted psychologists

and some tiny little university it's

population level studies that have been

published in major journals that have

been cited by thousands of people it's

not pseudoscience it's not it's not

questioned it's not questioned by

mainstream psychometricians and

personality theorists we figured this

out back in like 1995 everyone thought

it was settled and so what's the big

problem

well who knows what the big problem is

the outcome is not exactly the same

between the genders it's like well who

says it has to be and more importantly

and this is something to ask yourself

constantly just who the hell is going to

enforce that and just exactly how are

they going to enforce that and believe

me it's not going to be in some manner

that you like because there are

differences between men and women and if

you leave them alone those differences

manifest themselves in different

occupational choices that's the other

finding this is a newer one as the

societies become more egalitarian the

occupational choices between men and

women maximize and what that means is

that fewer and fewer women go into the

STEM fields now no one wanted that no

one predicted it

no one was hoping for it it actually

flew in the face of I would say that

most established psychological theories

because my presupposition certainly was

20 years ago that what would have

happened as we made societies more

egalitarian would be that men and women

would converge that's not what happened

the biological difference is maximized

as we eliminated the socio cultural

differences and so maybe you don't like

that it's like that's fine with me I

didn't say I liked it but whether or not

I like a piece of data has very little

bearing on whether or not I'm labeled to

accept it you know I'm trying to look at

the damn scientific literature and to

draw the conclusions that are

necessitated by the data and then you

can say well the whole thing is suspect

because it's the it's the construction

of the patriarchal tyrants who generated

the Eurocentric scientific viewpoint

it's like you want to have that

conversation

then go to an activist discipline and

have it because it's not the sort of

conversation that anyone sensible would

engage in so I'd love to open up the

room to questions

please sensible questions and please

keep them short but genuine questions

someone with a microphone will find you

if you raise your hand yes yeah hi good

evening my name is Prater

I wanted to understand a little bit of

your view more on the fact that not fact

but at least observation that over

generations and generations all right at

least what I have heard and seen from my

family I can take up that women being

told about that position in the home and

men being told that position to work and

be a little more aggressive you know the

social conditioning so how does that

play a role because I don't hear that

being a being a dimension of reaching

these conclusions I've never claimed

that the differences between men and

women are 100 percent biologically

determined they're biologically

influenced the radical constructionists

make the opposite claim there are no

biological differences between men and

women psyche well first of all that's so

preposterous that it barely even

requires an answer but you might you

might specify it a bit and say no there

are no biological differences that

manifest themselves psychologically and

that's not quite as preposterous but

it's also incorrect it's obviously the

case that all sorts of things about sex

sex roles and gender roles let's say are

conditioned by socio-cultural mechanisms

because human beings are very very

plastic and so the manner in which those

biological differences manifest

themselves in a culture is radically

influenced by the nature of the culture

but that doesn't mean that the

biological influences don't exist so but

are you saying should we be countering

that sort of traditional like

traditional cultural mores

yeah at one point you are saying that

it's not necessarily biological or

inherent if I had to paraphrase it well

some of it is yeah but it's very unclear

in the way at least maybe one hour is

very short and maybe it needs a larger

discussion it seems that it's easy to

deduce that these are inherent

differences which exist and social

conditioning wasn't taken as a parameter

to its control for by the comparison

between societies that have different

levels of egalitarianism built into

their social structure it's all taken

care of in the analysis if the

biological differences manifest

themselves maximally where the

socio-cultural influences to equalize

gender are maximal then obviously the

biological differences are powerful and

profound it's conclusive so it's taken

into account in the in in the data

analysis so that's why you stack up the

countries by by the egalitarian nature

of their social policies is to control

for the socio-cultural influence and so

you know you got to admit because just

think it through for a minute it isn't

even that what you would have expected

theoretically is that the societies that

are the least egalitarian would have the

biggest differences between men and

women and that as the societies got more

and more egalitarian those differences

would get smaller and maybe and maybe

disappear even but that isn't what

happened it's exactly the opposite is

what happened

they maximized in the most egalitarian

societies therefore the social

constructionist position the radical

social constructionist position is wrong

it's wrong it's been refuted which is

partly why the radical social

constructionist have taken that

legislative route to impose their

viewpoint they lost the scientific war

but then well then we can just attack

science it's like well it's science

itself that's suspect it's like well

then quit using your iPhone's well if

you're gonna have your convictions man

lay them out in your life if you think

the scientific process is is its

is suspect and tyrannical and oppressive

and all that then quit using the

products that it produces you don't get

to have your cake and eat it too let's

go to this young woman right here yeah

and then we'll go to you hi my name is

Julia and I recently read in the New

York Times an article about your

comments on forced monogamy what are

your comments on how that was perceived

by the public and specifically the left

great question

well I think it was enforced it's so in

forced monogamy yeah yeah enforcement

first of all that's a technical term by

the way that's been used in the

anthropological literature for a hundred

years and the journalist who was not

stupid

knew that perfectly well and reported

the story the way she reported it

despite that but what's even more

surreal than that about that story is

that if you're going to try to undermine

someone's credibility I can do it

effectively

you should attribute them to them out an

extreme view that some person somewhere

actually holds okay and so the view that

was attributed to me was something like

I want to rotate in yes I want to find

useless men and distribute women to them

at the point of a gun so that they don't

become violent it's like no one has ever

believed that ever anywhere and

certainly environment well right she

that's right she wrote a book about that

but but so you know it's just absolutely

preposterous and and it's preposterous

in a bunch of ways because she

interviewed me for two days and we

talked about that for about two minutes

it was a peripheral conversation and

it's an anthropological truism generated

primarily by scholars on the left just

so everyone's clear about it that

societies that use monogamy as a social

norm which by the way is virtually every

human society that's ever existed do

that in an attempt to control the

aggression that goes along with polygamy

it's like oh my god how contentious can

you get it's like well how many of you

are in monogamous relationships well the

majority how is that enforce I think

this is a very polyamorous room

so so you know it was just it was it was

desperate that's what it looked like to

me but the problem is it was also

desperate and amateurish it's like she

could have done a much better job with

much less extreme characterization it's

like oh yes I want to take women at the

point of a gun and distribute them to

useless men

it's so stupid partly because like if

she if she would have been reasonable

and she knew this too one of the things

I've told men specifically over and over

and over and over is if you're being

rejected by all the women that you

approach it's not the women right so so

becomes and so that's because you know

these characters who like the guy that

mowed down those people in Toronto he

ends up blaming women and he's blaming

more than women in some sense he's

blaming the structure of being for

producing women that reject him it's

like and so that's part of what makes

him violent it's like well what the hell

is wrong with him you know he's got it

completely backwards if everyone if you

- if everyone you talk to is boring it's

not them

right and so if you're rejected by the

opposite sex assuming that you're

heterosexual then you're wrong they're

not wrong and you've got some work to do

man you've got some difficult work to do

and there isn't anything that I've been

telling let's say young men that's

clearer than that

you know what the it's actually

something I've been criticized by by

people on the left because they think I

don't take structural inequality for

example and so forth it into account

sufficiently what I've been telling

people is take the responsibility for

your failure onto yourself and that

certainly applies to well especially

when you're trying to formulate

relationship and you're getting rejected

left right and center it's like that's a

hint that you have some work to do now

it also might be a hint that you're just

young and useless and why do what the

hell would any absolutely why the hell

would anybody have anything to do with

you because you don't have anything to

offer you know so but that's rectifiable

and part partly even maturity rectifies

that but so so not only was that what

would you call it

accusation surreal and absurd made by a

journalist who know perfectly knew

perfectly well what I was suggesting and

chose to misrepresent it anyways it's

actually the opposite that the

conclusion that people derived from that

is exactly the opposite of what I've

been suggesting in particular to young

man so it's absolutely preposterous yes

the microphone is yes professor Peterson

I teach students I teach trans students

and I'm asked often to call people

singularly they it started probably

about four years ago it struck me as

very odd

I'm 52 and some of them you can tell

that it's coming from a very deep place

and that's how they feel and they deeply

need to be called they some of them my

horse sense says

that they're kind of enjoying giving me

a certain shock and that there's a

certain theatrical aspect it's my horse

sense that there's a certain a potala

bourgeois aspect to it kind of feel it

and I'm probably right but I can't know

I'm a linguist I'm a person and my

general feeling has been whatever they

ask just go with it and let's change our

usage of the pronouns because we have a

lot to do now what you said was

interesting you said that the way that

you make the difference in deciding

these cases is based on the fact that

you have psychological training and you

can tell what I want to know is for my

own elucidation and also because I think

many of us wondered but then it kind of

went by how do you know now I want to

specify I'd rather you didn't

recount the whole episode of how

ridiculously you were treated amidst

that whole controversy sure three

quarters of the room knows I sympathize

with you I thought it was ridiculous I

want to know specifically because I'm a

linguist you have psychological training

how would you know well if you hear a

I'm almost done

oh yeah if you hear a tiny bit of

skepticism in my voice you're correct

hmm however I am open to being convinced

based on your training which is immense

how would you know which students to

discount as opposed to which ones to go

along with okay well first of all I

wouldn't know right which is part partly

why your skepticism is justified but I

have to be responsible for what I say

based on my willingness to take

responsibility for my judgement so I

would be willing to do that despite the

fact that I might be wrong but having

said that in in any reasonable situation

I would err on the side of addressing

the person in the manner that they

requested to be addressed an address but

that's not the issue for me the issue is

now I'm compelled by law to do so it's

like no no I'm doing it not now because

it's compelled by law so that's the end

of the game

far as I'm concerned so because there is

no excuse for compelling it by law

that's my position and I think I think

there's all sorts of reasons for that

I don't think it was an isolated

legislative move I think it's part and

parcel of a whole sequence of

legislative moves that have been made

and that continue to be made in Canada I

think it's an attempt by a certain

radical ideological what would you say a

certain radical ideology to gain the

linguistic upper hand which i think is a

terrible thing to do to allow so I had

lots of reasons for rejecting the

legislation but it had nothing to do

with you that's very interesting we're

talking about expertise here and my ears

pricked up when you talked about how

there is a way of thinking that would

allow us to decide I know there's a way

of thinking that would allow me to

decide for me know us to decide for us

surely you have a larger mission than

just what's going on in your own head

and I mean that no I had a perfectly

straightforward mission which was

there's no damn way I was gonna say

those words when I was compelled to by

law but that was my mission you weren't

trying to model for the rest of us a way

of thinking it was really only about you

know what was about me in the law that

the law the lawmakers had gone too far

they'd stepped out of their appropriate

territory into the domain of linguistic

freedom and as far as I was concerned I

was going to put up with that and so if

people were happy about that and wanted

to follow the example that was fine with

them but for me it was something and

that was the statement I'm not doing

this and then a people can draw their

own conclusions from that maybe they

want to do it I mean and I've spoken

with no shortage of trans people and you

know my proclivity has been without

exception so far to address them in the

manner that seems most socially

appropriate under the circumstances now

you asked you know you asked a specific

question which was do I have special

expertise that I might share with other

people you're doing Martin Luther and I

think that these issues are a little

subtler than those and so what do what

makes you think that you're doing the

kids that are grandstand

any favors by going along with Herman

because I can't decide which ones those

are well my goodness looked fair enough

but you have a type 1 and type 2 error

problem so one error is that you don't

call students what they deserve to be

called that's one error and the other

error is that you you call students what

they want to be called even though they

don't deserve it and so what you're

trying to do optimally is to minimize

both those errors and to do that you

have to take a middle route now what

you've decided to do and I'm not

criticizing it is you've decided to

allow for the possibility 100% of one of

those errors because you think it's a

less significant error and you know you

might be right but it's not like you're

acting in an error-free manner you've

just decided to minimize one form of

error at the expense of the other

because I would say you're allowing what

would you call it attention seeking and

somewhat narcissistic undergraduates to

gain the upper hand over you in your

class now on that's believe me it's not

a criticism it's not a criticism I

understand why you're just erring on the

side of generosity passion one more

thing to say but sure I'm not gonna take

up any more space ok are you saying that

psychological theory has nothing to

teach us about this because you're

talking around my question your

gorgeously articulate you're smarter

than me does psychology have anything to

teach us or not yes or no I do like this

question I don't think that it has

anything to teach I don't think it has

anything to offer that I could teach you

without think so it's just too

complicated no no it's not no no it's

not that

well it is that in part because it's not

easy to articulate out the principles

the unerring principles by which you

would make such a categorical judgment

right because those are very situation

specific problems you know and it's it's

part of the problem of how of how to

make a a generic moral truth applied to

a very individualistic situation and the

problem in the sorts of situations that

you're describing is generally the

Devils in the details right if you have

all these students the ones that you

just laid out they vary in their

attitude towards their their self

professed gender from the ones who are

grandstanding to some degree let's say

to the ones that are very serious and

you have to make a judgement in the

moment that is dependent on the

variables that present themselves in a

very complex way in that situation and I

understand why you you took the pathway

that you took and it's it's perfectly

reasonable to do so my point was that

you you don't minimize all the errors by

doing so it's fine it's it's still a

fine way of approaching it isn't my

point was that because of my

psychological acumen I would say that

the experience that I've derived is that

I would be comfortable in making the

judgment and taking the consequential

risk

I'm not saying I'd be correct that's not

the same thing at all I'm willing to

suffer the consequences of my error

that's not the same thing as being right

and so if I feel that a student is

manipulating me then I'm not gonna go

along with it now I might be wrong about

that and actually hurt someone who's

genuinely asking for something that they

need but I'm also what would you say

sensitive to the error of allowing

manipulation to go unchecked so hi

you're back

no time and then there could be a

two-hour podcast about this on your

wonderful podcast which everyone should

listen to invite him on ok hands here in

the orange and pink scarf Thank You

Barry and thank you both for this really

interesting conversation which is not

like most of the conversations we've had

here at the ideas festival is my first

one so I have no idea

so dr. Pearson there are million

questions that I'd like to ask him only

gonna ask one obviously I'm a

psychologist I'm a social psychologist

with the clinical background and the

thing that I think I'd like to most hear

about right now at this moment is the

very noisy small percentage of people

who oppose you have you thought about

something they might be right about that

that they might actually have a point

about that you hadn't thought of

but you've started to think they might

actually have a point I don't know if

I've started to think about the point

that they have that I didn't think about

before I mean people have been

characterizing me as right-wing it's

like I'm not right-wing so the

characterization isn't very helpful and

one of the things I do all the time in

my public lectures is make a case for

the utility of the left so and the case

can be made quite rapidly if you're

going to pursue things of value in a

social environment you're going to

produce a hierarchy it's unavoidable

because some people are better at

whatever it is that you value and so

when that lays itself out socially it

will produce a hierarchy the hierarchy

has its miss that hierarchy has a

necessity if you're going to pursue the

things of value but it has a risk the

risk is that we'll ossify and become

corrupt that's risk number one and risk

number two is that when you produce the

hierarchy you're going to dis possess a

number of people because there'll be

lots of people in the hierarchy who

aren't good at it and they'll be

dispossessed so you need a political

voice for them that's the left so I make

that case over and over now what the

right does is say yeah but we still need

the hierarchy it's like yes you still

need the hierarchy the reason we need

the political dialogue is because we

need the hierarchy and we can't let it

get out of control so we and and the way

to balance those two competing

necessities isn't by only having the

hierarchy

or dissolving the hierarchy you have to

live with the tension and the way

because because the situation keeps

shifting so the way you live with the

tension is by talking say well here's

the current state that the hierarchy

needs to be tweaked this much because

it's getting too tyrannical and it's

dispossessing to many people so we need

to tweak it so that it's not as corrupt

and so that it's a little bit more open

and we have to talk about that all the

time

and that's what the right and left it's

not the only thing they do because they

also talk about the necessity of borders

that's the other fundamental thing that

they do the dialogue has to continue so

that we can have the hierarchies and

utilize them as tools without allowing

them to descend into tyranny ok so I

made a case I made a case on on the web

I did a talk at the University of

British Columbia left-wing case for free

speech as if that's so difficult to make

I mean that's the sort of case that was

made until like 2014 or something like

that so the left-leaning types have all

sorts of things that are correct to say

now the problem is one of the problems

of the left but this is and this is

another thing that I talk about all the

time in my public lectures by the way is

we have a problem we know how to put a

box around the extremists on the right

basically we say oh you're making claims

of ethnic or racial superiority you're

not part of the conversation anymore

what do we do on the left nothing that's

not good because there's a there's an

issue can the left go too far

yes win oh we don't know oh that's not a

very good answer now you could say well

then it's up to the moderate leftists to

figure that out so they can dissociate

themselves from the radicals and it is

up to them but that's actually not a

very good answer either because it's all

of our problem it's not centrists don't

now how to reliably identify the radical

the two radical left right wingers don't

know how and it's partly because I think

it's actually conceptually more complex

like with the radical right you can kind

of lay it down to one dimension Oh

racial superiority no sorry

you're out of the conversation but

that's my low but we knew you mentioned

before well I didn't say I was

fan of Milo no but you called him a

prankster well he is a prankster mostly

yeah but he's also a racist well

possibly yeah I haven't followed met my

load that character you know so and it's

it's possible that he is I mean it's

hard to tell what Milo is exactly he's

very complicated and contradictory

person destined to implode which is

exactly what happened well there's just

no way you can be that contradictory a

person and manage it it's just not

possible he was just too many things

happening at the same time for anyone to

ever manage so but but on the left you

know I don't know what it is I think I

think the left becomes toxic one of the

things that makes the left unacceptable

is demands for equality of outcome it's

like no you crossed the line man that's

not an acceptable demand and that's

increasingly a moderate leftist demand

as well now but I don't know I it might

be more complex it might be that there's

four things that you have to demand on

the left that all of a sudden makes what

you're doing unacceptable and we don't

know what those four things are and so I

actually think it's a conceptual problem

as well as an ethical problem we don't

know how to bind the mint the necessary

left so that we don't so that the

radicals don't dominate counter

productively and if you don't think that

the radical leftists can dominate

counter productively then well heaven

help you know that I agree with that the

idea that it's so clear on the right is

not clear to me I mean look at look at

the Trump administration oh I don't

think that it's necessarily applied very

clearly but at least conceptually it's

worked well we can point it out better

mm-hmm so and because of World War two

yes yeah that helped quite a lot

actually yeah yeah but but the thing is

is that the Communist catastrophes does

don't seem to have made it any clearer

on the last yes and so and now that's

another thing that the universities have

done that's unacceptable by the way the

intellectual class I would say is that

it's never come to terms properly with

the fact that the intellectual class as

a whole was was supportive of the

communist experiment and it was an

absolutely catastrophic failure on every

what measure of

analysis people say well that wasn't

real communism it's like he really

shouldn't ever say that because what it

means is this is what it means it's the

most arrogant statement that a person

can make it means that had I been in the

position of Stalin with my proper

conceptual Asian conceptualization of

the Marxist utopia I would have assured

in the Utopia that's what it means and

it's like no first of all if you

actually were that good spirited and

you're not by the way if you were you

would have been eliminated so fast after

the Revolution occurred that it would

have well it would have killed you

because that's what happened it's what

happened like all the well-meaning

people after the Russian Revolution the

small minority of people that were

genuinely well-meaning they were dead

like within two or three years so it

wasn't real zero as in zero question

zero times zero something one more

question

really okay yeah I know but several

people there can we take a few and he'll

answer them shortly like maybe two more

okay let's go here and the front row

right here yes but make it very very

short great mentor great help to me and

a lot of people that I've been sharing

your work with I have two books here and

I would like you to sign them for me

okay you can do that yes people do that

after I'm sure yes professor Peterson

this is a little kin to the question

that the young woman over there asked

but over if you could get in a

self-reflective mode over the course of

your life and career to date what could

you say honestly to us about where you

felt you've been most wrong and what

provoked that I've been wrong in your

thinking where you said I was wrong

about the Big Five personality theory

for about five years

so I know that's not very interesting

but but but I didn't like it at all

all it was brute force statistically

derived it wasn't theoretically

interesting I didn't like it at all but

I was wrong about that so so because the

science was well done what else have I

been wrong about well you asked for

profound examples of being wrong and in

my field that's actually a profound

example because that's that's one of the

major theories in the field you're

thinking about more interesting examples

what have I changed radically oh well I

you know when I was a kid I was an avid

socialist I was wrong about that but but

more but more specifically I was wrong

about that because I thought that in

that dark that there were questions that

I want answered that that doctrine could

answer and it wasn't that it was

socialism that didn't make it make it

make the answers emergent was that it

was the wrong level of analysis so that

was a major source of error it was sort

of the source of error that that the

journalists who are going after me are

making they think everything's political

it's like no it's not there's lots of

levels of analysis and the political is

one and I learned eventually that the

political wasn't the right level of

analysis for the questions that I was

interested in addressing and that was a

major that was a major error took me

years to sort that out into and to

figure out what the consequence was I

was wrong about the significance of

religious ideas because when I was a kid

I I you know a thirteen or so and I was

smart enough at that point to see the

contradiction between an evolutionary

account of the origin of human beings in

a say a scriptural account and so I just

dispensed with that in this sort of new

atheist move and you know I threw the

baby out with the bathwater and I was

really wrong about that

like profoundly wrong about that and I'm

sure I'm wrong about a bunch of other

things but I'll figure out what some of

those are as we go ahead so that's three

things those are big things so you know

I'm sure if I thought more I could come

up with other examples but those are

pretty big things that I was wrong about

thank you all so much clearly an

hour-and-a-half is not enough with you

but thank you so much for your time