Watch it on Amazon Prime Video
[soft music]
[woman] Jordan Peterson.
[man] Jordan Peterson.
[man] Jordan Peterson.
Jordan B. Peterson.
Jordan Peterson.
[man] Welcome back, Mr. Peterson. The Canadian psychology professor is somebody people love or love to hate.
[woman] Despite what you think about him, there is no denying the professor’s impact.
[man] He’s undeniably one of the greatest intellectual phenomenons on the planet right now.
[woman] People were coming up to me and saying, “This book -saved my life.”
[man] He’s the ultimate father figure.
[man] I’ve spent so much time in the dark. It’s not easy to find, not so much heroes, but people that can be so helpful.
Shame, shame, shame.
[Lane Patriquin] So, you’re anti-justice. Are you a Batman villain? I watched the professor against political correctness video and I was just so disappointed, I guess.
[Tammy Peterson] His thoughts aren’t quick. They’re long and drawn out and they’re a story, everything he says is a story, so you have to be there for the whole story to find out what is there at the end.
[Jordan Peterson] “A man does not live by bread alone.” Right, and the spiritual bread that’s the story.
If you’re going to have millions of people who are listening to everything you say, I think that you have take some responsibility to help them understand what you mean.
So, this is what I actually look like and then this is what people who don’t like me think I look like.
[dramatic music]
[ovation]
[woman] Which one is real?
[Jordan] Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, I would say they’re both real.
[audience] Peterson! Peterson! Peterson!
[soft music]
THE RISE OF JORDAN PETERSON
TORONTO, CANADA
[Tammy] Yeah, and he sang at my mom’s funeral.
That’s when he started to play the piano as opposed to playing the guitar.
And he did it and sent it before he left. [laughing]
SUMMER 2015
[Mikhaila] Answer.
[Jordan] One to five?
Yes. Strongly agree is five, strongly disagree is one. Okay.
[Jordan] Okay.
[Mikhaila] Seldom feel blue?
That’s the kind of question I don’t know how to answer–
Just guess. Guess and then mom and I will tell you if you’re off…
Five is strongly agree?
Yeah.
Four.
Avoid philosophical discussions?
[laughs] One. Change my mood a lot?
He is Gemini.
I don’t know. That’s another one that’s tough for me.
What would you say?
I’d say one, but that’s wrong. He changes his mood often. I’d say yes.
Yeah, probably four.
You know, he can be…
Not a five? …deeply immersed on the telephone, then he can say,
“Where’s my wallet?” And–
Okay, okay. Five. And then get out on the street and complain about the car and– Keep my emotions under control?
[laughing] Three.
Okay.
No way. Come on, really?
Is that what you think? You have no idea how irritated I actually am.
That isn’t– that’s not the question.
One, apparently. Weren’t you yelling at a computer?
Yeah.
Rarely feel depressed?
When I’m not depressed, I don’t feel depressed at all, but when I’m depressed, I feel depressed. That’s another one I don’t know how to answer.
[Mikhaila] Love a good fight?
[Tammy] You mean an argument? Yeah, a conflict.
[crosstalk]
You love them more than me. They agitate the hell out of me, but I won’t back away from one. Three. Hard to get to know?
Three.
You went on TV talking about depression.
[Tammy] What was the question?
Well, that’s different. Not really. Hard to get to know.
[father] Show business.
[Tammy] Hard to get to know.
Know how to captivate people?
Five.
Get deeply immersed in music?
Five.
Think quickly?
Five.
Not easily annoyed?
One. Thanks, Mom.
[Jordan’s mom laughs]
Seek conflict? Seek it.
[suspenseful music]
[Jordan] When you’re speaking about existential personality theory, it’s important to place the individual in a broader context. Jung famously claimed that people didn’t have ideas, that ideas had people.
[Tammy] Politics was really something that had always been at the base of what he was worried about. Why do people fight wars and why are people willing to sacrifice themselves?
[Jordan] I’ve been studying authoritarianism for a very long time. It’s been my life’s work to inoculate people against ideological possession. It’s the lesson that I try to teach people in my Maps of Meaning course. And then I’ve been keeping an eye on what’s been going on with political correctness since, well since the 1990s when I was down in– I taught at Harvard for seven years. And there was a big resurgence of political correctness in the 1990s, but it sort of died off. But then something changed about five or six years ago. I noticed it, in the speech codes, and the sexual harassment codes, and the idea of rape culture. My graduate student’s comments that they’re nervous about teaching anything that has to do with gender or biology of gender because they’re afraid of the potential kickback from students or afraid of speaking out in public about their research on political psychology and personality. It’s just an endless array of details indicating that the requirement to speak in the politically correct manner is becoming overwhelming.
It just so happened that it was the trans pronoun issue that brought in this restrictive legislation that had forced speech content, which I think is very bad idea in principle, very, very dangerous idea.
JORDAN PETERSON PUBLISHES A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE
SEPTEMBER 27, 2016
And I’ve entitled this talk, “Professor Against Political Correctness.” There are continually things happening in the universities and in the broader political world that make me very nervous. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for professors and students to even say what they think. And I think that some of the things that I say in my lectures now might be sufficient for me to be brought before the Ontario Human Rights Commission under their amended hate speech laws. And that scares me as well. And it scares me that I think that because it sounds paranoid and there is a first reading of legislation in the Federal House in Canada about a bill called C-16.
I’m very proud that on May the 17th we introduced bill C-16, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the criminal code. The bill addresses a fundamental issue of equality and human rights, the discrimination and hate crimes experienced by trans and gender diverse Canadians.
[Jordan] Definition of discrimination and harassment. Now, these are truly terrifying. Discrimination happens when a person experiences negative treatment or impact intentional or not. Intent matters, this is a painful thing that human beings have learned. It’s at the base of our modern legal systems. If I accidentally run into you, that’s way different than if I run into you on purpose. And so, this policy is designed to reverse that. So, this is the scenario I’ve been running through my head. I can envision a student or a colleague insisting that I call them using gender neutral pronouns. I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that. I don’t recognize another person’s right to determine what pronouns I use to address them. I won’t do it. Now, my decision might be illegal and maybe it’s even a decision of hate, but I’m not doing it.
[suspenseful music]
[Jordan] But I’m not doing it.
I watched the video and then was in danger of vomiting all over my keyboard. I started tweeting about it and I made a number of comments basically calling out Peterson for being transphobic. But I just sort of felt that I could speak perhaps to having a little bit of lived experience as a non-binary and a trans person on campus. I wanted to try to stick up for students who felt under fire from Peterson’s remarks.
I wrote to someone in the administration and asking, “Gosh, what are we going to do about this?” And it, sort of, snowballed from there.
Why are you against the use of alternate pronouns?
I’m against the use of– of legislation to determine what words are that myself and other people are required to utter.
Bill C-16 is actually not about cisgender people. It’s about protections for transgender people. Peterson frames this as a free speech issue just because you can’t speak exactly what you want to say it, when you want to say it, where you want to say it, doesn’t mean you get to throw a big tantrum.
You’ve accused him of abusing students by not using the pronouns they want to be addressed by.
That’s how I see it, absolutely.
That is tantamount to abuse in your view?
Absolutely. Many global documents, many organiza–
How about violence? Is it tantamount to violence?
Yes, absolutely.
How about hate speech? Is it tantamount hate speech?
Yes. It’s hate speech–
Fine, that’s–
[Jordan] One of the things that I studied, for example, with regards to the way events went during the Holocaust is that we went this far. It was like, “Okay, no problem.” But then we went this far. That was okay, no problem. It’s like, “Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay. We can do that. We can go that one step further.” It’s like– The funny thing too is, is if you draw a line in the sand, which is what I did, all hell breaks loose because, “Well, why did you draw it there? That’s arbitrary.” It’s like, “Yeah, there’s an element of arbitrariness to it.” That’s why people won’t draw the line, they don’t want to take the heat for the arbitrary element, the arbitrary nature of the act because whatever people happen to be directly affected by that arbitrary line, they come out and say, “Well, you’re a horrible person.” “Yeah. Oh, well. No, but I get your point.”
There’s a demonstration plan for tomorrow. They call it a rally and teach-in, so I’m going to have to make this very straightforward and simple. I don’t disbelieve in the existence of non-binary people. Okay? Do you want me to say that again? Obviously, people who don’t fit into standard binary categories of sexual identity, however you decide to construe that broadly or narrowly, obviously those people exist. I never said they didn’t exist. So, if you’re going out tomorrow to this demonstration because you want to indicate your discomfort with my disbelief in the very existence of non-binary people, you might as well just stay home.
OCTOBER 5, 2016
TRANS TEACH-IN & RALLY
University of Toronto
[young man] Everyone who is here who has seen the Peterson video, I want you to raise your hand if this is the very first time that you’ve ever heard anything like what he’s saying.
[Lane Patriquin] We had created what should have been an historical event. It may have been the only gathering of that type in Canadian history of trans people in a public space gathering in a large number to go up to an open microphone and announce publicly their experiences. I don’t think that’s ever happened and that was a huge deal to us when we put that on.
We’re here today to call out Jordan B. Peterson. He feels that he has the authority to dictate the gender identities of his students, which we are here to say that he does not.
Using preferred pronouns, I don’t think is a debate. It’s just being respectful.
I attempted to kill myself three times last year. The result of the anxiety that comes from when you decide to begin transitioning. It leads you to do things, horrible things.
[Lane Patriquin] We’d also told media not to film trans people without their consent. The media was all very responsible with that and respected our wishes but Rebel Media wouldn’t. They kept shoving their cameras in people’s faces.
Actually, I’m talking to people because I want to know whether they want a man to be fired. I want to know about bill C-16, what they think about campus freedom. Everyone here can give their opinion on whether they think this is a campus with free speech. Anyone of any skin color or gender can give that opinion.
Well, like the Lauren Southern thing was basic definition of trans people being talked over.
She had just legally changed her sex marker as some sort of like anti-trans publicity stunt a few days before.
[Lauren] I, honestly, didn’t expect it to be that easy.
The people who are there were like raw that day. You know what I mean? Everyone who attended that rally was putting themselves in a very vulnerable position and it was really just like being spat on.
[Jordan] Yeah. Yes. I think people also have to start pushing back and saying when they hear this constant noise about what group identity you belong to, and to make that the cardinal element of their identity. It’s appalling. Okay. Well, it was really good talking to you guys. Okay, good. Yeah. Bye. Now, who was that?
LOS ANGELES
[Gregg Hurwitz] Recording?
[man] It’s recording. So, anything I say now, you can put out in a tweet and ruin my career?
Exactly.
All right. I’m going to be mindful of you, Marxists. I was one of Jordan’s students when I was an Undergrad at Harvard. He can be a pretty intimidating professor, but he was beloved.
[Jordan] The aspect of people that’s dividing theoretically is the part that stands on the border between the unknown and the known and it moves information from unexplored territory into explored territory. Expanding the door to the domain of the group. That’s– Anyways. Okay. Who’s this?
One of the things I remember is that if any student had an objection to something, if it was clear it was from an ideological angle, whether Left or Right, he would just sort of scissor it. Like if you’re going to ask something disingenuously that part of what you’re asking is to get information or make a power play in the phrasing of the question, that’s not going to be tolerated in the kind of discourse of a classroom.
[Jordan] For me, ideologies are the expression in a sense, the verbal expression of the internal structures that regulate our emotions.
Jordan and I have been in touch sort of increasingly as our lives have gone on.
[Jordan] Actually. I think that was really worrying me, I guess I would say because the last thing I want to do– well, I don’t know if it’s the last thing, but I don’t want to get into political arguments and I don’t want to get stuck in a, you know.
[Gregg Hurwitz] One will always lose, on this topic.
[Jordan] I think you kind of lose every time you engage in a political argument. You know the people that are putting the argument forward are possessed by one ideology and when you discuss it in the ideological terms and oppose it, that means you’re immediately possessed by the opposing ideology. I don’t want to be the mouthpiece of… of the opposite to Neo-Marxism.
[indistinct chatter]
All right. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
That’s all.
[elevator bell rings]
[Jordan sighs] Could be catastrophic for me. I don’t even know where I’m supposed to meet people.
What you had to say was definitely needed, I think.
Glad to hear it.
I think there needs to be an open dialogue–
Of course.
It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.
Oh, yeah. How are you doing?
I’m very good. I look forward to hearing you speak.
Your video about your ID switch there got a lot of attention?
Yeah, about 200,000. The one covering the protest against you got over 100,000.
Oh, yeah?
I don’t know if you saw it, but they–
You made quite a splash with your video, your YouTube channel. When did you start it? Rebel? Ezra Levant started it about a year ago.
A year?
Yeah, I joined full-time a couple of months ago.
[man] It was funny you’re talking to white straight guys and they put their hands…
They’re screaming at people, laughing at people for being white. It was very sad.
Well I’m the token Asian guy, so…
Well, it is pretty funny being white, you know.
Hello. Good afternoon, UOT. Dr. Jordan Peterson will come out and speak after I do and Lauren Southern–
[loud music]
[Jordan] Let’s not do that.
We’re here for the rally for free speech and we have some other company…
[loud music] …Campus culture has been changing lives everywhere.
Other people thought that the event was organized by straight white males who had bigoted opinions and just wanted to use freedom of speech as a shield for their ignorance. People on the other side did not understand. The people who are disagreeing with the social justice left. We feel that, yeah, there is an issue of political correctness. Well, it’s not because I’m completely ignorant. It’s because I’m trying to think about those things and trying to form an opinion about those things.
[group of people] Shame, shame, shame.
[crosstalk]
Shame, shame, shame.
Okay.
[loud music]
[indistinct screams]
[applauses] Okay, so let’s try this again. The reason I’m defending freedom of speech is because that’s how people with different opinions settled their opinions in a civil society and if we lose that–
[group of people] Whoa.
[applauses]
[Jordan] If we lose that, we’ll lose so much, you can’t imagine. It’s as a consequence of free speech and the ability to speak, that people can put their finger on problems, articulate what those problems are, solve them and come to a consensus and we risk losing that. Now, the radical Left activists are trying to turn this into an argument about sexual politics, and it’s only nominally about sexual politics. It’s about language that’s designed to control our freedom of expression.
[group of people] Whoa.
[over speaker] Shame on you…
[Jordan] I’m asking each of you as individuals…
…a bigot like you.
[Jordan] To say clearly and carefully what you have to say.
[group of people] Peterson. Let me just express my profound gratitude for what you’re doing.
Thank you.
Thank you.
[Jordan] That’s okay. I’ve got a platform. YouTube seems to be doing just fine.
Yeah.
It’s okay this sort of thing. There’s no violence. As long as there’s no violence, it’s okay. And so, we’ll see how this plays out.
Recognized by anybody.
[Jordan] How am I disrespecting you? By refusing to include language which is already in your vocabulary into like a sentence just when addressing somebody. That’s just– Well, it should be and it will be an act of hate.
That is ridiculous.
[Jordan] Yeah, that’s for sure. Like that to me is you’re denying somebody’s identity and that’s fundamentally wrong. Well, you’re more than entitled to your opinion. I think that the pathway that you’re pursuing to obtain the rights you want will kick back hard and not in the direction you want it to.
I don’t believe that because–
Yeah, I know.
I think you’re behind in the progression.
You might be right. The progression here is moving way faster than you are and for you to be like this far behind at this stage is kind of sad. Sure. Who are you? I’m Ethan. I’m a student at UCS.
How are you, Ethan? How are you doing?
I’m good. You? I really respect what you’re doing.
Thanks.
No problem. Let’s go upstairs.
[Jordan] Yeah, I know.
That’s hilarious.
You think that’s pretty funny?
Yes. The intense part was the fight over the–
Speakers?
The speakers, yeah.
There was one guy there…
Yeah, it shouldn’t– …who was that far from being violent. Oh really? On the other side? On your side?
Well… on my side.
Well, on the Right or the Left?
On the Right–
You got to be careful there, kiddo. Okay, sorry.
[crowd] Peterson. Peterson. Peterson. On all their faces. Don’t smile on me, bitch. What do you want? Whoa, whoa, whoa. The Canadian psychology professor is somebody people love or love to hate.
[crosstalk]
I think one of the hottest topics in the country today, Professor Peterson, and it’s all because of you.
[slow music]
“Jordan Peterson’s popularity is the sign of a deeply impoverished political and intellectual landscape.”
—Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs
“Professor Jordan Peterson is a brave man. Better, he is an actual, a real, university professor.”
—Rex Murphy, National Post
[Lane Patriquin] I ‘ve been doing specifically non- binary activism for about four years now, ever since I came out. That’s mostly been online creating spaces like resource collection and creating education materials and making YouTube videos. My decision to not compromise my identity is very much a survival thing for me because of the level of depression and mental health, mental health issues that were caused by me trying to exist as female.
We’re here at the free speech counter protest to our “Please respect us as human beings protest.” that we put on last week.
The Jordan Peterson thing was the first protest I’d ever participated in or participated in arranging, rather.
[Jordan] You have no idea if I’m your enemy, you have no idea about me.
[Lane] You won’t use my pronoun, so I’m pretty sure you’re my enemy. I know you think that, but I don’t believe that using your pronouns is going to do you any good in the long run. I think it’ll do quite the contrary.
[Lane] What the fuck? Is that your medical opinion? You are aware that non-binary people are valid in the American Psychological Association?
This isn’t about the non-binary people.
Yes, it is.
No, it’s not.
It’s about non-binary pronouns.
No, it’s not.
[Lane] This was one of the speakers who spoke at the rally in support of Jordan Peterson that my friends were involved in disrupting.
[man] Do you think people love them? Do you think they’re hugged and taken care of? -Do you think people love those people?
[man 2] Hallelujah.
[man 1] Do you think that they’re listened to? No! So, they believe these crazy inter-sexual cultural Marxist ideas. You’re tattooing your body and cutting off your genitals.
It shows the kinds of things that were being said at that and the reason why people thought that it was important to counter demonstrate that.
It’s really difficult to separate the thing with Jordan Peterson from the Trump election because when I first got into it, I thought it was a blip. I thought it was just like some stupid thing that’s happening and people think that people are getting overly confident because Trump’s running for office. But once he loses, things will just kind of, go back to the– you know, the way that they were before.
[man] Donald Trump wins the presidency. The business tycoon and TV personality capping his improbable political journey with an astounding upset victory. Donald J…
So, the rallies happened in early October and then Trump was elected in early November. And that really just– if Peterson was the spark then the Trump election was like the fire that really galvanized it. People who were on Peterson’s side, or whatever, were wearing MAGA hats and like saying all these, kind of like, Trumpist’s slogans. The groups of people who were supporting Peterson, were going to be an ongoing political identity.
[indistinct chatter]
[slow music]
“…he believes political correctness could lead to totalitarianism, which he began studying extensively in his teens during the Cold War…”
—Patty Winsa, Toronto Star
[Jordan] Dear dad, I don’t completely understand the driving force behind what I have been working on. I’d been obsessed with the idea of war for three or four years, often dreaming extremely violent dreams centered around the theme of destruction. I believe now that my concern with death on a mass scale was intimately tied into my personal life. Carl Jung has suggested that all personal problems are relevant to society and that any sufficiently profound solution to a personal problem may, if communicated, reduce the likelihood of that problem existing in anyone else’s experience in the future. I had a notion that confronting what terrified me, what turned my dreams against me could help me withstand that terrible thing. This idea allowed me to believe that I could find what I most wanted if I was willing to follow wherever it led me. Knowing somehow that once started, an aborted attempt would destroy, at least my self-respect, at most my sanity.
[Walter Peterson] I knew that he had been bothered by bad dreams and was very conscientious about what was going on in the world and for a while thought he could solve it with political action, and that disappeared. Then he seemed to kind of take a route that led him into, you know, why were there wars? Why was man so damn miserable to each other?
[Jordan] My experience with students has been that none of them know anything about what happened as a consequence of the repression of the radical Left in the 20th century. The reason that I believe that this is important in a personality class is because it’s necessary to analyze the relationship between the psychological integrity of the individuals within a society and the propensity of that society to engage in say, acts of mass atrocity.
[woman] The Joe Rogan Experience.
[Jordan] I have this class called Maps of Meaning, which concentrates on atrocity basically, on Soviet atrocity and Nazi atrocity mostly. And what I try to do in the class is to teach my students that had they been in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, they would have been Nazis and had they been offered the opportunity to be an Auschwitz camp guard, then maybe they would have leapt at it. Maybe they would’ve been in the more sadistic proportion of the Auschwitz camp guard population. You think that makes you feel safe? It doesn’t make you feel safe to know that Nazis were humans and you happen to be one of them. I guess we didn’t talk about this one. That’s not a copy, that’s an original. And that’s– there’s a bit of the statue of David in this one, I think because the hands are quite exaggerated in size, you know, and that at least in principle, gives the figure more power because hands are so powerful. I mean, obviously he’s about– on a podium, he’s about the same size as me in representation, but his hands are at least fifty percent bigger than they would be in real life. So, it’s kind of an interesting technique. So, people ask me, sometimes people are shocked when they come into the house because I’ve got paintings of Lenin. It’s not like, I don’t know, he was an absolutely murderous tyrant, but… I want to understand it. I think I scared my wife half to death when I was buying them though because, you know… you have to be pretty… not easily worried to not be concerned if your husband goes and buys like five hundred paintings. But she really likes art, so it wasn’t that big a struggle. So… we can go and look in the living room. There is good old Karl. My daughter… [laughs] for Christmas one year she found like a plush doll that was Karl Marx at some intellectual kid’s toy store and he was on sale for 50% off. So, she bought me that for Christmas, which I thought was real funny because it’s one thing to buy Soviet era artifacts online for nothing in this capitalist market, which I thought was extremely hilarious. But to buy a 50% off Karl Marx doll, that was just exactly perfect. So…
[slow music]
[Tammy] There’s a message from the event organizers.
[Jordan] Yeah. Says, “We’re dealing with a crisis at the moment regarding the risk management department, possibly pulling our approval to run the event. I’m trying very hard to make sure this doesn’t happen, but we’ll need to discuss with Dr. Peterson how we can proceed -if this occurs for ten minutes.”
I’ll fucking go anyways.
[Tammy] He’s probably going to call you–
I’m going to call him.
Okay.
[man] Hello?
Hi, there. It’s Dr. Peterson calling. Yeah and who are– who is the risk management office? Well, what needs to be done here– I need the names and phone numbers of the people who are making this decision.
Yup.
[man] All right. Bye, bye. Scum rats. The risk management office is thinking about pulling their permission.
[Tammy] Yeah.
If they go ahead with it, then they cancel them as a club for the next year.
You’re kidding.
No.
That’s threatening.
That’s a–
That’s called blackmail. Blackmail, that’s it. Yeah.
That made me mad.
Yeah, I see that. Yeah… Shaken again. Oh, well.
[Tammy] Did you want to drink a juice? Yeah. Thanks.
Some tea would be nice.
You’re getting juice.
Okay.
[Tammy laughs] Think it’s safe to wear a tie?
Why, you think they’ll strangle you with it?
Strangle me with it?
Yeah, sure.
[Jordan laughs]
I don’t– I don’t see it being anything really.
Just a lot of– -You think it’s a lot of noise?
A lot of fluff. Yeah. -Yeah, probably.
[indistinct chatter]
[man] All right. Listen up. Listen, listen. Security services is in this building. We’ve been working with them for a while. We have officers outside. So, please, everyone, if we could be respectful– [group of people] Transphobic piece of shit. Transphobic piece of shit. Transphobic piece of shit. Transphobic piece of shit.
[another group of people] This is where we draw the line. This is where we draw the line. This is where we draw the line. This is where we draw the line. This is where we draw the line. This is where we draw the line. Let him speak. Let him speak. Let him speak. Let him speak. Let him speak. Let him speak.
So, I’ve received–
[air horn honks]
Listen, you can honk that, but if you’re definitely with it, I will take it away from you, you understand?
What? Do you want me to take that? Not kidding. Freedom of speech, it applies to air horns too.
No, it doesn’t apply definitely.
Oh, yes, it does.
Not kidding. I will take it.
Yours words hurt my ears. My snowflake ears are hurt by your hard words.
[woman] Shut down Peterson. Shut down Peterson.
[group of people] Shut down Peterson. Shut down Peterson. Shut down Peterson. Shut down Peterson.
[tension music]
[Jordan] Okay. Well, thanks guys for tuning in and again for offering support for the continued operation of my YouTube channel. We’re in a chaotic time and you know I’ve gotten letters from people all over the world who tell me how they can’t say what they think. Jordan Peterson. [applauses] [man] Jordan Peterson, the unprecedented international, media phenomenal. Is any of this, all the pressure and the scandal every three weeks, is it weigh on you? Yeah. It’s like simultaneously the worst possible thing and the best possible thing that could happen. Well, financially it’s been a boom, right? I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to because it’s just so God damn funny, I can’t help but say it. I figured out how to monetize social justice warriors.
[laughs]
[man] This is Sam Harris. And today, I am speaking with a guest who has become quite famous online for standing in opposition to changes to the human rights code in Ontario, Canada. And he’s actually the most requested guest
I have had at this point.
[woman] Head northwest. Hi, all. Are you coming to the talk?
[young man] What time is it?
Six thirty. Six thirty? I’ll be there. Looking forward to it.
Jeez, I’m a name brand guy.
[Tammy] Are you?
[Jordan] Yeah, it’s pretty fucking weird.
[ping-pong ball bouncing]
Oh, you’re fast. Eighteen-ten.
[laughs]
[Jordan] Eleven.
[Julian] The public response has been overwhelmingly positive, so I think that’s given him like steam. You know, it’s– it’s made it easier for him to just keep at it.
[Tammy] And I was really stressed at the beginning. That was a big decision for him to speak out. I would say that though a lot of the credit goes to Mikhaila because Mikhaila helped him with his diet. This as we shall discover is kind of the family curse in the Peterson family, isn’t it? You have had depression yourself.
It’s one of the family curses.
[laughs] You’ve been dealing with depression yourself for… much of your life, right? Since, when did you? That’s– that’s hard to say. I mean… it might’ve been for my whole life, like as far back as I can remember. I know that when I was a child, I had a very low threshold for tears. Last September I went on an elimination diet and then just out of the blue, like two months into the diet, my depression went away. And I wasn’t expecting that to happen because I thought, you know, chemical imbalance is what doctors tell you. I just thought that I was stuck with it forever. I made a list of all the foods I knew didn’t cause depression and I told dad that he had to do it. He was like, “Well, that doesn’t sound realistic, but I’ll give it a try because it worked for you.” I used to get up in the morning. I get up at 5:30, 6:30, 7:00, sometime like that. I’d do some yoga, I’d have some tea, I’d read a book, and make some breakfast. I’d call Jordan. Then I’d call Jordan and he couldn’t get up. It was hard and now, like I wake up, really early and I sneak out of the room and I sneak upstairs and I’m being really quiet and then I hear, “Tammy.” I say, “Yeah.” “What time is it?” “It’s quarter to 6:00.” “Oh, are you doing yoga?” “Yeah.” “Okay. I’ll be right up.” That never happened. In my 28 years of being married, that’s never happened.
It’s been a remarkable transformation.
Yeah, for sure.
[Tammy] He used to talk like a revolutionary, but now he acts like one.
[laughs]
[Julian] Yeah.
[soft music]
So, I thought to bring full closure to the class. I was trying to solve this terrible puzzle about how it was that human beings got themselves in such a tangle about what they believed, such a tangle that we were pointing the ultimate weapons of destruction at one another. And it seemed to me that the proper solution to that was to live properly as an individual because you’re more powerful than you think. Way more powerful than you think. God only knows what you are in the final analysis. It’s like how far could you take that if you stopped wasting time and if you stopped lying and if you oriented yourself to the highest possible good that you could conceive of and you committed to that. How much good could you do? There’s so much more than just like intellectual ideas. This is why also on your Joe Rogan podcast, why it was like, “Oh everything is going to be online and that’s great.” It’s like, “No, that’s nice. That’s a good thought. But we need people, we need like embodied people in front of us like this or like the person.” So– That’s interesting. That gives me something to think about too because I’m trying to figure out how many talks I should go to and I keep it there.
[Ceci] People need to see and to like shake your hand and to like– or just like people need to be around people.
Okay. I get it.
We’re not vessels. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Thank you for, keep on, keeping on.
[Jordan] Oh, yeah.
[soft music]
[man] University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson has become a true phenomenon. That’s not an overstatement. His book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos may just be the biggest bestseller ever written by a Canadian author.
[applauses]
[Dave Rubin] Yeah. Welcome, guys. Now, the book is just blowing up. Everything that this man is doing is just absolutely exploding and you’re in the right kind of revolution. I really believe that. You guys are in another bloody revolution.
[applauses]
[Dave] Yeah, you’re in on the idea revolution.
[Jordan] Rule seven is to do what’s meaningful and not what is expedient and that’s a lovely thing to know. It’s allied tightly with rule eight. The two go together because you can’t really do one without the other. Rule eight is to tell the truth or at least don’t lie. One of the things that I think I figured out is that if you’re going to follow the instinct for meaning, and I truly believe that there is an instinct for meaning, and not only that there is an instinct for meaning, but that it’s the most real thing that there is.
[soft music]
I got a text from him and then he was like, “Hey, Jordan Peterson’s coming to talk. You want to go see him?” I was like, “Yeah, let’s go do that.” And then I don’t know, it kind of just fit in because my birthday was coming up shortly.
[Connor] It’s easy to go down the path of just, I’m good enough, I don’t need to improve from here. And I think hearing him just saying that you owe it to yourself. You owe it to people in your community. That you do need to clean up your room, get your stuff together and make your community a better places. It’s an important thing to be said in a time where I don’t think it’s said nearly as much.
[Adam] Up until I had seen him, I was sort of drifting around, I would say. I was spending a lot of time just doing things that are in consequential and a bit unproductive. After following him and really learning about how to act in the world is what I would say he taught me to do and I just became a lot more aware of all of the things that I needed to change. Here’s the book. I’ve reread it multiple times and reread specific passages of it, multiple times because this is sort of an iteration of his entire method. After you follow him this much, he sort of becomes like a legendary figure in your mind while also retaining an incredibly power.
Maybe just me, I just speak only for myself.
Yeah, I think. I mean legendary, yeah. I maybe going too far. Do I do that guys? I can’t really judge it by myself. It’s understandable if you hold a high opinion of someone and then you don’t really– Like you can’t really talk about a lot of this stuff at school especially. We’re at an art school. You can’t talk about a lot of this stuff. So… when you finally talk about someone you have a high opinion of, you can go like further than you actually feel. Yeah, and I agree. I have been doing that a little bit, but I don’t think I’m going that far. I mean, he’s had a huge effect and I really don’t want to understate that.
[soft music]
[Liam] Yeah, I know. Yeah. One question and that’s it.
[host] Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Jordan Peterson.
[applauses]
[Jordan] Hi, Matthew.
[Matthew] It’s such an honor. I got to thank you so much. You’ve helped me improve my relationship with my father. You’ve helped me rekindle my faith in religion. And one of the best things is you have given me the courage to stand up for my conservative and libertarian beliefs in the classroom.
How’s that working out?
Oh, the history teacher’s mad.
Yeah?
[all laughing] But we’ve got a few kids in our class keeping the Neo-Marxist history teacher in check. There’s just a few students there. They’re all watching him, making sure he doesn’t like say anything out of line.
It’s quite funny.
[Jordan] It’s hilarious.
We all watch you. We all watch Ben Shapiro.
God, he must just hate me.
That’s great. Let’s get a picture.
It’s really good to meet you.
You’re getting sharp?
Yeah.
[Jordan] Good. Say “Hi.” to your friends for me. Tell them to keep it up and to be gentle. All right.
Hello. Hi.
What’s your name?
Connor.
Hi, Connor.
Wow.
How are you doing?
[all laugh]
Did you enjoy the talk?
Yeah, definitely.
Good. What are you doing here? I came here to see you. Have you been watching videos? Yeah, since 2016. Just you are a lot taller than I expected. I’m not even standing up straight.
[people laughing]
[photographer] Shoulders back. Right. All right. Okay. Good to meet you, man.
I’m glad you came.
[photographer] One, two, three. Yeah. This is so fantastic.
[photographer] When you’re ready. One, two, three. My name’s Anthony. I just want to say thanks for everything.
No problem, man.
You’ve done so much for me and I really, really appreciate it. Great, man. I’m thrilled to hear it.
Thank you.
You bet. Just meeting him just– a lot of emotions came over me cause I’ve spent so much time in the dark and in bad places mentally that– that’s it’s really not easy to find– not so much heroes, but people that can be so helpful for you in your life.
Thank you.
It’s a pleasure to meet you.
See you.
Hi, mate. How are you? I was at– after my talk, it’s overwhelming. I don’t usually think about these things, but I was– it after my talk last night and so all these people line up and you know, they have their 15 seconds with me. They’re kind of tentative. They’re excited and attentive when they come up to talk to me and then they have 15 seconds of time to tell me something. I’m really listening to them and they’re hesitant about whether or not to share the good news about their life, you know. And I think it’s often because when people share good news about their life, people don’t necessarily respond positively. They don’t get encouragement and people need so little encouragement.
Yeah.
It’s just unbelievable. The truth is something that burns, it burns off deadwood and people don’t like having their dead wood burned off. Keep talking, bucko. Sort yourself out. The more responsibility you take on, the more meaning your life has. I’ve been telling people online in various ways, in the lectures that they should start fixing up the world by cleaning up their room. Imagine you’re dealing with someone who’s hoarding. There’s like ten thousand things in their house. There’s maybe a hundred boxes and you open up a box and in the box there’s some pens, and some old passports, and some checks, and their collection of silver dollars, and there’s boxes, and boxes, and boxes. It’s absolute chaos in there. Absolute chaos, not ordered, chaos. And then you think, “Is that their houses or is that their being? Is that their mind?” And the answer is there’s no difference. There’s no difference. So, you know, I could say, “Well, if you want to organize your psyche, you could start by organizing your room.” So, people have been taking the things that I’ve been saying and making them into merchandise. These are bumper stickers that someone sent me. It’s a book. I don’t know how many of them, but quite a few. “Clean your room,” which has become some kind of an internet meme. They’d be horrified to see this room. This is the only room in the house that’s messy. Can’t really keep up with everything. That’ll teach me, be mouthy about cleaning up your room. “I can’t possibly express how grateful I am to you for all the ways you have and continue to help me. What you are doing for society is really important.” I don’t know what to make of it. It’s all part of the same strange thing I suppose whatever that thing is. Sharp. That goes here. What have we got here? Oh, let’s just see– that’s a poster that someone spent an awful lot of time making, which is– well, I don’t even know what to say about that.
[tension music]
[Bernard] I first got to know Jordan when he applied for a job in psychology at the University of Toronto. That was about 20 years ago. After he was hired, I think it was a good hire. I mean, I remained his strong advocate for many years. So, this is the third floor of our house where Jordan and his family lived for about five months. It looked a little different then, but this is where it was. And… we all ate together downstairs. There was not a kitchen up here and we had kind of lovely five months. We got to know each other very well, got to know his family very well. And afterwards, it remained a kind of familial relationship. I didn’t write this article to persuade Jordan of anything. I wrote this because I thought that there are people out there who should know what’s going on. What was extremely upsetting to me was the disregard for students and he was extremely polarizing at a time that more polarization was not helpful.
[Jordan] Well, it caused grief, I would say is the right way of thinking about it. I regard Bernie as a friend and he had been a very good, well, a good friend to me in all sorts of ways and to my family. So, it came out of the blue. That was the other thing. It was a real surprise. And I was surprised that we hadn’t discussed any of this.
[Bernard] I called him and I said, “You know, I’m really upset with what you’re doing. I find it really–” I was having a blood pressure problem. I said, “I didn’t want to talk about this, but I want you to know that I–” And I said all these things. He called me eight o’clock the next morning, “Bernie, we have to talk.” So, we talk. He says, “I know this is a sensitive issue in your family.” It’s not. I have a trans daughter, but Jane’s doing extremely well. I started saying, “No, what bothers me…” I’m about to repeat what I had written and he interrupts me and he says, “Bernie, you don’t understand. I’m willing to give up everything because I really believe this. I’m willing to give up my job. I’m willing to give up…” I don’t remember where else he put on the line, “…because I believe it.” And then he says, “And Bernie, Tammy…” That’s his wife. “…had a dream.” I said, “Okay, what was the dream?” And sometimes your dreams are prophetic. What was the dream? She dreamed it was five minutes to midnight, the end of the world and Jordan is there to save us from that. I know Jordan pretty well by now and I’m saying, “Okay, Jordan. There’s really nothing to talk about.” And I hung up. So, it is true that he called me a number of times since then, many times, and I did not return the calls because he was on a roll. I was watching what he was doing. I thought he was getting nastier, angrier, and I saw that there was no reason to talk because I knew– because I knew there was no access to Jordan except to say, “Jordan, you’re doing a great thing and I believe what you’re doing.” I did not do this lightly. It’s not something I would have liked to do and it’s only the fact that so many people– I’m getting these emails from people saying they’re glad that I wrote it. That makes me feel okay, it was the right thing to do. “I am one of those female academics you refer to. I don’t have tenure and I’ve completed my PhD late in life. My university has become polarized around the issues that Peterson speaks about, to express any opinion on Peterson’s theories, places one firmly in a for or anti-camp. There is no reasoned critique camp. So, like a true coward, I watch what I say, and I stew in silence.” I think that to some degree that it’s true that I’m a polarizing figure. I’m a polarizing figure because I’m adamantly opposed to the collectivist notions of people on the Left and the Right and that produces a certain amount of polarization. But I don’t think that that can be laid at my feet. I think it’s part and parcel of the fact that we’re in polarized times and I’ve done what I can when I thought it was necessary to pull that polarization back.
[Bernard] What I worry about is the preacher like quality of his. He’s been interested in the authoritarian personality. He’s be fascinated by the horrible people in history. His house is filled with Stalinist art. He says to remind him about the awful things of that culture. He has a number of YouTubes which he describes how they operate and he was doing exactly the same thing. I spent a lot of time thinking about Hitler and I was thinking, “Well, how do you get into a state like that you know?” And you think, “Well, he’s a dictator and he led his people down a bad path.” It’s like, that’s not right. That is not what happened. They had a conspiracy together and went down a bad path. Now, think about it this way, the crowd’s not happy and neither are you and there’s reason for it. You start talking to them. You don’t know what you’re upset about and neither does the crowd. You start to articulate some things about why you might be upset and some of them fall flat, but you’re paying attention to the crowd. Some of the things make the crowd really wake up and listen. And so, you start saying more of those things, but it’s not like you’re sitting there saying, although you might be, “I’m going to tell this crowd more what it wants to hear.” It’s more sophisticated than that. And so, you do that a thousand times and you do that to ever increasing crowds. And the crowd really starts to go mad. And they basically tell you that you’re the savior of the nation. It’s like at what? How many bloody people have to tell you that before you start to believe it?
[slow music]
Franklin says, “Fans are cancer for the authentic individual.” Well, I guess what you’re pointing out is the danger of fame. I can’t say I’m particularly comfortable with it, which might seem to be rather hypocritical as it isn’t like I’ve shied away from exposing my views in public. However, I would say, I think that’s mostly because of the responsibility. You know I’ve been terrified for a whole year that I’d say something unforgivably stupid and demolish myself in public and feel guilty and horrible about that for the rest of my life. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be hated publicly. I think that would just kill me. I really think that. Our next guest is the kind of guy people either love or hate. Clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson has been described as one of the most influential thinkers of our time, but also as an Alt-Right figurehead who spouts conspiracies. People associate you with pandering
to like white supremacists.
I mean you are a provocateur.
Yeah. I never say anything–
You’re like the Alt-Right that you hate to be compared to. Because the political agenda that I opposed was being driven by the people on the radical Left. Those are the people that I’ve been… taking to task, let’s say. Didn’t expect that the initial reaction would be, “Oh, you must be a Nazi.”
[man] We’ll meet that with resistance.
Sorry. My sense is generally speaking that if people want to talk to me about what I’m doing, then I talk to them. Now you might say, “Well, be careful who you talk to.” It’s like, well, fair enough. And then one last thing, I’m not exactly sure what to make of the Alt-Right and– and then one last thing, I’m not sure what– and then one last thing, I’m not sure how to understand the Alt-Right or to characterize it or even to know what to think about its hypothetical existence or my association with it. But I can tell you that I’m not in favor of people banding together any ideological groups. And instead would much rather see people live fundamentally productive and meaningful and honest individual lives and in that manner be a light unto their neighbors, so to speak. So, I would encourage those of you who are considering yourself say on the Alt-Right for that matter as well as on the radical Left to… transcend your… dangerous and impersonal ideological identification and start to live as true individuals in the world. That’s what I think and I hope that I’ve been communicating that. If I haven’t, well I apologize because that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
[slow music]
[Jonathan Pageau] I am an icon carver. And one of my big interests is Christian symbolism and symbolism in general. I first encountered Jordan, listening to him on the CBC. I was driving and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing because it was so close to what I thought. And so from then on, we kind of got to know each other and realized that we both have a very symbolic vision of the world. We both see the world manifesting itself in patterns. And so, I think that Jordan is playing this kind of in between character. And he’s kind of standing in between different sides because the Left has been winning the cultural war, let’s say for the past decades. Because of that, the fact that Jordan is standing there more, I think he’s standing quite in the middle and he’s trying to call the attention to the fact that the Left is becoming totalitarian. Then obviously, people who are more on the Right are going to see him as their hero, let’s say. I’ve had very, very few, but the odd letter from and really, I mean, I could count them on the fingers of one hand from Neo-Nazis self-stated who say some variant of “We understand completely that you have no time for us, but we think you’re wrong.” Okay, well. One of the things that I think that has been amazing in what he’s been doing, and this is hard for people on the Left to really understand, is that he is actually been tempering the Right. I think he knows that he’s been doing that because we’ve all felt that there is really radical Right that’s bubbling underneath and it’s there. There’s no doubt about it that it’s there. But the problem is what do you do with those people? How do you interact with them? Like if you just say, “Oh, they’re evil, let’s not talk to them. We just need to shut them out.” They’re just– it’s just going to keep growing.
[Jordan] One of the things that’s happened to me over the last year, somewhat surprisingly, is that I’d been invited to speak in front of a lot of conservative groups. And you know, I would talk about what was going on in the universities and what I thought might constitute a reasonable antidote to that. And that was the adoption of responsibility. And this was actually a saleable message to young people. He’s saying, “Be part of a community. Get a family, have friends, get a job.” Like that’s how you can be a Right winger, not this stupid Nazi flirting with these Nazi ideology. That’s useless.
[Jordan] Oh, shit. Forgot to charge my phone. Morning. I was going to look into those theaters this morning, but…
Did you eat?
[Tammy] No. That’s why there’s food right there.
[Jordan moans]
You haven’t been getting up and doing yoga with me. Tight– Tight muscle.
You’ll have start getting up doing yoga with me again.
[moans] So what muscle is that– runs down my back? It’s probably levator scapulae, because when you look at the screen you always put your chin forward…
Oh, yeah?
…which makes it spasm.
That seems stupid.
Yeah, does too, but I think everybody does it.
Thanks.
You’re welcome. Alexa, what’s my schedule?
[computerized voice] Here’s are the next four events. Today at 12:00 PM there’s lunch. At 2:20 PM there’s Ben Shapiro interview on YouTube Channel. At 3:00 PM there’s Michael Shermer. And at 5:00 PM there’s Mikhaila’s birthday. Do you want to hear more? No, I haven’t read Michael’s book.
Where is it?
[Tammy] Right there.
On the other side.
Oh, I can’t see it from there.
No.
I got to read that today. I wonder how many people have watched that high school video?
[Tammy] Never mind.
You should concentrate on breakfast, dear.
Yeah.
What do you mean “yeah”?
I am. No. You haven’t to connect your computer.
[slow music]
See you. Okay. He’s here.
[soft music]
[Jordan] I don’t really like being tangled up in the political wars. The political is interfering with the philosophical and psychological realm. That’s my sense. And so, that’s why I got embroiled in political conflict with regards to bill C-16. The way forward through the ideological idiocy is to strengthen the individual and so I think when I deviate from that, it’s an error. It’s not necessarily an avoidable error at the moment.
[soft music continues]
[Jordan] Oh, look at that. You know what that is?
[mom] No. That’s like the first draft of my book, Maps of Meaning1990. It was called War Cause and Cure. Oh!
This is from the NDP back in…
[mom] Yeah. …in 1977.
That stuff should be there.
[Jordan] I ran for the vice-president of the NDP in Alberta and that was the first public speech I gave. There was about 600 people. My knees shook the whole time. “I’m running for the position of general vice-president of the New Democratic Party because I believe I can make a contribution to the party in at least two specific areas which are as follows: Firstly, Canadian nationalism. Being a Canadian involves tolerance of everyone no matter what language they speak, the color of their skin or what their political beliefs might be.”
[soft music]
[Jordan] George interview. I’m amazed that you managed to keep that all those years.
[man] Meanwhile, there’s a budding socialist in Fairview and he apparently is destined to go far in politics, 14-year-old Jordan Peterson was almost elected to the executive of the Alberta NDP during their annual convention during the weekend at Edmonton.
[man 2] You’re in about what now, grade nine?
[Jordan] 10th.
[man 2] Grade 10. Two more years to go on Alberta.
[woman] Talked about Canadian unity. How do you feel about that?
[Jordan] I would really like to see Canada stay together. I really would.
[man 2] What do you think you have to do to ensure that it would?
[Jordan] I think we need culture of some kind, something definite. We need something that we can really be proud of in Canada, so to stick us close together. That’s nice. I didn’t sound like a smart aleck kid. No, I don’t think you were. Well, you weren’t a smart aleck kid. Well, that’s good. Pounded if you had been.
[Jordan laughing]
Yeah. The party operatives, I didn’t like them when I was 16. They were– I could tell already that most of them were driven by resentment and that’s when I read George Orwell. And you know, he said, “Well, the middle-class socialist types generally don’t like the poor. They just hate the rich.” I thought, “Oh, yeah, that’s it. That’s it.” He put his finger right on that problem. The earliest political memory I have, it was when Robert Kennedy was shot. I don’t know how old I was, probably four or five. I watched his funeral and I thought, “I’m going to have a funeral like that.” I have no idea. I have no idea why I thought that. That it was– well, that it was a very large public event. That there was a lot of grief that was associated with it. That was the first thing that really, kind of, had an impact on me, I suppose that was part of the outside political world, but I was pretty young when that happened.
[camera shooting]
[Will Cunningham] Hello. Jordan?
[Jordan] Mm-hmm.
[laughs]
What’s that?
[Jordan] It’s a plague doctor mask.
A what doctor mask?
Plague.
Plague doctor?
Hmm.
Are you the plague doctor today?
Apparently.
Maybe not just today.
[Will laughing] Okay. It’s been hard. So, it’s weird seeing these two Jordans. There’s the Jordan Peterson I know. There’s the Jordan Peterson I see on Twitter. And then there’s the cult of Jordan Peterson, which also has its own ideas, which are sometimes only somewhat correlated with what he actually believes. Actually, have your neighbors talked to you about this?
[Jordan] Not much. I mean, I really haven’t seen anyone,
you know, I mean, how much have we seen each other?
Not much. Right, and I see you more than I see anyone else.
Wow.
Yeah. How’s the band going, man?
Pretty well, um…
[man] Do you have a second?
Hey, sure.
I have been watching your lectures on YouTube recently–
How are you doing, man?
I’m Jessie Cooke. Nice to meet you.
Hi, Jessie.
You’ve helped me through a lot of mental shit in the past month and I want to thank you.
I’m glad to hear that.
What sort of thing?
I’m going through some depression, anxiety issues. My life was out of order and, you know, you just– your lectures just gave me like a bit of space to work myself through, you know.
Good.
I don’t know how to explain it.
You explained it. That’s fine.
Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, I’m really happy to hear that. I’m so thankful to fucking meet you and say hello to you.
Well, it’s a pleasure.
Keep up the great work.
I hope to see you again.
Good to meet you.
[Will] He’s having so many adoring fans. He’s having so many people coming to him and then he’s also being confronted by people who he sees is mischaracterizing him.
[indistinct screaming]
I mean, I get upset when I read some of the horrible things he says and he does say horrible things sometimes.
[slow music]
I think he doesn’t see that when he’s fighting this battle, he’s actually falling victim to the exact same things that he’s accusing them of. Like for a while, one of the things I proposed in Canada was that the conservatives in particular, cut the university funding by 25% so that the universities would have to sort themselves out. But then that was a provocative claim obviously, but then I thought, “Well, that’s not a good idea because it opens up the door to political interference in the academy.” And that’s bad, conservative or Left.
Exactly, that’s right.
[Will] Like convince people to shut down the women’s studies departments or the SJWs. That’s not opening up the dialogue. It’s a derogatory term about a group of people. When you take that approach, you invalidate the other person entirely. You call them hysterical. You call them ideologically possessed. That closes any type of communication. I think it actually undermines his message. Does it bother you that your audience is predominantly male? Isn’t that a bit divisive? No, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s no more divisive than the fact that YouTube is primarily male and Tumblr is primarily female.
That’s pretty divisive, isn’t it?
Tumblr is primarily female.
Do you think men and women can work in the workplace together?
I don’t know.
Without sexual harassment?
We’ll see. We don’t know what the rules are. Like, here’s a rule. How about no makeup in the workplace? How about high heels?
What about high heels?
What about them? They’re there to exaggerate sexual attractiveness. That’s what high heels do. Now, I’m not saying people shouldn’t use sexual displays in the workplace. I’m not saying that… but I am saying that is what they’re doing and that is what they’re doing. Do you feel like a serious woman who does not want sexual harassment in the workplace, do you feel like if she wears makeup in the workplace that she is somewhat being hypocritical?
Yeah.
Okay.
I do think that. When you say that, when you say these kind of things, a woman may think that “Oh, I might be responsible for what this guy at the office said to me because yeah, I was wearing make-up.
So I’m the one to be blamed.”
That wasn’t the point I was making. No, but do you understand that for a woman watching this and who is a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace–
I don’t care about that.
You don’t care about what she may feel after she hears you? No, I don’t care. I really don’t care particularly what people feel about facts. I thought we were talking about masculinity.
We are. Yes, we are.
No, we’re not. No. Basically, what you’ve been trying to do, I would say for the last 15 minutes is put me into a sequence of corners by accusing me of various forms of misbehavior.
[Will] It’s funny, I think that when I read these articles, almost none of them have to do with my experience with Jordan. Right. Here are these articles about how he’s the savior of all the young men who is fighting the evil oppressors that are about to take over the world or he is this evil white supremacist Nazi who is trying to destroy everything that’s good about the world.
[man] The professor who says equal pay for women… Really, is that when we want to do? …is a load of rubbish. These differences between men and women, they’re not going away. Oh, my God.
[woman] You have to travel a long way to find true… Like he doesn’t believe… anything the way that it was framed there. He’s just a guy trying to figure out the world in this sense. I know that he thinks about things very deeply. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he’s a very agreeable, compassionate person under the gruff exterior. And I think he’s at best when helping people find personal meaning. You know, that is the antidote to extremism.
[slow music]
[Jordan] Life is suffering. Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated. Truth is the handmaiden of love. Dialogue is the pathway to truth, so speech must be untrammeled, so that dialogue can take place, so that we can all humbly learn, so the truth can serve love, so that suffering can be ameliorated, so that we can all stumble forward towards the Kingdom of God. Thank you for inviting me to McMinnville.
[slow music continues]
[Tammy] When I first met him, I kind of met him in the neighborhood. He looked a lot different as a little kid, but he had the intensity that he’s always had.
[playing the piano]
[Tammy] That had to be the third time he asked me to marry him and I finally said yes. So, he said, “Okay. If that’s going to be the case, if we’re going to get married, then the guiding principle in our relationship has to be truth or it won’t work.” And… I said, “Okay.” I’d never really thought much about it before. You know, so I was just looking at everything that I had built my life on and was trying to decide whether that was going to be okay or not. So he really put a bee in my bonnet. He really put a bee in my bonnet. Because when you first get together, or at least when we first got together, there was lots of old family things to have to unpack. And Jordan was relentless in unpacking those things. Say somebody was coming over for dinner that used to make me very anxious. And Jordan would, you know, that’d be a question for him. Why was I having trouble with this? Then he wouldn’t let it go. He wouldn’t let it go. We’d have to get to the bottom of it. We’d have to figure it out because we didn’t want to have this argument again. Over probably the first year or two we were married, oh, man, we went through so many conversations. Three-day-long sometime conversations about unpacking old generational… weight habits and behaviors and beliefs and things to become more clear with each other about where we stood and so that we could be standing together. Like at every step of the way Jordan was trying to… help to keep the communication going and to keep the… road smooth for all of us. And that was very, very helpful, but very, very difficult conversations. And it worked, it– it really did. People ask me what it’s been like for me and they always approach me like, I must have been– this must’ve been scary or this must have been overwhelming, you know. And I travel with him. So, I’m there, but he really is like plugged into the world like he never was before. Yeah. Well, we’ll work out a detailed tour through Europe and so–
[woman] Okay.
[Jordan] And I’m looking forward to that.
[Tammy] And so, finding moments where… we have him again are precious moments. It wasn’t scary and it hasn’t been overwhelming, but I’ve lost Jordan to the world.
[slow music]
[man] Thanks for being the father I never had.
[Jordan] Hey, my pleasure.
[soft music]
[Jordan] The best story isn’t in the realm of identity politics. It isn’t, well, the Left has the best story or the Right has the best story. It’s that that whole level of analysis isn’t the right story. And the story that I’m telling people is that their lives matter more than they think, more than they want them to even and that their ethical decisions determine the direction of the world.
[Lane Patriquin] I’m not a huge fan of the fact that this documentary is being made, I think I said to you at the beginning that if a documentary was going to be made about what was happening at all, it should focus on the trans community and how it has been affected by this. I thought that positioning it through a focus on Jordan Peterson was just going to contribute to his notoriety or him building up some anti-hero identity for himself. Watching how the things have developed and he stayed in the news and people still talk about him, you know, he’s advising candidates for like the Conservative Party and like just getting way more distance off that controversy that he started than anyone who was opposed to him did.
[Jordan] And what I’ve increasingly realized is something like the best story will win. I hope that what I’m doing is telling the best story and I think if it doesn’t win, then something that is really not good wins instead and that’s– I’m not comfortable with that as an alternative outcome.
[slow music]
[Jordan] Well, it’s changed my life. It’s undoubtedly changed me. I don’t know how. I haven’t had enough time to think about it. Like, so imagine that something really… incomprehensible is happening to you. You can’t believe it. You have no place in your… conceptual structure to account for that and so you feel as if it’s not real. That’s what derealization means. It means, this isn’t my life. You’re separated from it. It’s because you can’t comprehend it. Well, that’s– every time I wake up, it’s like… I wake up and then it hits me that this all– this is happening.
[Dave Rubin] All right. I am truly thrilled to bring this man up here. He is at the center, right in the center, not just the center. He is at the center of the center. Here, I can– we can do this. Are we recording again? So, this is what I actually look like and then this is what people who don’t like me think I look like.
Yes.
[Dave Rubin] And he’s become a good friend of mine and I am thrilled and honored to bring up Dr. Jordan Peterson, everybody.
[applauses and ovation]
[Jordan] Yeah, that’s a good question. I would say they’re both real.
[slow music]
[ovation]
[ovation continues]
[slow music]
