give him a warm welcome dr. Jordan B
Peterson
thank you thank you very much it's very
nice to be here and to see you all come
out to spend a couple of hours thinking
about difficult things there seems to be
an appetite for that which is really
something
so let's exploit it so I started working
on the ideas that I outlined in 12 rules
for life well a long time ago and really
started when I was about 13 I was a
junior high school student and I met
this librarian who's kind of an
eccentric person very well-educated
person and she we I used to hang around
with my delinquent friends in the
library which tells you how eccentric
the librarian was because that's not
normally the place where the delinquent
kids hang out you know but she talked to
us like we were adults and that was a
word what would you call it a refreshing
that was a refreshing experience and she
knew that I'd like to read and she
started giving me real books she gave me
one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich
which was the first book published by
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet
Union it's a story about the day of a
political prisoner in a in a work camp
and brave new world and 1984 an animal
farm and in rands books which was quite
interesting because she was the wife of
our Member of Parliament who was the
only member of the Opposition in our
province and he was a socialist an NDP
new democratic party leader as a matter
of fact and but despite that she gave me
an rands books because she thought that
I should be exposed to the other side of
the argument so I read Atlas Shrugged
and
The Fountainhead and well she was the
first person who helped me discover
literature let's say and well at the
same time I got interested in what had
happened in Nazi Germany and I wrote an
essay about that when I was about 13 or
14 about Auschwitz and what had happened
there and I never read that really never
left my mind I would say I think I read
Victor Frankel's man's search for
meaning at that point which is a book I
would highly recommend I have a reading
list on my website by the way at Jordan
B Peterson com and so there was a
variety of books there that have really
influenced me and and I put them up for
other people's use anyways I never what
what I learned about our Woodson about
Nazi Germany never really left my mind
and because I couldn't understand how
people could act that way how they could
not only be possessed by an ideology to
the degree that the Germans were a very
civilized country Germany you know so
was I suppose even a more spectacular
shock that something so catastrophic
happened there there wasn't just the
ideological possession it was the
cruelty and the gratuitous cruelty in
the service of that ideological
possession that I couldn't understand it
didn't
I couldn't establish a relationship
between my own being and and those
patterns of action and as I got older
that concern transformed itself into an
obsession I would say not so much with
what had happened in Nazi Germany but
with I think what happened what was
happening as a consequence of the
collectivist philosophy per se which you
might think of something that manifested
itself both on the right in Nazi Germany
and then on the left in all the
multitudinous and catastrophic communist
regimes that characterized the bulk of
the 20th century and they're insane
murderous Ness and that probably
culminated for me in the 1970s when I
read Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's Gulag
Archipelago
go which is another book that everyone
should read because in some sense it
might be the defining document of the
20th century and the fact that everyone
in the West isn't familiar with that
book is actually a signal of our
catastrophic moral failing I would say I
started writing this book called maps of
meaning in about 1985 although I had
been working on variants of it before
that and what I was trying to understand
was maybe the psychological motivations
for the Cold War something like that
many of you are old enough to remember
what it was like in the 1980s we just
went and visited the house in in wreck
javac where Gorbachev and Reagan met
which was quite something to see and
when they decided they were going to
bring at least some of the insanity to a
relative halt
thank God the eighties were a very
contentious time you know the Cold War
sort of peeked into at two times the
peaked in 1962 during the Cuban Missile
Crisis I don't know if you know this but
I was visited a nuclear missile site in
in Arizona about ten years ago it was a
decommissioned missile site
intercontinental ballistic missile
intercontinental ballistic missile is a
very large rockets and can go halfway
around the world and it's ballistic
which means it has the same function as
a bullet and the bullet is ballistic
because once you fire it it's gone you
don't control it after it it leaves so
once you launch a ballistic missile it's
launched there's no calling it back and
they told us they did a simulation
launch which is very eerie thing and so
to launch a nuclear missile is a big
console that sort of looks like the Star
Trek control control module let's say
and one person stands here and one
person stands about 20 feet away each
have a key around their neck and they
put the key in the lock simultaneously
and then turn it for ten seconds and at
the end of ten seconds the missile is
gone and that's that
and they both have their keys in the
lock in 1962 so and we came close again
in 1984 when I don't know if you know
this but a Soviet missile detection
system signaled the launch of four or
five missiles from North America and a
single Russian soldier decided that it
was a false alarm and refused to push
the button that would have resulted in
major retaliation he just died about a
year ago you can read about him on
Wikipedia anyways I read Solzhenitsyn in
1970s and and that made me me even I
would say more obsessed with what was
happening in in on the world stage I was
trying to understand why it was that the
systems of belief that we inhabited
let's say one typifying the Soviet Union
and in similar States Maoist China North
Korea wonderful places like that versus
the West we each had our own way of
construing the world the ways of
construing the world were set at odds
with one another and the fact that they
were set at odds with one another
appeared to be so significant that we'd
armed ourselves with 50,000 Hydra
hydrogen bombs on each side something
like that I don't know how much you know
about a hydrogen bomb you know you know
about atomic bombs you know that a
hydrogen bomb has an atomic bomb for the
trigger right so so like the atom bomb
that was dropped on Hiroshima that was
something that was a fission bomb not
standard atomic bomb the first
generation but hydrogen bomb is
incontestably more powerful than that
and we were producing them in the tens
of thousands it's not like we don't have
any now but it was really some insanity
in the 1980s and people seem to have a
very itchy trigger finger so I was very
confused about this in two ways one and
from a psychological perspective because
by that time I did study just
to study psychology instead of political
science which was my original major I I
get I got disenchanted with political
science because I didn't believe that
people were fundamentally motivated by
economic issues I still don't believe
that that's true they're motivated by
whatever they're motivated by it can't
be captured by economics not precisely
it's very curious about what it was that
was so important about a belief system
that people would risk putting the
entire planet to the torch to ensure
that their particular mode of construing
the world prevailed was an interesting
psychological problem what was so
important about belief system that would
justify destroying everything that's
here risking destroying everything
because that was certainly the situation
we put ourselves in and more to the
point I guess or equally to the point I
was interested in two other things one
was were these differences in belief
systems just arbitrary and that's
actually a postmodern question I didn't
know that at the time no because you
might say the post modernists do say
there's a very large number of ways of
interpreting the world and it isn't
obvious how you determine which of those
ways are correct and so perhaps you
can't determine that any of them are
correct and then as a consequence of
your inability to determine if any of
them are correct then you have to turn
to something like power dispute to
establish which interpretation is going
to take precedence I would say in a
nutshell that's a post modernist theory
now that's tainted to some degree with
Marxist preconceptions but we won't get
into that but that's basically the idea
and it's an idea with a certain amount
of justification there is a very large
number of ways of interpreting the world
and it isn't obvious which way or ways
are right or why they're right so it's a
complicated problem and so I was curious
is like was this merely a difference of
opinion the West had a certain set of
axioms that it was acting out in the
world and there
Soviet bloc and the rest of the
communist countries had another set of
axioms and they were both arbitrary and
it was a matter of power or was there
something deeper at stake so that was
question number two question number
three was was there an alternative to
brutal combat was there an alternative
way of solving the dispute to brutal
group combat something like that and so
because I always believed that if you
understood a problem that you could
solve it in fact that if yes if when you
analyze the problem a solution didn't
emerge from the analysis then you
actually didn't understand the problem
and so I thought if I delved into the
problem deeply enough then maybe I could
figure out what might constitute a
solution assuming there was such a thing
because I couldn't I knew after writing
a fair bit of it that we were that there
was a real problem because you can get
belief systems that are locked in combat
and then obviously the terrible
consequence of that is the combat but
then I also knew and this was probably
more from reading Nietzsche than
anything else that if your belief system
collapses you might say well I don't
want to fight with you about whose
belief system is correct I'll just let
my mind go but the problem is if you let
your belief system go then you're
swamped by nihilism and hopelessness and
and that's not helpful first of all it's
very it's not helpful psychologically
because it produces motional pain and
anxiety and maybe at unbearable levels
you can't have a pointless life it's
it's it's it's a suffering a pointless
life is pointless suffering and people
can't sustain that without becoming
demoralized that's only where they start
demoralized bitter cruel resentful angry
hostile murderous genocide alike all
those things follow one from another if
if things are sufficiently hopeless you
can't just let your belief system go but
if you're locked into it and there's
another one that you're competing with
then the the consequence is war it's
like so what is it nihilism on the one
hand in war
on the other that didn't seem like
especially given the outcome of like say
the third world war that neither of
those seemed like acceptable
alternatives but I couldn't see any
other I couldn't see that there was
anything else other than those two
alternatives and so that's what I tried
to lay out in in this book maps of
meaning and most of the thoughts that I
expressed in 12 rules for life not all
of them and in the lectures that I've
done that have become popular on YouTube
were all developed during the 15 year
period that I worked on that book and I
worked on it I would say obsessively
really I wrote about three hours a day
and I thought about it for pretty much
12 other hours and so I was thinking
constantly it was it's not obvious why
but well I told you why for some reason
all that manifested itself to me as a
cardinal problem but I concluded and
tried to lay out the rationale for this
that the the fight between these two
belief systems but let's let's look at
the belief systems it's not communism
versus the West it's not communism
versus the free market it's it's
different than that it's collectivism in
its far right form let's say the far
right form of the Nazis and the far left
form of the radical leftists the
Communists that's collectivism versus
individualism that's the fundamental
conflict and there are variants of the
collectivist viewpoint but it doesn't
matter they can be grouped under the
rubric of collectivism there's important
differences but we don't have to get
into that the Western take wasn't
collectivist it was individualist
and the central idea of the West was
that although people are obviously
obviously aggregate into groups and many
different groups because all of you are
members of very of many different groups
ethnicities genders sexes races family
groups community groups you can be
grouped a very large number of ways and
and you tend towards the adoption of
something approximating a group identity
because you know you take care of your
family and you're a member of your
community and you have a certain amount
of justifiable pay tree
him in relationship to your state the
group identity is definitely part of who
you are the question is what's the
fundamental defining characteristic of
who you are and the collectivist
definition is that you are the avatar of
a collective and that's fundamentally
who you are but the Western perspective
is not that the Western perspective is
that despite the fact that people have
an individual level and a collective
level the individual level is to be
regarded as paramount you're to be
treated above all L above all as an
individual now and I looked into that
very deeply and I thought that isn't
arbitrary it's actually correct that's
the right way of looking at the world
and then you might say well what do you
mean the right way and of course that's
the right question because that is the
question
if something's the right way of looking
at something why is it the right way of
looking at it but I want to put a little
spin on that too because usually when we
talk about individualism in the West at
least in the modern world maybe let's
say for the last 50 years or something
like that maybe it's after World War 2 I
don't know exactly the parameters it
doesn't matter certainly since the 1960s
when we think about the tradition of
individuality in the West we think about
the tradition of individual rights and
there's a problem with that because the
fundamental individual tradition of the
West is not individual rights and rights
have a problem rights are sort of like
your privilege compared to other people
I have these rights and don't tread on
them that that walls me off and makes me
privileged in some sense it means that I
have the right to do things I have the
right to pursue my own interests I have
the right to pursue happiness for
example that's explicitly laid out in
the American system the rights are what
is special about me and so when you look
at individuality or individualism from
that perspective you can think about it
as a selfish idea and it's often
criticized by collectivists precisely
for that selfishness
but the fundamental idea of the
individual in the West isn't predicated
on rights even though that's important
it's predicated on responsibility right
so your role as an individual in the
West isn't to be the bearer of Rights of
intrinsic rights even though those are
important your responsibility as an
individual in the West is to bear the
responsibility of an individual and it's
in bearing that responsibility that you
set yourself right and your family right
and you keep the state on track it's not
from expressing your rights
it's from shouldering your
responsibility and I would say that the
reason that you have rights in the West
is so that you can shoulder your
responsibilities it's not the other way
around
it's so that you can do what's best on
your behalf and in that manner do what's
best on your family's behalf and in that
manner contribute to the degree that you
can to the community and that if you do
all those things simultaneously which
means to accept the responsibility for
that then things move ahead as well as
they can move ahead which doesn't
necessarily mean well because life is
very difficult and there's no sure way
through it there's only less bad
approaches that might be a way of
thinking about it and the least bad
approach you can manage is to shoulder
your responsibilities as an individual
and that's the and I would say that one
of the things that drives the
collectivist ethos which is often
formulated in terms of compassion for
the oppressed which is something we'll
talk about a little bit later is
actually a deep desire to at all costs
avoid that responsibility and it's no
wonder because the responsibility is
overwhelming say the world fundamentally
is a tragic place right it's a place in
which each of us is broken and it's
contaminated by the ever-present reality
of
trail and malevolence and to shoulder
the responsibility first for even
admitting to that and second for
assuming that you are duty-bound let's
say to do something about that well
that's a task that anyone who has his or
her eyes open should be leery of
accepting and I would say well perhaps
there's no credible reason for accepting
it except that every other alternative
is worse and so that's a brutal fact so
the antidote to collectivism is
individualism but it's not the
individualism of the privileged person
with rights it's the terrible burden of
the individual who determines that he or
she will shoulder their responsibility
to that most so I developed that idea in
maps of meaning that and I made a lot of
lectures about that look many of which
are on YouTube some of which have become
widely viewed I would say by hundreds of
thousands of people now and so that's
and that course always had a dramatic
effect on my students and their most
typical comment there's two classes of
typical comments that I got from
students about my maps of meaning
courses it's the same comments that I
get from people now when they come and
talk to me about my lectures the first
comment is and this is about maybe a
quarter of the people is that watching
the lectures are taking the course
enabled them to put words to things they
knew they knew but didn't know how to
say and so and that's fine because that
was an explicit purpose of the writing
and the course and the second is that it
helped people straighten out their lives
and that's also not that surprising to
me because a lot of what I integrated
into that book and the lectures and then
the lectures that were also associated
with my personality course were ideas
from the great clinical psychologists
and psychiatrists of the
a century there was a dozen of them or
so or maybe 20 who were all outstanding
geniuses of slightly different types who
learned all sorts of things about how
people could put themself together
properly as individuals and if you learn
about those things they're actually
really helpful that's not surprising
because they sit at the core of an
entire domain of science and art let's
say devoted to improving people's
individual lives I wove the
responsibilty idea into twelve rules
because that's really what it is in some
sense it's a call to the voluntary
adoption of maximal individual
responsibility and it's a psychological
work not a political work now I think
the reason that it's attracted so much
political attention let's say some of
which gun logger referred to in the
introduction is well there's two reasons
one is because I took what might be
regarded as a political stance about
some compelled speech legislation in
Canada I never regarded that as a
political move because I regarded the
legislation itself as something that
wasn't a political move I regarded it as
an attempt by the politicians to jump
outside their domain of acceptable
conduct into the philosophical or even
the theological realm because you don't
mess with the idea of free speech in a
western country and there's very
sophisticated reasons for that and it
doesn't matter what your reasons for
doing it are you don't go there and so
but it happened to be the more radical
leftists that we're pushing this forward
and because I objected to it then it was
in their interest to assume that I must
be the worst sort of right-wing diehard
I suppose because otherwise they'd have
to contend with my actual arguments and
so it's simpler just to shoot the
messenger than to contend with the
arguments and you know if you stand up
and say there's something wrong in a
place like Canada where most things
aren't wrong then it's reasonable also
for people to assume they're much
be something wrong with you because most
of the time there isn't anything wrong
with the country and so a certain amount
of testing is a reasonable thing for
people to do I guess the other element
of this that's political in some sense
though is that within the collectivist
viewpoint this is something that's very
interesting with regard to free speech I
didn't really figure this out till a
couple of weeks ago
although the radical leftists and you
see this particularly in the United
States now although the Americans have a
very strong tradition of free speech the
radical leftists are opposed to freedom
of speech but that's not really right
it's not the way to think about in the
radical leftist collectivist view of the
world there's actually no such thing as
free speech it's a worse criticism than
then opposing it because the
collectivists believe that you're
nothing but an avatar of your group
first of all there is no you you're
defined by your group membership and
then the world is a landscape of groups
each vying for predominance and that's
what there is and it's and so when you
say that you're speaking your mind that
isn't something that you can do from the
collectivist viewpoint what you're doing
is acting as an unconscious avatar of
the power demands of your group there's
no you there's no free speech there's no
your opinion there's no facts for that
matter everything is to be viewed in
relationship to the power struggle
between groups that even in principle
cannot communicate and so the other
reason that I detest let's say the
collectivist viewpoint is because I see
that it leads nowhere but to conflict
because if people cannot speak as
individuals between groups then all they
can do is submit or fight those are the
options right negotiation capitulation
or warfare those are the options and the
only process that allows for negotiation
in the absence of capitulation or
conflict is speech because we can talk
over our differences and that discussion
is going to be contentious because we
actually have differences but compared
to the contentiousness of not talking
over the differences it's a walk in the
park
you know I saw something quite
remarkable when I was in London a month
and a half ago I was on this political
show and one of the things they did in
this section that didn't have anything
to do with me was to show a bunch of
clips from the the there's a question
period that the British have evolved
where the opposition can go after the
Prime Minister and the woman that was
appearing with me on the show had
written a book about that called Punch
and Judy if I remember correctly and
they showed a bunch of clips of English
MPs attacking the prime minister and the
Prime Minister's response all the way
from Thatcher forward it was absolutely
vicious in the way that well-educated
British people can be vicious which is
very impressive form of viciousness
it was no-holds-barred verbal combat and
you might think well isn't that horrible
because it's certainly rife let's say
with microaggressions but it's not
horrible because none of them had their
hands around each other's necks right it
was all civilised it was everyone was
standing where they were supposed to
stand and they were hurling invective
and making criticisms and making
accusations and defending themselves and
all of that but it was all contained
within the peaceful confines of this of
the house of parliament and that's a
miracle really it's a miracle and the
British are particularly good at that
and so you leave free speech alone
because the alternative to free speech
is capitulation or conflict and unless
you want one of those or both and you
might then you don't interfere with the
mechanism that enables people's people
to state the nature of their reality and
to clarify that and to negotiate with
others even though that negotiation is
painful and emotionally demanding and
threatening and anxiety provoking
and aggression instigating and all of
those things because the alternative is
far worse I wove the idea of individual
responsibility through through 12 rules
well we might say we might begin by
thinking about how that's related to the
idea of free speech it's like you have
to find your way in the world let's say
with all of your peculiarities your
idiosyncrasies and your differences and
the way you do that is by acting in the
world but the way you prepare to act is
by thinking and really what you're doing
when you're thinking so philosopher
named Alfred North Whitehead who said
something very intelligent about
thinking he said that the reason we
think is so that our thoughts can die
instead of us right and it's a Darwinian
idea so the way animals adapt to the
world across time is that animals
produce variants variant offspring many
of them and most of them are
unsuccessful and die but a few of them
are successful enough in that time and
place to reproduce and so the animal
keeps living across the millennia
varying slightly as it does so to adapt
to the transformations of the
environment human beings do the same
thing but we also have figured out how
to abstract that and so what we do when
we think is that we produce a fictional
world that's a simulation of the real
world and we populate that simulated
world with simulations of us and then we
let those simulations play out in the
simulated world and the ones that are
successful we embody and act out and the
ones that are unsuccessful we abandon
and let die and we do that when we're
thinking in dreams and we do that when
we think in stories and we even do that
when we think in words although it's not
as obvious when you argue internally
which is what you do when you think you
have an avatar that manifests itself as
one point of view and then avatar that
manifests itself as another and you let
them
engage in conflict and the one that
loses you let go of that's a sacrifice
and if you're discussing something with
someone and it's important then you both
put your viewpoints forward and you
analyze the consequences of the dispute
and then you walk away with any luck why
is there than you were so that you can
embody a mode of being that's more
likely to be successful and you do that
in part in large part by exercising your
freedom of speech and you might think
well why freedom of speech and not
freedom of thought and the answer to
that is don't be thinking that you think
because thinking is very hard and most
people can't think at all and even if
you can think you're not very good at it
I mean think about what you have to do
technically to think first of all you
have to formulate the problem that's
hard enough and you have to formulate it
precisely then you have to generate
multiple potential solutions to the
problem and then you have to let those
solutions argue themselves into a
hierarchy internally and so you have to
be able to tolerate that stress right
you can't just be one thing if you're
gonna think because thinking isn't just
saying that what I think is right that's
not thinking at all thinking is
questioning whether or not what you
think is right is right and that's
really hard it's very demanding and so
and you can do that to some degree but
you're not as good at it as you think
even if you're a pretty good thinker
mostly the way you think is by talking
and you talk and mostly when you talk
and think it's contentious as you know
if you've ever had an intimate
relationship with someone because an
intimate relationship if it if it has
any worth at all is a place where
there's tremendous contention but it's
bounded within something approximating
mutual respect and the willingness to
continue to play the game across time
and the reason that an intimate
relationship is contentious is because
life is very very difficult and people
are different and we face
extraordinarily complex problems
together like how to make a living and
how to how to operate properly in our
careers and how to rank order the
importance of our careers and how to
manage our domestic economies and how to
discipline our kids and whether or not
to have kids and how to enter middle
age and how to grow old gracefully and
how to live productively and where to
vacation and all of these things which
are extraordinarily difficult problems
and the only way that we can solve them
is by butting heads to some degree and
communicating freely about what the
possibilities are and negotiating a
solution and that's thinking and in
order to do that thinking you have to be
able to speak freely and you certainly
have to be willing to offend someone I
mean of all the stupid questions I've
ever been asked by journalists the
question what makes you think you have
the right to offend someone by what you
say is by far the most miraculously
ignorant and I say that because well you
know it just it just it just sets me
back on my heels to some degree because
I think well what's your claim here your
claim is your first claim is we could
hypothetically discuss something
important without one of us getting
upset it's like that's not gonna happen
if you ever discuss anything important
with anyone including just discussing it
with yourself
not only are you gonna get upset you're
gonna get so upset that you probably
won't even do it you know you think well
I have a difficult problem what's your
first reaction well I'm gonna sit right
here and think about that it's like no
that isn't your reaction your action is
to go like play a video game or watch a
YouTube video or or vacuum your bedroom
or do the dishes or whatever you can do
not to think about that that's what
you're going to do so you know and then
if you're gonna have a discussion with
your wife or your husband or your kids
and it's about something important it's
like if you if you're a normal person
your heart rate goes up and it's like
it's demanding and then you have to
think it through and then you're
probably wrong and you're gonna stumble
over your words and god only knows if
you're gonna reach a solution and you
can't tell if it's gonna mean the end of
your damn relationship and like the
catastrophe lurks everywhere when you're
discussing difficult issues and the rule
is something like but you can't offend
anyone it's like well then okay fine
then you never get to talk about
anything that's important with any
whenever including yourself it's like
that's supposed to be the rule then you
think well even if it's not quite that
bad it's like let's say so here I'm
addressing about 850 people something
like that it's like what's the
probability that I could talk about
anything that any of you would ever want
to listen to for more than about 15
seconds you know that would grip your
interest without me offending at least
one person in this room with each
sentence there's a thousand people in
here you know and some people are
unbelievably easy to offend there's that
they're just looking for a reason to be
offended so so there's that problem but
if we're gonna deal with things that are
that are solid and contentious and why
talk about things that we already all
agree on we've already solved those
problems we can only really talk about
things we don't agree on it's the only
thing worth talking about
well of course everyone's gonna be
offended and so for a journalist to ask
that it's like what the hell's with you
what what planet do you inhabit don't
you understand that your entire
discipline is predicated on not only
your right to offend someone but the
responsibility that you have to offend
people it's like that's it's
[Applause]
thinking isn't offensive out which is
why tyrants hate it right because one of
the rules in the tyranny is don't think
why because I already know all the
answers and you're supposed to accept my
answers as the tyrant and so there's no
need for your thinking and you might be
saying well my life isn't going as well
as it could and the tyrant says well you
don't get to think that because in my
utopian tyranny everything's perfect and
if you're suffering that means you're
politically suspect because you're
suffering your inability to recognize
that the Utopia has already manifested
itself your unhappiness is actually a
political crime but if you just keep it
to yourself well we'll let you keep your
head but if you have the the if you're
driven to the extreme where you have to
express the fact that you're unhappy
perhaps that your child doesn't have
enough to eat then it's off to the gulag
with you and all your family as well
because there'll be no thinking here and
even if there is they'll certainly be no
talking you sound here's something that
happened recently in Venezuela this is
worth thinking about for all the people
who Harbor collectivist utopian dreams
Venezuela the Venezuelan government
about two months ago this was reported
in The New York Times which is not a
newspaper I would say that would be
intrinsically biased against Venezuela
said that it was now illegal to diagnose
the cause of a child's death in a
Venezuelan hospital as starvation
because the Venezuelans Venezuelan
government's answer to the problem of
children starving was to make it illegal
to notice it in hospitals and that's a
tyranny right that's a place where
thought is not allowed that's a place
where free speech is not allowed so it
seems to me that
that's not a good place to go to say the
least and we've gone there many times in
the last hundred and fifty years and we
should perhaps think very hard about
whether or not we ever want to go there
again the first rule in twelve rules for
life is stand up straight with your
shoulders back and I want to tell you a
little bit about the world in which that
rule applies and it's our world but it
isn't necessarily the world that you
think of when you think of our world
although it's the world you know that's
funny because it's a world you know but
you don't know you know it it's a world
that presents itself to you in literary
form and in mythological form and and
symbolic form and you all understand it
but you you can't articulate it but I
can articulate some of it how many of
you have seen the Lion King okay how
many of you haven't okay so that's a
better question hardly you guys should
see The Lion King because obviously
there's something wrong with you so so
and in any ways I want to tell you about
the world of The Lion King now one of
the things I want you to notice is that
when you go see that movie or when you
show it to your kids when you watch it
at home I don't care what you fall into
it and that's very strange because first
of all it's not a world it's drawings
right it's animated drawings of a world
it's very low resolution and the
creatures aren't human they're animals
you've all noticed that no doubt and the
world is magical because things happen
in it that aren't the sorts of things
that obviously happen in the real world
but you don't care about any of that you
don't care that the animals talk you
don't care that the Lions or Kings all
of that makes perfect sense to you and
that means that which is a very strange
thing which it means that the manner in
which the characters are represented and
the world that they inhabit is somehow
familiar to you because otherwise you
wouldn't fall into it and you wouldn't
even and you'd notice that what you're
doing is so strange because it really is
so strange so imagine the opening of The
Lion King so what happens is that the
camera pans over the great African plain
and you see all the animals gathering
right they're all coming together and
there's this kind of thrilling black
gospel music going on in the background
with an African beat and so and it's
really well done the opening of that
movie and then you the camera pans up
like like it's revealing something and
you see this structure that's known in
the movie as Pride Rock and so it's this
structure that rises up above the plane
and it's it's shaped like it's a
mountain essentially although it's not
it's just a rock but it's it's a high
place it's a place that you can that you
can view everything from right so it's a
place that it's a place from which you
can get an overview it's a place from
which you can see and you're introduced
to the Kings little bird whose name I
don't remember at the moment and he's
the eyes of the King and so the king is
obviously something that has eyes
because he has a bird and the bird can
fly around from up above and see
everything in report to him so whatever
the king is is associated with the bird
just like Horus the ancient Egyptian God
was associated with a Falken in fact for
exactly that reason
Falcons can see better than any other
creature by the way better even than
human beings and we have very good
eyesight so the king is the creature who
can see and the king is a lion and the
reason the Lions a king is because the
Lions at the top of the food chain
that's part of it but the lion is a
solar beast he has a mane he's
associated with the Sun he's associated
with the daytime he's associated with
power and majesty and strength and it's
not a mouse that's king right it's not a
rat it's it's a it's a lion and you
think well obviously the lion is king
you know everyone knows that even though
animals don't have Kings in case you
didn't notice so it's not self-evident
that it should be the lion and then the
lion is on the rock in the Sun right so
the rock sticks up above everything else
and the lion is there and the lion is a
paternal lion and he has a mate and the
scene opens with them giving birth and
so it's a nativity scene and so and
that's painfully obvious if you watch it
with a little bit of detachment it's in
Tivoli scene and Rafiki who's the shaman
priest lifts up the new Messiah to the
Sun and when that happens the music
swells and all of the animals go down on
their knees and it's a very and then the
there's a drumbeat and
the the the words the Lion King come up
on stage and it's beautifully done it's
beautifully done they they pan up to the
revelation of the lion cub to the Sun
two or three times and it's really it's
a really emotional moment and it's
because all these levels of symbolism
lock in at the same time you have the
the environment the field where all the
animals gather so all the animals are
gathering to review the revelation of
something transcendent and the
revelation of what's transcendent is the
birth of the new hero to the king and
queen on the rock above the plain and
there's a universal truth in that which
is why the animators worked as hard as
they did to make that scene and why it
opens what was one of the most
spectacular ly successful movies of all
time and the the way the filmmakers do
it is when Rafiki holds up the the
infant Simba the clouds break and the
Sun shines on and that's the culminating
moment and that's the revelation of the
identity of the newborn hero with the
consciousness of the Sun and so we're
light creatures where day time creatures
were visual creatures right we're not we
don't we're not nocturnal the night is
when we're unconscious the day is when
we're conscious and the terminology that
we use that's associated with the
furtherance of our consciousness is
illumination and enlightenment and so
there's a tight relationship between
waking up and letting the light shine in
and developing in consciousness and the
association between the Rays of the Sun
and the lifting up of the infant is the
Association the ancient association
between the hero who defeats the forces
of darkness and the Sun itself and you
all know all of that which is why that
opening works and why it sets the scene
for the rest of the movie and what's the
rest of the movie well we could think
about the landscape first of all there's
a scene where Simba's father takes him
up on top of Pride Rock and tells him
that his kingdom that he's the king and
that his kingdom
extends as far as the light touches so
the landscape is a place with a pyramid
in it there at the top of the pyramid on
a plane that's circumscribed by the
light and outside the light is darkness
and so the the mythological landscape in
which this story reveals itself is light
versus darkness or order versus chaos
and the reason for that is because that
is our landscape we inhabit pyramidal
structures those are hierarchies of
other hierarchies I think in our society
those are mostly hierarchies of
competence we we we inhabit hierarchical
structures on a plane that's defied
defined by our understanding surrounded
by what we do not comprehend and that's
the universal human world and that
hierarchy itself is a cooperative
structure that enables us to live with a
certain amount of peace and productivity
together and also to establish a value
system with whatever is that the
pinnacle of the hierarchy regarded as
whatever is most valuable now think
about what happens in the Lion King it's
a it's a voyage into what's most
valuable
it's an examination of what's most
valuable now the Old Kingdom is
threatened by scar scar is the evil king
of the evil brother of the king the king
is the parrot the entity that inhabits
the pinnacle of the pyramid the king
always has an evil brother and you know
that as well and the reason for that is
that there's no hierarchy that's so
pristine that it isn't threatened by
corruption and scar is presented as a
resentful intellect and that's a very
common trope as well that's the evil
scientist idea it's not the only only
the evil scientist idea it's the mad
scientist it's the evil genius God how
many movies with a mythological
substrate have come out in the last 20
years that prominently feature an evil
genius
it's like there's dozens of them there's
an
inexhaustible hunger for that
representation I mean in the last
Avenger movie you had Thanatos right
he's basically the spirit of death who's
an evil genius who thinks that mass
extinction is the answer to the
population problem of let's say the
world something to think about very
seriously well the reason for that is
that this estate is always threatened by
malevolence always the hierarchy can
always become corrupt and tyrannical and
that those the the forces of malevolence
let's say that are conspiring behind the
scenes tend to tilt every hierarchy
towards tyranny and the proper attitude
to take towards that universal truth is
to stay in the light and keep your damn
eyes open and so well what happens in
the lion king is that the evil brother
overthrows the rightful king and that
again is an unbelievably common idea you
see that idea echo throughout the
mythological landscape for centuries and
the reason for that is it happens all
the time that's what happened in Nazi
Germany that's what's happened in most
of the tyrannical societies of the world
and most societies in the world are
tyrannical there's always the
possibility that the hierarchies that we
live in will become corrupt and
counterproductive and there's multiple
reasons for that but they're summed up
in the malevolence of the arrogant
intellect it's something like that
that's it that's a very common idea
that's the character of Milton's Satan
by the way because he's the ultimate in
arrogant intellect Milton Satan is the
figure who believes that his knowledge
is sufficient to do without the
transcendent to do without the idea that
there's something beyond or that there's
still something to learn all I know is
all that I need to know which is exactly
the belief of the fundamental tyrant the
evil brother of the King kills the king
Simba loses his father well that's
another common idea because everyone
loses their father in some sense people
grow up and become cynical as teenagers
and the reason they become cynical as
teenagers is because they see that the
corruption of the state is sufficient to
undermine their confidence in the
benevolence of the state and they get
cynical prematurely because what the
hell do you know when you're a teenager
but you're encouraged in your cynicism
frequently in our culture which is a
very bad idea no I mean even though it
is the case that the structure is always
threatened by malevolence let's say an
inhuman weakness Simba ends up
fatherless and lost and alienated from
his kingdom just like King Arthur it's
the same story the king is often the
rightful king is often dissociated from
his kingdom and forced to occupy a
domain that's outside the kingdom and
that's what happens to Simba he loses
his father and what happens he's he
adopts the lifestyle of an impulsive
adolescent that's what happens and so
he's out there in no-man's land with his
useless teenage friends doing nothing of
any good except living for the moment
and that's the nihilistic retreat from
the corrupt state and no wonder and you
might say well if the state is corrupt
why should I participate in its
maintenance why should I do anything
that's useful if all I'm doing is
furthering the development of a corrupt
state and I would say the message in the
most pathological university disciplines
the activist disciplines that's exactly
the message that they're particularly
putting out to young men which is you
live in a corrupt patriarchy and that
means any attempts that you make to
further yourself in this life as an
individual with regards to your family
another corrupt patriarchal institution
with regards to marriage or career that
all that is is furthering the corrupt
patriarchy everything you do that you
think is good in the productive sense is
actually doing nothing but contributing
to this catastrophic tyrannical
patriarchy very demoralizing but also
opens the door for you to be as useless
as you possibly can because and there's
always a temptation in that direction
because it's easier and you can justify
it by saying well if I did anything
productive all I would be doing is
furthering the dominance of the corrupt
system any
waise and if you haven't met people who
think that way then you haven't met very
many people because that's an
unbelievably common way of thinking and
it's an excuse but it's it's also a
logical reaction to the confusion of
competence with power that's part and
parcel of the collectivist landscape so
Simba grows up so to speak
gets older at least playing this
impulsive day-to-day game rule seven in
my book is do what is meaningful not
what is expedient and of course Simba's
lifestyle outside the rightful kingdom
is nothing but expedience it's impulsive
pleasure and that lasts until until what
until his old girlfriend shows up nella
and she's been dealing with the
catastrophe of the state and maybe
that's because women the demands of
family fall heavier on women at least
initially and so they're more sensitive
to the catastrophe of the state nella
shows up and says to Simba what the hell
do you think you're doing you're useless
I liked you when you were a kid here you
are you're completely useless and
everything's falling apart and the state
has become corrupt and there isn't
enough to eat and there's things that
need to be done and he falls in love
with her of course probably because she
criticizes him and and then he's deeply
ashamed of himself because she rejects
him because he's useless and so she
should reject him because he's useless
and if she didn't then he'd never figure
out why it was useless and do something
about it and that's when he meets his
father remember there's an initiation
scene there the wise old baboon who was
supposed to be a fool and in the early
drafts of the movie guides him down
underground so that he can reflect upon
himself which is what he does in the
pool down in in the underworld and what
he sees reflected at his own face is the
spirit of his dead father mature face
Simba looks like this right he looks
like a deer caught in headlights the
animators have done a really good job of
capturing that naive
and and sort of rotten old adolescent
innocence you know that's that's
outlived its utility and but his father
has a very set face which means he's
integrated his aggression and he sees
his father in the water and then he sees
his father in the sky and his father
says you've forgotten who you are wake
the hell up grow the hell up there are
things to fix there there are things to
fix there's responsibilities to take on
and so Simba's rather shocked by this
encounter and decides to leave his false
adolescent paradise and to go back to
the catastrophic Lee demolished state
and he takes his friends and he sees
this place that where there's nothing
but starvation and cruelty and
malevolence and tyranny and he fights a
battle against evil and he reclaims his
kingdom and as soon as that happens the
rain falls and the plants grow and
harmony is restored and that's fascist
mysticism by the way so it seems to
appeal to a very large number of people
given the popularity of that movie and
what is that
what's a call to responsibility it's a
fundamental call to responsibility right
is that it is the case that we live in a
field that's defined by the extent of
our vision it is the case that we live
in a hierarchical structure on that
plane it is the case that there's a
kingship at the top it is the case that
that's always threatened by malevolence
and sin it is the case that that can
make you corrupt and cynical and
irresponsible it is the case that that's
the inappropriate response and that it's
your responsibility to repair the damage
structure of tradition despite the fact
that it veers towards corruption it is
the case that if you take that
responsibility on yourself that the rain
falls again and everything flourishes
it's correct it's the right way of
looking at the world and if we didn't
know that deeply everyone in this room
wouldn't have watched
movie and you think well it's so strange
that we can watch that movie without
understanding it right you can fall into
it because you do when you go to you
might wonder well do people have
religious experiences because people
wonder about the truth of religion let's
say and I'm not going to go very deeply
into that issue but I can tell you that
what you're doing when you go to a movie
like that that has that mythological
structure and you fall into it which is
what you do that what you're having is
absolutely indistinguishable from a
religious experience
it's the revelation of knowledge that
you know but you don't know you know and
there's something about it that's so
deeply engaging and meaningful that you
will line up and pay for the privilege
of being exposed to it and this is not
an easy thing to understand like if you
bring your child will be very excited
about the possibility of going to the
Lion King right and maybe want to watch
it 20 times
my son watched the whale scene in
Pinocchio I bet he watched that a
hundred and fifteen times when he was
four or five years old he just watched
it over and over and over and over I
thought what the hell are you doing kid
you know I mean it was so interesting to
watch that he was so obsessed by it but
there's a tremendous amount of
information in that movie like an almost
unlimited amount of information and he
was gripped by it and was trying however
it is that a child's imagination tries
to come to terms with what the movie was
representing and it wasn't like he
enjoyed it not at all not in the least
you know and if you well if you if you
watch the scene how many of you have
seen the movie Pinocchio okay so it's
the same thing it's one of the 10 most
highest-grossing movies of all time by
the way there's a scene where Pinocchio
who's turned in he's a wooden puppet
who's been turned into a jackass and for
some which is supposed to make sense to
you and apparently does and he goes to
the bottom of the ocean to rescue his
father who was somehow swallowed by a
whale so think about what you're
watching you're watching a drawing of a
puppet turned into a jackass go to the
bottom of the ocean and rescue his
father from a fire-breathing whale and
perfectly okay with that right so so
it's very peculiar and so and it's very
frightening like the whale is a well it
does breathe fire because it's actually
a dragon not a whale and and they the
animators used locomotive noises to to
to add the audio background and the
whale is hell-bent on destroying the
hero of the story Pinocchio and also
Geppetto and it's a very tense scene and
so my son was just like this like the
whole time watching it wasn't you
wouldn't think that he would you know
he's like these terrified like a rabbit
who's being watched by a wolf and then
it makes his heart beat and he's all
exhausted and it goes and then the first
thing he wants to do is to do it again
it's like what the hell's going well
what what's going on there it's not like
it's a cakewalk it's not that at all
it's like he can hardly even stand to
watch it it's so tense especially when
you're four it's like it's bad enough
when you're an adult you know and you've
seen a thousand things like that and at
least in principle you're little tougher
and a little wiser but when you're four
that just blows you away like like
everything in the world does and yet all
he would do is expose himself to it over
and over and over and over and over and
in the Lion King like if you watch
children when they go see that they're
just demolished when Simba's father dies
it just tears them apart they can't
believe that you know the king has
disappeared and yet they'll watch it
over and over and over and over just
like you do and it's because well the
whole story we used to tell her son when
we took him to movies because he'd get
all shorted out by what was happening
and unsurprisingly watch the hero keep
your eye on the hero because that's the
pathway through and that's exactly right
because you're supposed to keep your eye
on the hero because that is the pathway
through and there isn't anything that's
more true than that that's a true story
you think well it's fictional it's like
fiction presents abstractions
abstractions aren't falsehoods they're
abstractions think about numbers numbers
are abstractions they're abstracted away
from individual entities in the real
world
but if you know the numbers you know
abstractions of tremendous truth
well the abstraction of the idea of the
individual hero from the collective of
human action is the abstraction of it's
it's more true than true deep fiction is
more true than truth that's a way of
thinking about it it's more real than
reality itself in the same way that an
abstraction can be more real than the
thing that it's abstracted from all of
the all of the landscape in a
mythological tale like The Lion King is
an abstract landscape what's common
across all landscapes well wherever you
go there are things that you know and
there are things that you don't know and
that's the human world and doesn't
matter who the human being is you might
know more than you do but doesn't matter
because your knowledge is still bounded
by your limitless ignorance and the
possibility that that domain of
limitless ignorance will make mockery of
what you know at any moment it's a
reality and it's a universal reality and
you have to orient yourself in that
landscape and so does everyone else you
have to deal with what you know and what
you don't know everywhere and the way
you do that is by straddling the divide
between what you know and what you don't
know you do that by staying firmly
grounded to some degree in what you
understand but by putting a tentative
foot outward into what you don't
understand so that you can remain stable
but you can stretch yourself and
challenge yourself simultaneously right
and that's the proper place to stand and
that's actually a real place that's the
line between chaos and order and that's
the place of meaning rule 6 again rule 7
is do what is meaningful not what is
expedient and when you do what is
meaningful you stay in the kingdom that
you've established but you don't stay
completely in it because you need to
challenge yourself and grow and so you
put one foot tentatively out into the
domain that supersedes your competence
and you maintain stability and grow at
the same time and when you're doing that
properly then the psychological
consequence of that is the immersed in a
meaningful experience it's a deep
instinct so when you know if you watch
yourself you say well I had a
particularly good day at work
and what does that mean well it means
that you lost your sense of time right
because when you're having not a good
day at work it's like first it's one
minute to three and then it's 45 seconds
to three and then it's 30 seconds that's
what school was like for me it was like
clique so funny you know I went to I
went to my daughter's school I used to
get in trouble for talking all the time
surprise surprise when I was a kid and
and I was bored stiff in school and and
so I would misbehave upon occasion out
of pure boredom and about 21 years ago I
went to my daughter's school to sit for
a class it was about an hour long and I
was sitting there and the teacher had
all the kids on the floor and was having
some of the kids read to the others and
some of the kids who were reading
couldn't read at all and I had exactly
the same experience I was sitting there
it was like being it's like being seven
years old again I could see the clock
going tick tick and I thought you know
if I was in this classroom for three
days I would misbehave fit 40 years old
I would misbehave
exactly like I did when I was when I was
six no well that's no place to be right
because that's you don't want to be in a
place that's stultifying you don't want
to be in a place where there's no
challenge you might even quit your job
if there's no challenge say well that's
a good job it gives you security and you
think god I can't stand this it's eating
away at my soul it's all security and no
challenge so why do you want to
challenge because that's what you're
built for that's what you're built for
you're built to take on a maximum
load right because that's what
strengthens you and you need to be
strong because life is extraordinarily
difficult and because the evil king is
always whittling away at the structure
of the state and you have to be awake
and sharp to stop that from happening so
that you don't become corrupt and so
that your family doesn't become corrupt
and so that your state doesn't have to
become become corrupt you have to have
your eyes open and your wit sharp and
your words at the ready and you have to
be educated and you have to know about
your history and you have to know how to
think and you have to know how to read
and you have to know how to speak and
you have to know how to aim and you have
to be willing to hoist the troubles of
the world up on your shoulders and
what's so interesting about that so
remarkable and and this is something
that's really manifested itself to me as
I've been doing these public lectures
I've been talking about responsibility
to people which doesn't seem to happen
very often anymore and the audiences are
dead quiet and I lay out this idea that
life is tragedy tainted by malevolence
and everyone says yeah well we already
always suspected that but no one has
ever said it quite so bluntly and it's
quite a relief to hear that I'm not the
only person who has those suspicions and
then the second part of that is the
better part and it's the optimistic part
which is despite the fact that life is a
tragedy tainted by malevolence at every
level of existence there's something
about the human spirit that can thrive
under precisely those conditions if we
allow that to occur because as difficult
as life is and as horrible as we are our
capacity to deal with that catastrophe
and to transcend that malevolent spirit
is more powerful than than that reality
itself and that's the fundamental issue
I think that's the fundamental issue of
the judeo-christian ethic with its
emphasis on the divinity of the
individual as catastrophic as life is
and as malevolent as people can be and
that's malevolent beyond belief
fundamentally the person has in spirit
the nobility to set that right and to
defeat evil and that and that more than
that and that the antidote to the
catastrophe of life and the suffering
life and the tragedy of life that can
drive you down and destroy you is to
take on exactly that responsibility and
to say well there's plenty of work to be
done and isn't that terrible
and there isn't anything so bad that we
can't make it worse and certainly try
very hard to do so but I have it within
me to decide that I'm going to stand up
against that I'm going to strive to make
the world a better place I'm going to
strive to constrain the malevolence
that's in my own heart and to set my
family straight and to work to work
despite my tragic loss for the
betterment of anything of everything
that's in front of me and the
consequence of that the immediate
consequence of that is that when you
make the decision to take on all of that
voluntarily which is to stand up
straight by the way with your shoulders
back to take on that all that on
voluntarily as soon as you make that
decision then all the catastrophe
justifies itself in the nobility of your
striving and that's what it means to be
an individual thank you
this one this one is good the first one
here what's your take on universal
income is it a fast track to new
communism capitalism killer or a
possible way out of starvation for
Humanity thank you well I don't think it
addresses the fundamental problem and I
think it's a I think it's a mirror of
the rights responsibility problem you
know you might say well everyone has a
right to the basics of life first of all
that's a debatable proposition because
the question is who's going to provide
those necessities and the answer
shouldn't be someone else under
compulsion so because each rate comes at
the expense of someone else's
responsibility and so you don't want to
multiply rights beyond minimum necessity
because you also multiply diverse
responsibilities beyond tolerance but
more importantly than that I would say
is that let's make it more concrete so
let's imagine that as the technological
revolution progresses more and more
people will be in danger of being
replaced by intelligent machines now we
don't know if that's true because it
hasn't happened yet right and everyone
has been predicting that that was going
to happen since like 1960 and it hasn't
happened and so there may be an infinite
amount of work and we're never going to
run out of work I suspect that's
probably the case but let's assume that
people do get dispossessed as
technologies transform and then we have
the problem of the development of people
for who have no viable means of making a
living and the question might be well
what's the fundamental problem there and
one answer is well they don't have any
money but I actually don't think that
that is the fundamental problem I've had
many people in my clinical practice who
were unemployed and had money now they
didn't have a lot of money but they had
enough money and enough money to keep
private
at bay let's say an had enough money to
well that was the rub enough money to
get themselves into plenty of trouble
and so one of my clients for example was
a I liked him quite a lot and he had he
was he had worked in a hospital and he'd
been hurt and and then he got onto
painkillers because he'd been hurt and
then he got addicted to painkillers and
then he got addicted to cocaine and his
life took a bad nosedive and he is
actually pretty good unless he had money
but as soon as he had a check it was he
was gone he was in a ditch he was in a
bar he spent all his money and he was
facedown in the ditch and that's where
he woke up the next day and and the
reason I'm telling you that story is
because it wasn't that he didn't have
money that wasn't the problem really the
problem was that he didn't have a
purpose he didn't have a place anymore
he got thrown out of the structure that
would have enabled him to find
productive meaning you know and you
might have said well he should have been
able to conjure that up on his own and
perhaps that's the case although he
wasn't the world's most sophisticated
person you know when people very
substantially in their sophistication
and and he didn't have a good family he
didn't have a support network around him
he was kind of a lost character in many
many ways and so it was easy for him to
fall out of the world which is what he
did and providing him with money was not
going to fix that what is what is going
to fix that well that's a good question
I mean we we have a program you people
some of you people might be interested
in it it's called it's part of a suite
of online writing programs called the
self authoring suite it's out self
authoring com
and one of the programs is called future
authoring and we've experimented with
this program in an attempt to address
this problem okay so I to you tonight
the idea that we live out a story and we
need a purpose to live out that story
properly and what that implies is that
you need a purpose you need a point you
need a name you need a precise aim you
need a name that's of sufficient
nobility I can't think of any other word
sufficient nobility to justify your
miserable existence even to yourself and
you need to develop that aim and so we
built this program I started working on
it about 15 years ago when I was giving
my students exercises to do University
and one of the exercises I had them do
was that they had to pick a small
problem maybe in their family or with
their room and fix it not try to fix it
you know but actually pick a problem
that was small that they could fix clean
up the cigarette butts in the yard
outside the residence clean the room we
had one kid whose mother had died and
the family got kind of fragmented and he
decided that he was going to take over
the maternal duties in the household and
kids were supposed to write about what
happened when they tried to put this
into practice because doing things like
that is way more difficult than anybody
ever realizes and so he tried to become
mother and the family needed a mother
and him he encountered all sorts of
terrible resistance which is completely
unsurprising I mean first of all people
in his family were annoyed that he would
dare to try to take their dead mother's
place you know even though he was trying
to do it for the best of reasons and we
played with that for a couple of years
and that was very interesting and then I
realized that I was teaching students
all these stories about purpose but
nobody had ever had them write a story
about their purpose essentially so I
thought wasn't that interesting here are
these these these kids they've been in
university they've been in school for 15
years and no one has ever sat them down
and said well what sort of character do
you want to develop who should you be
and why don't you write that out and
justify it you know six pages something
like that with the same amount of care
and attention that you might spend or
even more on an essay about the war of
1812 or something like that I think well
well more I thought about that the more
flabbergasted I would say I became
because I thought well what that what
how is it possible that we could set up
a system and run people through it for
15 years and never have them forced so
speak to figure out who they wanted to
be in to justify it in an articulate
manner and so I built this program with
my colleagues to help people do that and
I used in my classes first and so I
thought okay well here's the game and
this is like rule to treat yourself like
you're someone responsible for helping
and that doesn't mean be good to
yourself it doesn't mean let me be nice
to yourself it doesn't mean give
yourself an easy life that isn't
actually what you do to people if you
care for them you actually present them
with something like an optimal challenge
that's what you do with kids if you love
them as you present them with an optimal
challenge so they can develop and grow
so that's what you should do for
yourself if you're taking care of
yourself so I thought okay well here's
the game first of all assume that you're
worth taking a care that you're worth
taking care of and that it's your
responsibility to do so even if you
don't like yourself very much and lots
of people don't and they have their
reasons because everybody is very aware
of their own flaws right unless your
narcissistic you're more aware of your
own flaws than of anyone else's flaws
and maybe you're not very happy with
yourself and you don't think that you
deserve to have an okay life and so you
punish yourself and you set yourself up
for failure and all and all of that and
that happens all the time or you just
don't aim or you don't have any goals or
you know you're guilty and resentful and
feel that you should be punished so you
have to abandon all that treat yourself
like you're someone you're responsible
for helping responsible for helping
imagine yourself three to five years
into the future you get to have what you
need if you're taking care of yourself
you can have it but you have to figure
out what it is because you are not going
to get it unless you aim at it and
that's rule ten is be precise in your
speech and the reason I wrote that rule
is is because you can be bloody sure
that you're not going to hit a target
unless you aim at it and the more
precise you make the target the higher
the probability that you'll aim at it
that you'll hit it when you aim at it so
what do you want you think well I don't
want to even think about what I want
because as soon as I figure out what I
want then I've made clear my conditions
for failure and it's the last thing I'm
gonna do and so people enveloped
themselves in vagueness so they don't
have to confront their own failure but
then they fail and just don't notice
except for maybe you know two decades
later when it's too bloody late and then
they're all catastrophic Lee hurt
because they wasted their life it's a
very bad plan it's better just to figure
out what you want and to tell yourself
and then to tell your partner and to
tell the people around you and maybe you
can get it or maybe at least while
you're struggling towards it you'll come
up with a better plan which is more
likely the case what do you want from
your family if you could have what you
what was good for you what do you want
from your intimate relationship how are
you gonna educate yourself because you
don't know enough what do you want for a
career or a job because not everyone has
a career how are you gonna spend your
time outside of work in a productive and
meaningful manner how are you going to
resist the temptations of drugs and
alcohol and and and sexual misconduct
let's say cuz those are the big three
how are you gonna maintain yourself
physically and mentally well those are
seven good questions you can have what
you want what do you want it's an
operational realization of the New
Testament principle ask and you will
receive knock and the door will open and
you think well no there's no possibility
that that's the case it's like actually
it is the case if you don't specify what
you want you won't get it and if you
specify what you want and you want it
which means you're willing to make the
sacrifices necessary to get it then the
probability that you'll get it expands
immensely and miraculously in some sense
now of course it assumes that what you
want is within the bounds of appropriate
reason let's say but you could also
dream big and there's always the
possibility that'll work out too so
people ask answer those questions then
they write for 15 minutes ok your life
is the way you want it to be in 4 years
what does it look like write as much as
you can don't worry about being too
accurate don't worry about grammar
spelling don't worry about getting it
right because you're not gonna get it
right anyways just sketch the damn thing
out if you have what you wanted what
would it be and then we have them do the
opposite which is all right take stock
of yourself for a minute it's all your
weaknesses and inadequacies and bit
and resentments and sinful tendencies
let's say now imagine that you let all
of that go and occupy you just where
which little corner of hell would you
occupy in three to five years why don't
you write about that and everyone knows
where they go if they let themselves and
so then you have something to avoid and
you have something to strive for
and that makes you optimally motivated
because maybe you're afraid you know you
find out you don't like your job and
you're afraid to change your job and
then you think oh well if I don't change
my job then I'm heading for this little
corner of hell that I outlined think
well that's not a very good plan it's
very threatening and stressful to change
my job but it beats the hell out of
ending up there and so then you have
your anxieties behind you pushing you
forward instead of in front of you
stopping you cold and then we ask people
to write a plan to implement their
positive vision to justify it to come up
with a strategy for for making it into a
real world realization and we tested
that on thousands of University students
now and the upshot was that it decreased
the probability that they would drop out
of university by 30% in fact in Canada
we we did it for 90 minutes before kids
went to college in the fall they came to
their summer orientation neither rode
for 90 minutes about something that
required writing but that wasn't so
relevant or they wrote out of plan and
it dropped the dropout rate among young
men 50% in the first semester and it had
the biggest effect on young men who
didn't do that well in high school and
who weren't oriented towards a
professional career the consequence of
that was that the University used it for
one year and then stopped doing it so
which was not surprising in the least
but the reason that I'm laying out this
long story for you is because that's
what people need they need they need a
differentiated and delineated purpose
it's way more important than the money
it isn't money that you need I know you
need money for God's sake I'm not
ignorant everybody needs money that's
not the point here it's the provision of
money without purpose is not helpful
and what people need is a purpose and
they need that to develop that for
themselves obviously because it's
something you have to participate in but
it's something that society has to
foster and the reason they need that
purpose is because that's what gives
their life meaning think well think
about this do you really think that you
would be satisfied if you had money
without responsibility so what okay god
no responsibility because that's what
everyone wants it's like I had a client
he wanted to retire when he was kind of
young and he and I said well what's your
retirement dream he said well I
envisioned myself on a beach in a
tropical island with a margarita in my
hand and I thought what the hell is that
it's like okay let's play that out let's
be adult about this okay so you go down
to your this like redheaded white guy
you go down to the Caribbean and you sit
on a beach and and you're sitting in the
beach and you have like six margaritas
and you're there for like three hours
what happens the next day okay you're
sunburned to a crisp
right so you can't even go out of your
hotel room and you're hungover okay and
let's say now you hide in your hotel
room for three or four days and you
recover and then you repeat that every
day for three months it's like you go
outside and all the locals get away from
you because you're the new drunk lecher
who's come down from the north and
that's your vision for retirement it's
like okay so you have all the money you
want no responsibility you don't have to
take care of yourself you don't have a
partner so you don't have to take care
of them you don't have any kids you
don't have to take care of them you
don't have a job it's like what are you
gonna do what are you gonna do exactly
sit in the Sun and drink margaritas it's
like there's no no that's not a good
vision you don't want no
responsibilities it's wrong people find
the meaning in their life by adopting
responsibilities and so provision of
money you know they say man does not
live by bread alone and there's wisdom
in that it's like you don't want no
responsibilities you might dream about
that if you're crushed by your job but
then you have the wrong job or you have
the wrong attitude or you have the wrong
job and the wrong attitude I don't know
what it is
you want lots of responsibilities and
society needs to foster that and we need
to help people find their purpose and
their place and that's that's more to
the point than Universal income it's the
wrong solution
okay so that is the solution for the
individual but for example an individual
that it takes your program and authors
his or her future already has taken the
first steps of response personal
responsibility by doing something about
it so let's assume that we here we
assume responsibility for our lives we
get our act together and we start with
our rooms and we broaden the circle and
we want to start helping people out in
the world that don't have this first
seed of responsibility and of course
some of them also have diseases they
can't do anything about we can leave
that aside for now but what do we do to
inspire others well you just laid it out
I would say it's like you know one of
the things that you you pull out of the
clinical literature imagine that you
have children who have a certain
low-level amount of neurological trouble
when they're infants so something's gone
wrong maybe a little oxygen deprivation
at birth something like that something's
going a little bit wrong with their
neurological development assuming that
the damage isn't too severe those
children will stabilize and normalize if
they have at least one well-put-together
role model in their life and so one of
the things that you do if you want to
inspire others is get your act together
because you inspire most through example
it's more much more powerful than than
words words are very powerful if they're
also accompanied by example but the best
thing you can do is start putting things
together around you there's plenty of
things to put together it's a good
meditative exercise you know if your and
I think this is the proper form of
Prayer let's say assuming that there is
such a thing a proper form of prayer
would be if you're not happy with your
life if you're miserable you sit on the
edge of your bed and you think
is there anything I can change in what
I'm doing that is going to make this
less awful than it has to be less awful
than it might be you have to ask that
you know with intent and generally
speaking you'll get an answer almost
immediately there's something that you
could put right that day that would make
things slightly better than they are and
that's rule 4 which is compare yourself
to who you were yet to who you were
yesterday and not to who someone else is
today there I don't believe that there's
a person who exists who wouldn't receive
an answer to that question if they
genuine they asked it and it's no
different really than thinking like if
you think you have a problem you think
you get an answer might not be the right
answer but obviously you get an answer
and you might think well I thought up
that answer it's like well that's really
not much of an explanation because you
don't know how you think it's like I'm
sitting there and thoughts appear in my
head and that's how I think it's like
that's a pretty shallow explanation it's
not much different than revelation it's
like you ask yourself the proper
questions you'll get the proper answers
but if you ask the right question and
you want the answers right and those are
not easy preconditions to set up because
who knows you know if you're sitting on
the edge of your bed thinking okay what
am I doing wrong that's a hell of a
question to ask you know because if you
really want to know you'll find out and
then you'll find out that you really
didn't want to know because generally
speaking finding out what you're doing
wrong is not a pleasant experience and
it means that you have to sacrifice part
of yourself usually a burned-out stupid
bitter corrupt arrogant nasty vengeful
part of yourself but nonetheless part
that you like and so so you can I think
that room for those incremental
improvements exists within everyone's
grasp and and I think that it's a humble
thing to do to ask how you could improve
incrementally without interfering with
anyone else like it's your problem not
theirs but I think that the
consequences of maintained incremental
improvement are anything but incremental
you get compound interest on incremental
improvement no there's another rule in
the New Testament called the Matthew
principle it's economist use it and the
rule is to those who have everything
more will be given and from those who
have nothing everything will be taken
it's an actually a description of the
way the world works interestingly enough
you know that if you've ever played
Monopoly because that's what happens if
you play Monopoly and and there's a
reason for that that's a deep reason but
what and it's a very harsh rule because
it means as you start to wander off the
path let's say the probability that you
will wander further off the path
increases nonlinearly and that's a
terrible thing to know as you wander
towards the edge the probability that
you'll fall off the cliff increases and
that's a statistical justification for
the concept of Hell but as you improve
the probability that each improvement
will produce a further improvement
increases and so perhaps the the
downside is the cataclysmic catastrophe
that you can engage upon if you
reprobate is that each improvement
produces an increment in the probability
of the next improvement and I've seen
that it's a truism among behavioral
psychologists I mean although they don't
generally phrase it that way if you're a
behavioral psychologist and I am a
behavioral psychologist what you do is
you find out what essentially you help
hurt a person establish their aim then
you break down what they're trying to do
into attainable units and you negotiate
with them you say well look you know um
well I'm not me they say I'm not making
use of my time very well spending three
hours a day playing video games you say
well okay hypothetically how much time
would you like to spend playing video
games and they say well I could probably
spend an hour a day without it
interfering with the rest of my life
which is kind of the issue right because
if you play video games fine but maybe
three hours means that you're not doing
your homework or something and that's
not a good game
so he say okay well I want to play for
an hour a day it's like okay well can
you shift to an hour a day right now
and this is supposed to be an honest
conversation and the person says no I've
tried that lots of times and every time
I try I just fail and so you don't say
well quit failing go play what now or a
day and the problem will be solved
that's a stupid strategy you say okay
well look you think about this and don't
agree to do this unless you think you
will do it because otherwise it's just a
waste of both of our times it's like do
you think that you could track how much
time you've spent playing video games
for one week don't change anything just
track it and they think yeah I could
probably do that but I might miss a
couple of days and think okay fine so
here's the deal five out of the next
seven days you just track how much time
you spend playing video games and the
person says I think I can do that
because that's what you want them to say
you want them to succeed at the
improvement there's not much of an
improvement but it's something right
then they come back and they say well
yeah I was playing about four hours a
day and so you say okay well fine good
work man you got a track now we know
what we know the parameters of your
problem it's actually a little worse
than you thought but at least you had
enough sense to measure it we know where
you're at okay do you think you could
cut that down to three and a half hours
every day and the person thinks no I'm
pretty weak willed I don't think I could
manage that you say well how about this
do you think that two of the next seven
days you can only play for three hours
you think you can manage that and you
don't you're not cynical about this
you're not insulting the person any of
that it's like because you don't care
all you care is that they make some
incremental movement towards their goal
and the person thinks about that if they
have any sense and they take their
weakness into account and they think I
think I could probably do that and then
they come back the next week and they
say I managed to spend three hours a day
playing video games for three days and
the rest were four hours and you say
good work man you've just got rid of 25%
twelve and a half percent of your
problem you're one-eighth of the way to
fixing it in one week and you know the
person isn't gonna be all that thrilled
with themselves because they don't do
the arithmetic they do and they don't do
the projection they think well I'm still
pretty damn useless I'm playing twenty
five hours worth of video games a week
it's nothing to pat myself on the back
for it's like yes it is it's definitely
it's a market measurable improvement and
it's a move in the right direction you
know and then you say okay well on the
day's you succeeded how did you manage
to succeed and is there a way that you
could do it for four days next week how
about that or maybe you could even try
five days you think you could do that
and then you also tell the person look
the other thing you got to understand is
you're not gonna improve like this
you're gonna improve like this so some
weeks you're gonna come back and say
geez I back slid completely and I like
played for four hours a day for seven
days but doesn't matter because that
doesn't mean you failed it just means
that you slid back you want to calculate
it over a month or something like that
and you know generally speaking a month
later the person's down to something
like two hours a day and you've figured
out a ways of filling their time in with
something productive otherwise and
they're on their way and the general
consequence of that is that every time
they manage an accomplishment they get a
little stronger in character take a
little bit more confident than their
ability to get a little bit less racked
with self-disgust they get a little bit
more hopeful about the future and they
get more confident that they can make
another change and if you're patient and
you have to be patient with yourself
that way it's like you reward those
incremental improvements and you don't
get all cynical about them and you think
okay just imagine what would happen if
you kept doing that every week for ten
years and the answer to that is things
would be so much better for you that you
can't even imagine it with that much
improvement or maybe even with half that
much improvement and so that's a that's
a very good way of progressing so very
good so
yeah there's a question here on the
article written by your friend Bernard
Schiff that's one of one of the many hit
pieces so yeah from whether healthy I
want to ask you what your thoughts are
of the article written by Bernard Schiff
kind of a white question but I'd like to
hear your side of the matter
okay so Bernie Schiff is a friend of
mine although he doesn't see it that way
well I'm not saying that to be funny
like that's how I look at it and and
it's a gloss to me because he was a good
friend of mine I've lost a couple of
friends in the last two years and it's 2
or 3 years and it's not pleasant but he
had his reasons for doing what he did
which I won't go into but there is one
thing I will say about it he set forward
a set of propositions about the way that
I was interacting with my students and
am interacting with all the people like
you to whom I'm lecturing and he's he
questions my motivations and fair enough
but he said for example that I'm
paraphrasing but this is the gist of it
that my style was autocratic say in the
classroom and he cited a couple of
students who felt that way and I would
say I'll say two things about that the
the evaluations of my classes at Harvard
and at the University of Toronto were
almost invariably better than the
evaluations of any classes they'd ever
had that's the first thing in my maps of
meaning class the most common comment
and that would have been from about 80%
of students was that the class
completely changed the way they
conducted their lives
so that's issue number one an issue
number two is all those lectures are
online
like not every lecture I've given in the
last 30 years is online but
every lecture I've given in the last
four years is online plus one lecture
series that I gave thirty years ago and
a whole bunch of other talks and so if
you want to see whether the accusations
leveled at me and that argument in that
article are true or you have to just go
watch the lectures and if you think
they're true well then he's right and if
you don't think they're true then he
isn't right
the evidence is it's not like it's
hidden I've been recording my lectures
since like while I recorded one in 1993
at Harvard and so it's online and then
there's like 200 hours of them so
whatever my crimes they're there for
everyone to see and to determine for
themselves and so that's mostly what
people are doing and that's fine with me
so and that's pretty much all I have to
say about that article
there's a question from Makino's kart
relating to what you discussed earlier
and nuclear weapons what are your
thoughts on mutually assured destruction
will we be safer in a world without
nuclear weapons I think it depends on
how we decide to conduct ourselves you
know it isn't obvious to me that we're
in a position where we can trust
ourselves without nuclear weapons
you know nuclear weapons are like
they're like a judgmental God in some
sense if you misbehave too badly there's
gonna be hell to pay and so the
consequence of that since the end of the
Second World War
thank God is that no one has misbehaved
too badly yet and so I don't know if
that's we've had comparative peace since
the end of the Second World War
now that doesn't mean there hasn't been
chronic low-level conflict and some of
it I'm not saying that the conflicts
have been trivial but compared to world
war two they are trivial and certainly
compared to World War three they're
trivial and so I would say that the
hydrogen bomb has put the fear of God
into us and that there's some utility in
that obviously it would be better if we
didn't need that because they're
dangerous and the probability that
there'll be an accident at some point
seems to me to be a hundred percent
because there's always an accident right
and so we're playing with fire but but
it isn't self-evident to me that so far
it's being a bad thing even the even the
Soviets even Stalin although he was
probably there's some evidence that's
telling stellen was gearing up for the
third world war and that he would have
been willing to put Europe to the
thermonuclear torch and he was just the
kind of guy to do it
he'd been practicing doing that for a
long time after you kill your ten
millionth person the next 10 million
come pretty easy and
so he was there is evidence that he was
gearing up for that in Western Europe
and that he was probably killed and so
but apart from Stalin no one has come
along who's been corrupt and malevolent
enough to make that a priority and so
that's so far a testament to the
fundamental goodness of the human heart
but what do you think Hitler would have
done with nuclear weapons I think he
probably would have cleared out most of
you Eastern Europe being part of his
plan I mean you perhaps know this but
Hitler believed the Germans deserved an
empire like many other East many other
European countries had an empire and he
felt that it was no different for the
Germans to pursue their empire than it
was for the British and that his empire
was gonna be in Eastern Europe because
what the hell good are they anyways that
was his attitude and I think he would
have used whatever means necessary to
clear out as much territory as possible
so that it could have been inhabited by
his his VOC that's what it looks like
now you know you might ask well could
have that been done by nuclear means and
the answer that's probably so I think he
would have put them to use I mean my
sense of Hitler you say well what
motivated Hitler you say well he wanted
to rule the world it's like I don't
think that's what he wanted I think he
got exactly what he wanted he wanted to
put a bullet through his head when
Berlin was in ruins and Europe was in
flames and that's exactly what he did
and you think well no one could aim for
that it's like think again someone aimed
for it and they got it too so I don't
think he would have stopped so there's a
question here regarding the
controversial statement Rick regarding
enforced monogamy so from leastly
request one stating the obvious often
suggests an agenda I agree with your
observation that lack of sex for young
man can make societies more violent what
should be done that's actually not my
observation so that isn't my observation
I mean words matter my observation is
that social norms favoring monogamy are
essentially a human universal and the
reason for that is that we've learned
through painful experience that social
conventions favouring monogamy are the
best way to reduce male violence provide
a secure environment for children and
help women find partners to help them
with the difficult process of
reproduction and child rearing and
that's the woman who wrote that article
knew perfectly well that when I used the
term enforced monogamy and we only
discussed this for probably two minutes
out of an interview that lasted two days
she knew perfectly well that I meant
social convention but it was in her
interest to find a phrase that could be
misinterpreted so that what I was
speaking about could be misinterpreted
so here's what enforced monogamy means
so let's say my son is planning to get
married in the fall and I am happy about
his fiancee we seem to get along quite
well they seem to do quite well together
and so I'm pleased that they've made the
decision to start their life together so
now imagine
that he comes to me any year and he says
I've got some news for you dad I've been
married for a whole year and I've
managed to have three Affairs during
that time and not get caught and what am
I supposed to do about that
hey I'm put my arm around him and say
good work kid
way to be it's like no first of all if
he did that he wouldn't tell me and
second if he did tell me which I can't
imagine I would ask him just what the
hell did he think he was doing that that
was no way to conduct himself and it
would be something I would regard as
contemptible not only the affairs but
the deceit that goes along with it and
the violation of his vows and the
breaking of the harmonious relationship
that he decided voluntarily to establish
and the weakening of the family
structure and the trouble that he put
everyone through to attend the marriage
ceremony in good faith and all of that
well it's that's enforced monogamy for
God's sake it's the it's the assumption
of the responsibility on the part of
people who enter a relationship with
some expectation of permanence to uphold
the promise that they make when they do
that and she knew that bloody perfectly
well and so it's just a it's so idiotic
it's almost impossible to believe you
know first of all if you're gonna accuse
someone of something you should at least
accuse them of something that's
plausible it's like what there isn't
anybody who goes around thinking that
monogamy should be enforced at the point
of a gun you know maybe the odd Isis
wingnut does that thinks that but no
there isn't anyone who thinks that
excluding me and she knew that perfectly
well and so if that's the best that my
those who regard themselves as my
enemies on the left can manage as a
character slur then well you know have a
derp boys and girls it's pretty bloody
pathetic as far as I'm concerned
I'll tell you one more thing about that
here's something interesting I detailed
this out in 12 rules for life I don't
have the figures exactly right because I
haven't got to memorize but you know
over the last 20 years the desire for
marriage has increased among young women
and by a substantial margin I think it's
35% something like that at the same time
it's decreased among men by about 17
percent it's like so why am I telling
you that it's like well are we so blind
that we don't realize what most people
want like most people who aren't cynical
dream that they'll find a monogamous
partner and you think well what's the
evidence for that well first of all
there's evidence for that because all
you have to do is ask people and the
majority of them tell you that but
there's way more evidence than that it's
like what do you do you you take your
date to a romantic comedy and what's the
structure of the romantic comedy man
lies to partner and has multiple affairs
and you go away from that romantic
comedy and you think that was fun let's
do that it's like that isn't what
happens is you you go to a romantic
comedy together and you see a couple who
are attracted and repulsed across the
across the dynamics of the movie and
they overcome a bunch of obstacles and
they decide to live happily ever after
and that's the romantic comedy and it's
like a surefire success if it's
reasonably handled because it reflects
what people want and the reason it
reflects that is because basically
although not without exception human
beings are monogamous we tilt towards
monogamy that doesn't mean we can't be
serial in monogamous and it doesn't mean
that there aren't people who tend
towards multiple partners but it's not
the dream that's for sure it's not what
we enforce the social norms it's not the
universal human standard it's not what
makes for good people individuals or
good intimate relationships or solid
families or stable communities and so
and I don't know how that can be
contentious
how did that become contentious what's
the alternative like responsibility less
impulsive sex it's like do it man
do it for 15 years see how much fun it
is see where you end up you'll certainly
end up cynical you'll definitely end up
alone well then what the hell are you
gonna do what are you gonna do when
you're 45 and you don't have anyone know
what are you gonna do for the next 35
years you don't have kids you're not
gonna have grandchildren you don't have
someone to tangle your story together
with you don't have anything that lends
solidity to your life you've got no
responsibility and so no self-respect oh
if that's what you want that's what
you're promoting as an alternative to
enforced monogamy it's like have a derp
it's your life you'll see that's my
sense of it so now here's a good one
what can Marxism contribute to our
modern-day world by Arnie it can
contribute Venezuela and if you have and
it has
[Laughter]
so it'll be a little bit less cynical
but we've seen what it can contribute I
don't know how many bloody times we have
to run the experiment you know that
wasn't real Marxism I know what that
means
I know what that sentence means what
that means is if I was the dictator with
my profound understanding of Marx's real
intent and my universal benevolent
compassion uncontaminated by any
proclivity towards darkness or sin I
would bring on the socialist utopia
that's what it means
fundamentally and if someone says that
and claims it then you should get the
hell away from them as fast as you
possibly can
okay so Marx was concerned about
inequality and there are reasons to be
concerned about inequality but the
problem with Marxism is that it lays the
cause of equality at the feet of the
fundamental institutions of the West the
free-market democracy capitalism
patriarchy the hated word inequality is
not caused by the institutions of the
West that's wrong inequality is the
fundamental rule of existence and it's
produced the thing about the Western
systems every system we know produces
inequality when it's run as a as an
operative process all of the systems
produce inequality what we've developed
in the West is the only system that
produces wealth along with the
inequality and you might say well the
wealth isn't equally distributed it's
like that's true hence the inequality
but at least there's some wealth you
know the number of people in absolute
poverty in the world have between 2000
and 2012 three years faster than the UN
was hoping for in its most wildly
optimistic projections people are
getting comparatively richer at an
absolute level with unbelievable speed
it's never been seen in the entire
history of the planet you know first it
happened in the West obviously including
to Iceland and even in the last what 75
years here there's been an unbelievable
increase in the standard of living and
now it's starting to happen everywhere
else the fastest-growing economies in
world are in sub-saharan Africa that's a
hell of a good deal
there's no starvation in China there's
no starvation in India and in the places
in the world where there still is
starvation it's because because of
political reasons it's not because there
isn't enough food it's because one group
of people sets out to starve another
group of people to death it's not a
matter of absolute privation or because
Marxism well yes because if Marx is
right I think the average Venezuelan has
lost something like 17 pounds you know
it's very it's awful it's absolutely
awful so I don't think that Marxism has
a damn thing
I think Marxism has already contributed
enough millions of corpses to have
finished with its contributions
personally but isn't Marxism dangerous
because it has its appeal and its appeal
comes from grains of truth that it uses
and tries to stretch across and explain
well we are the Marxists point to the
pernicious problem of inequality and
inequality is a problem it's inequality
is a problem I mean I outlined that in
part in 12 rules for life the reason
there's a left-wing and the reason there
should be a left-wing is because
inequality is a problem it has to be
addressed and when you set up a
hierarchical structure which you need to
if you're going to pursue things of
value then the hierarchy tends to ossify
and and and and become rigid and it
becomes hard for people at the bottom to
climb to the top and so they get
dispossessed and that can become
permanent that's a bad thing it's
everyone's problem left-wing centrist
right-wing doesn't matter inequality is
a problem but that doesn't mean that you
can lay it at the feet of the
institutions of the West and that's
where Marxism goes wrong and it also
doesn't mean that we know how to fix
inequality it's really a hard problem
and so it it's a much harder problem
than people think now when we don't know
what to do about it we've done some
things and you know our culture is very
the Scandinavian countries tend to be a
little bit more on the income
redistribution side and that seems to
have worked
reasonably well I mean the Scandinavian
countries are pretty damn livable
they've got their problems particularly
Sweden as far as I can tell but but but
it's easier for homogeneous small
countries to do redistribution by all
appearances it's not so easy for a place
like the United States which is much
bigger and much more diverse and has a
much broader range of problems and so
the Western countries are stumbling
through some of them have steeper
hierarchies and less of a social safety
net like the US although it's incredibly
productive intent is to have very low
levels of employment and then there's
places like the Scandinavian countries
where the social and Canada where the
social safety net is more well developed
but that struggle with with with with
improving productivity and with higher
rates of unemployment most of the
countries so we don't know how to get
that right but we're kind of muddling
through it and at the same time we're
muddling through it almost all of us are
getting absolutely richer and so that's
a pretty good default position to be in
when you're trying to sort out the
inequality problem and you know I've
been thinking over the last weeks that
there are you know you can express these
problems in quasi mathematical form it's
like there's probably a rule that's
something like in order to produce one
increment of absolute wealth you have to
allow three increments of inequality or
something like that inequality is the
price you pay for the generation of
wealth and I suspect because the right
amount of inequality the right amount of
inequality is not zero it's some number
and you could debate about what that
number is but it's not zero you flatten
everyone out you get nothing if you have
a meritocracy of some sort than if
you're producing something to get to the
top you're producing something for
others well the thing is is that the the
radical types don't believe that they
don't believe that there's anything but
power they don't like one another thing
that really annoys me about the
universities and this doctrine that I've
been combating let's say is that your
argument is predicated on theirs on the
idea that there's such a thing as merit
that there's such a thing as
things worth doing and the real radical
types would debate that they just say
well you're just using the idea of
meritocracy to justify your page your
position in the patriarchal tyranny and
you might say well no I'm not and they
would say you're just a mouthpiece for
your group privilege there isn't any you
don't make that mistake
there's no you you're just an avatar for
your privilege so well thank you well so
before I ask the last question I'd like
to remind you that we were going to meet
outside this room and more people may
come since the people from yesterday
they may come as well
and dr. Peterson is going to sign books
and if you're going to have book signed
you'll have a few seconds with him
so yeah the last question we had a
similar question yesterday a very
original one from Savannah thank you sue
honors how do you like Iceland well my
wife and I well I'm here actually with
my wife and my mother who I don't
normally travel with and my aunt and
they came along for the adventure cuz I
had invited them I'm traveling with my
wife to many many places and I asked
members of my extended family if they
wanted to have a bit of an adventure
that they could pick a place to come and
my mother and my aunt picked Iceland and
everyone here has been ridiculously
hospitable and so that's lovely and I've
met lots of people in the street and
outside these venues and everyone has
been unfailingly polite and welcoming
and you have a beautiful little country
and what you've done with it is nothing
short of miraculous as far as I'm
concerned it's beautiful it's peaceful
it's thriving it's stable it's free it's
like great I love country I love coming
to countries like this and I do think
they're absolutely
miracles life is a real catastrophe and
yet look at how wonderful it is here and
there's not like it's easy this isn't an
easy place to live it's a hard place and
yet you've you've done a tremendous
amount with what you have in front of
you and so more power to you as far as
I'm concerned I've had a wonderful time
here
thanks very much it's been a real honor
to be here and to talk to all of you so
good night