[Music]
Jordan Peterson has become hugely
successful what do you make of the
phenomena why do you think he's become
so successful now there is a drought of
authenticity and courage and Peterson
has found that hunger and he's tapped
into it and I'm I admire his ability to
detect it and to speak to it plainly in
a way that it resonates with I did we
were on a panel together in Vancouver
and I watched his talk and he described
his own surprise at how effective his
message had been and he basically said
that if he had outlined his message as
the core of a business model that it
would have looked laughable to him and
that he was as shocked as anybody that
people are resonating with it but when
when you live in a world that is as full
of crap as the world we live in where
people are advertising [ __ ] to you
from the moment you get up to the moment
you go to sleep and then somebody
finally tells you some truth that you
need to hear it's a relief it's a relief
just to know that there's some channel
that isn't compromised by nonsense and
he I don't think he's the only one
speaking truthfully but I think he is
speaking from the heart
and people know it I think that he
grasps directly the fact that human
beings can only actually make sense of
the world by virtue of communication
with other human beings and this is all
about the notion of admixture that one
must have a mixture of of love I mean he
uses the mythopoetic to make sense the
order order and chaos the way or the
Daoist way is the alchemical admixture
of order and chaos and that's it like
that's how you do it
and so if you
you biased towards orderliness you find
yourself in a rigid non-adaptive
non creative non exploratory framework
which will die because the world changes
if you bias towards chaos you you eat
your young and evaporate which also
theis for obvious reasons and the key is
to actually enable these things to be in
relationship with each other and vital
healthy relationship with each other and
I think that's in some sense the essence
of what he's focusing on and instead of
the core what he's acting about he's
very easy to work with as his voice is
an instrument because he speaks very
deliberately and sonorous ly and
rhythmically anyway he actually speaks
in in a kind of form of rhythmic poetry
sometimes he is actually rapid
Peterson's words plus low Phi hip-hop
equals jbp way
at first it's like oh it's a novelty
thing and then I kind of listen to him
is like no it's not a novelty thing this
is actually really good yeah that's been
that's been the reaction all over I
think that was Peterson's reaction he
was instantly like thought this was
gonna be silly and was amusing it was
like oh this is actually awful and I
were now essentially proving useful and
that's generally interesting that you
say as well that Peterson has a very
musical or a very performative aspect to
his speech because he talks about
performing that performance or aligning
yourself with the truth and if you're
aligning yourself with the logos of the
creative principle you would expect to
be for that to have an effect on your
actual performance but he feels like a
very embodied speaker when he's onstage
like he's fully inhabiting the stories
that he's that he's telling and that
that performative aspect of it is seems
to me at least also related to what he's
talking about the logo of something
incarnated more in your life and
incarnate and more in your in your being
yes and watching him become that over
the years because he was not always as
as confident and able to just now you
know you free stars right
he's his whole career yes all careers
really reminded me of it's very $0.50
for example got big off the back of
drama there was created drama you know
beefs with other rappers and being shot
13 times and all this stuff which draws
people into the story but then he had
this huge body of work and that kept
people there Peterson did this Peterson
had these public dramas and that brought
people to him but then when they got to
him they there was this huge body of
work for them to get sort of lost and
immersed in it Peterson has some kind of
drama like every week at this point he's
like the ultimate sort of contemporary
battle rapper he's at war with all sorts
of people at all times and it's
brilliant very interesting and if you're
inside you know if you're a rap fan or
if you're
what would you call if you're a
intellectual dark whatever the hell it
is fat it's like this guy's getting
incredible beefs every week right and
there's a new sort of supervillain to
root against every week three guards to
him or if you're on his site or not you
know it's the whole thing's very
entertaining but then he pulls you in
and then there's all this meaning and
this huge body of work
[Music]
but he's quite new on this light if you
watch him like 15 years ago it was a bit
awkward and sort of he was very charming
and he knew what he was talking about
but the absolute [ __ ] beast that he
has become as a performance creature who
can now just rock up at an amphitheater
and just like freestyle the new to our
lecture off the top of his head and he's
very into not repeating himself too much
in his lake you go see a standard
comedian you'll see pretty much the same
set every week for like a year or
something right he won't do that he's
more like a very good DJ you know he has
all these yes like a fistful of things
that you know his works together and
they're linked and he can take on these
different journeys but depending on
who's in the room and where he is he
will create a new and transformative
always experience I remember discovering
Jordan Peterson last June and just
immediately thinking this is the thing
that is needed right now this is about
the reinterment of the world the
assimilation of spirituality the
assimilation of religion this is this is
the thing and I was kind of obsessed
like digesting listening to all of his
stuff and then pitched an interview to
him and was lucky enough to get an
interview with him in October that we
then put out as the truth in the time of
chaos documentary in in January at
exactly the time that ironically he then
kind of shot to fame with an interview
with my ex colleague Kathy Newman on
Channel 4 News
when a lot of what I had gone to talk to
Jordan Peterson about was synchronicity
and it was just uncanny that's when the
synchronicity stopped that's right
that's right that's when things start to
line up yeah and the more you're in that
space the more they line up yeah and so
the question is if you're like really in
that space how much do things line up
all of this was happening and I I
wondered what I was gonna make what to
make of this and for quite a while I was
thinking well I have this kind of link
to to Kathy and I have some kind of link
to Jordan so what I need to do is the a
is between them and get them to go and
do the second interview that I thought
was necessary and
so for a while I was doing that kind of
trying to do stuff behind the scenes and
then it was clear that Kathy wasn't
interested Channel four weren't
interested
so Channel four News sorry weren't
interested so in the end I thought well
I came and then it came to me okay I
should make a documentary glitching the
matrix which then was a way of like just
downloading all the stuff that I'd been
thinking about for quite a while and
Clea specially since the election of
Trump about kind of the shadow side of
liberalism and all of the the blind
spots of liberalism so glitching the
matrix was kind of the title of it and
it all it was it came from a very from a
real flow state of like being really
aligned and feeling like okay this is
what I'm meant to be doing which is the
essence of kind of synchronicity and the
essence of Jordin Peterson's deeper
meaning is you know when you're aligned
at the right place and then your sense
of meaning tells you what to do and I
think he's often misconstrued by people
who can't get past the politics or have
a reactivity to him but to me he is
doing nothing less than channeling and
fully articulating the deep story of
Western culture for the first time and
well certainly for the first time in the
internet age you could argue that Young
was doing the same thing back in the in
the 50s and that there are people who
come along and do this at times in the
past but effectively saying we already
know a lot of the answers we already
know the way to live it's embodied
interaction that's embodied in
mythologies embodied in our religions
it's embodied and all of these things
look at this piece of art what is it
saying we represented it in art we
represented it in all these ways and now
we can fully articulate it tie into
neuroscience tie into and that it's a
it's an epic epic project and so I get
accused and it's very easy to sort of
say well you're obsessed with Jordan
Peterson
you're a fanboy and all that stuff and
but for me the message that he's
bringing forward is that deep it's that
deep and therefore I want to
continue to use his thought as a lens to
link into other great thinkers like we
just put out an interview with Rupert
Sheldrake who I think is an amazing
rebellious thinking he's been doing this
stuff for a long time and I want to also
continue to kind of expand that into
other into other thinkers make the
conscious link to to this sort of deeper
worldview and help yeah just bring out
great bring out great content really
where it where is his insight coming
from and so we talking to you when you
were describing hey you almost sound a
little bit like Jordan pieces I mean in
the sense of yeah I mean if I had to
describe my worldview in a nutshell it
would be sort of a Neoplatonic so there
was a Neoplatonic stoic mystic Christic
gnostic so the idea of Neoplatonic i
believe i have always just sort of felt
like there is a realm of ideal forms
stoic do the suck it up fat kid and do
the hard thing 100% Gnostic there is a
certain ineffable experience of being
and then the mystic Christic is some
some reflection on the judeo-christian
Western tradition but nothing to do with
2,000 years of bureaucratic
administration and everything to do with
what is nominally the metaphor of Kairos
and Chronos the intersection of kind of
sacred and profane time in human form so
in that respects yeah I would track with
with Peterson my sense is for me my you
know gnosis or understanding has come
from ecstasy's has come from peak
experiences and my sense for him at
least as he shares what he does of his
life has come from catharsis has come
from the suffering it's come from
battling depressions come from staring
the abyss in the face versus the view
from the summit and those are ideally
come full circle and reinforce each
other but if I had to sort of delineate
maybe where's his transmission anchoring
from it's maybe a little bit more the
staring the abyss and and and surviving
it then then calling out coordinates
from the mountaintop
the most important thing
from me quite apart from his work with
these stories modernist was as you say
his investigation into the Bible and
I've always been fascinated although I'm
an atheist I'm always been fascinated by
the power of the biblical stories I
often found myself looking at these huge
cathedrals and churches that sprouted up
all over Europe you know and and ask
myself well what's that about you know
why was this story so powerful I mean
yeah it's a defense against death if you
want to be cynical but hey you know it
could be lots of other stories you know
why is this one so unbelievably powerful
and what does it mean for it to be so
powerful and pieces I think brilliantly
answers that question in the biblical
lectures he's done and he really changed
me those lectures you genuinely did I
think changed the way I lived my life
because he came to this very very
important conclusion which I'm pretty
convinced by I don't think I'm ever 100%
convinced about anything but I'm very
convinced by his idea as I've I'm
someone who's suffered depression and
depression is like a crisis of meaning
in your the worst thing about depression
is not about being miserable being
having a life that seems utterly
meaningless and that's why it's such
torment and Petersons in a way tries to
answer the question how do we as an
individual that's a bit of a paradox how
erdal I as an individual acquire meaning
because meaning is the most important
thing any of us could have you know
there's meaning as it you know if you
don't know and yet no one could quite
say what meaning is which I think is
interesting in itself you know one says
well I want a sense of meaning what is a
sense of me what is meaning and
Petersons I think it knowledge is that
mystery but also says well you know if
you want a sense of meaning it's not
about just doing what you want it's not
about just following your bliss as
Joseph Campbell would be or having a
much fun as possible or or even
necessarily
being happy no absolutely not
necessarily being happy it's there were
more important things than being happy
and and I've also found that to be true
in my life
I hadn't heard someone making a
compelling case like this that was
actually getting traction with people
and was clear Peterson was getting
traction and so then I said I've got to
listen to this guy I've got to figure
out what he's saying and why it's
working and what how I should respond to
what's happening around him how is it
being as well because Peterson has
obviously began it been getting more and
more controversial and I've kind of felt
this as well sort of like you end up
getting in into conversations no he
didn't mean that it wasn't about that
how is how is that being like a people
started arguing with you or judging what
you're saying or how does that mean I
deeply suspect there are a number of
friends of mine that are deeply
concerned for me because of this jordan
peterson thing because they hear again
the soundbite world grabs a few things
jordan Peterson is a bigot
he's transphobic he's homophobic he's
you know the godfather of the patriarchy
whatever he is
and so Paul but the thing is they know
me they know I'm not a bigot they know
they know where I was raised
they know who's in my church they know
they know me by my actions so what to do
with this I've given Jordan Peterson in
a sense a year of my life what do you do
with that well they don't know what to
do with that so they're quiet and they
watch and they wait when Adam and that
invited me to do that podcast we were
all someone who similar to the two of
you I believe was starting to track
Peterson and not just Jordan Peterson
what he was saying but also the ripples
he was having a culture the absolute
phenomenon and explosion of attention
that was happening around him in the
media and started kind of watching him
reading him with an open mind my
experience was an open mind like oh I
resonate with that I love
he's bringing in Carl Jung and Joseph
Campbell and archetypal dimensions to
his thinking like how he's kind of
kicking the left a little bit and
calling them on some of their
problematic thinking and then watching
this kind of phenomenon from the left or
the far left where people just with
extraordinary levels of anger and fear
and distrust and kind of the the
difference in that experience of my own
and some of our experiences of Peterson
and then watching a lot of friends who
are on the far left
having radically different experience
and perception of who he is and what
he's bringing and was really just
curious about that and it it seems like
similar to some of the stuff you've been
doing with rebel wisdom and as a I mean
you're training as a psychologist we do
a lot of work with with psychology as
well when there's a huge reactivity to
something there's always something
interesting going on behind it and it
sort of makes you inquire it's like okay
what is what are people reacting to yes
whether you love them or hate them
it's that equal proportion of intensity
and whenever that's there it's what's
kind of called a complex complex is a is
a psychological and I think Jung would
say it that kid can be a autonomous and
autonomous complex is it's not part of
the ego it's so deep-rooted and it's my
opinion it's a collective complex in the
collective unconscious it's like
everyone on the right thinks everyone on
the left is a stall anest and everyone
everyone on the right thinks everyone
everyone the left thinks everyone the
right is a Nazi and there's this
polarization happening where people like
like Peterson who are trying to carve
out I would say not non-political but a
kind of a position that's lateral to
politics that's more in the
psychological domain to ask people to
look at themselves as individuals to
question the extent to which they're
projecting their shadow onto the other
which until we can resolve issues on
that level it's going to be very
difficult to resolve these political
disagreements and so that's one of the
main reasons that I've found myself so
interested in what Peterson is saying
he's shifting the level of the
conversation of trying to at least
I was so excited to see Jordan Peterson
erupted onto the stage and I know you
had particularly part in that there is a
culture war that is in right precedence
I mean we are in the middle of a culture
war there's a polarization and Jordan
Peterson is standing in the middle as a
lightning rod taking all the projections
from both sides
he clearly sees the postmodern ideology
and it is an ideology it's a system of
beliefs and values that will not lead us
to the promised land it is it is
problematic it leads us into a swamp
with no exit it is not sustainable he
sees it very clearly and in my opinion
he sees it from a modern perspective
very brilliant modern perspective he's
and he has a depth because of his
understanding of Carl Jung and his own
work in psychology the field of
psychology that is deeper than most
people so people are drawn to that depth
he sees something much deeper then other
people are seeing right now we had had
we'd never met one another and I knew
actually very little about Jordan
Peterson his written word
he knew pretty little about mine and we
were just told sit down and shoot and we
had no idea where we were going so he
just started talking
so why the master his emissary and he
just went from there but what I felt was
here was you know a super intelligent
man who had wide-ranging interests in
psychology philosophy and didn't rule
out a spiritual
or two things and I don't think that I
would and in the film I in that clip I
think it probably comes out that there
are aspects of what Jordan was saying
that I was getting well yes but so I
didn't entirely kind of I'm not a Peter
Peter Sounion but I do have a huge
respect for him and we had a great
conversation and we were proposing to do
more what do you make of the sort of the
criticisms cuz often he's described as a
fraud or a charlatan in some of the the
media coverage but when you watch the
interview with yourself I mean that's
that's a very high-level conversation
the idea of him as a fraud or a
charlatan just seems kind of bizarre
it's it's outrageous it's it's
disrespectful its dismissive and it's
entirely typical of blinkered liberalism
he you can disagree with him about many
things and I would disagree with him
about a number of things but to say that
is just to show how painted you are he's
clearly an extraordinary man and I mean
I think what strikes people is that he
was relatively unknown and then he
became known but that's what life isn't
it doesn't prove for a showers yeah I
mean a lot of this sounds quite Jordan
Peters and ask what's your attitude
Jordan Peterson yeah I mean I'm glad
he's out there and I think there are
yeah I mean I think at a minimum there's
sort of three different jordan
Peterson's you know there's Jordan
Peterson the analyst and academic which
essentially nobody ever heard of there's
Jordan Peterson the kind of contrary and
public intellectual which sort of you
know kicked off in 2016 and then there's
sort of Jordan Peterson sort of
Rorschach blot for the culture wars
which both left and right wildly distort
who he is what he's saying and what it
and and what it means for them and so we
get we get the the second and the third
ones completely mixed although the first
one you know University of Toronto and
hopping your former Harvard professors
the one that gives the credibility and
the weight to the other two dialogues so
in that respect
I think as I what I imagine him to be as
an actual man is a pretty high integrity
principled person who likes to think for
himself and likes to speak not just
truth to power but but also likes to
remind his audience whether it's
students or broader than that what what
is you know what is the what is the life
well a good life well lived and now
there I think there are there are
problems in how in the age of soundbites
and hundreds of hours of footage and
tons of speaking and those kind of
things that become problematic and I'm
not in any way convinced that if I sat
down with him and said hey mate what
about this bit that he would actually
stand a defendant but impressions I get
would be that his I think he sometimes
over catastrophize is the slippery slope
to Marxism in the sense that that all
that you know this way lies Stalinist
death camps therefore we cannot give one
inch on concessions to progressive
ideals or agendas although having said
that I have also personally experienced
the almost Chinese Communists like Tom
Zeng struggle sessions of political
correctness in in the Academy and in its
kind of left-wing you know left coast
idea so it's not that I don't see the
peril I do I just think sometimes he
uses the slippery slope argument maybe I
think it pulls it out just sometimes a
little early there's the bottom line
without necessarily enough conditions to
justify it he sometimes in my experience
I think I remember him on Joe Rogan
doing the life is nasty brutish and
short the kind of Hobbesian it's always
been this way therefore any efforts to
try and recalibrate or rebalance the
scales are fundamentally flawed
delusional and by the way lead to the
Stalinist death camps without any more
nuanced socio-political critique of
practices and policies so for instance
concentration of wealth and the 1% and
even the percentage of 1% has been
directly traceable in at least in the US
over you know tax and tax and corporate
law various various deliberate policies
that are fundamentally different in the
70s and 80s
now resulted in an incredible skewing an
aggregation of wealth in the hands of
the few for him to skip over that and go
to lobsters and serotonin feels like
skipping some critical steps and also
skipping some critical places of
potential responsibility and what became
real clear is that left in liberal we're
no longer the same the old original
leftists were liberals but the new
leftists were illiberal their anti
liberal and that's a disaster you can't
go forward with that kind of pathology
and so if you're somebody like Jordan
Peterson who is thinking integrally and
you're looking around and seeing what
the hell's going on and you're starting
to notice this and then the government
comes along and says oh and by the way
I'm going to compel your speech that
would send anybody with integrity and
integral thinking over the wall and so
he was up you know all night he did
those three videos you know forcing
unconscious bias retraining and
political correctness and what he saw
happening with that and and the
nightmare of Bill c16 threw him up on
the net went viral and the main cause of
that in my opinion is that is these
orange liberal values of equal
opportunity that we're getting crushed
between the extreme far left of green
and the strong far right of ethnocentric
amber and these liberal values in
between we're just getting left out of
the out of the picture and that was a
disaster and that was the thing that at
least put Jordan Peterson on the map and
he was arguing against Bill c16 because
not only that it put into law a
constructivist view
of human identity that was his complaint
it had nothing to transgender people and
the people that attacked him for being
anti transgender had absolutely nothing
to do with that and he's very clear
about that
what it was was putting into actual law
a constructivist view of human nature
which by the way is pure green it's pure
postmodern Green viewpoint and that also
is an attack on free speech in the worst
possible way for me his success
signifies how much we're thirsting for
this father energy in our culture what
do you make of Jordan Peters and what do
you make of the Jordan Peterson
phenomena you know I think first of all
I would not have predicted it so I don't
want to I I think maybe I'm often called
and among like among my people who agree
with me I'm called a visionary and but I
was not a visionary and for seeing
Jordan Peterson I think it's amazing
that an intellectual that is young in
who is you know who speaks in terms of
often of metaphor and an allegory that
he has risen to such extraordinary
success and I think it is in part a
result of our enormous hunger we you
know we have we've attached to two
extremely unlikely figures because of
our hunger the Donald Trump on the one
hand and Jordan Peterson on the other
two ends of the extreme in terms of
somebody who's been willing to say you
know fathers are important families are
important and so Jordan and I found
ourselves in a hour-and-a-half dialogue
in which I would give a you know I would
talk about fathers in roughhousing and
he would talk about some intellectual
Piaget or someone else who was you know
who was in the literature
or in Disney movies or something else
that related to that and it was just a
fascinating hour-and-a-half I think
because you know I'm usually when I'm
being interviewed I don't learn a great
deal but I certainly learned it was
wonderful the way we learned from each
other and you're you're from Canada yeah
one of the the the biggest phenomenon of
the last couple of years has been Jordan
Peterson yeah what have we made of him
his rise and what it says about the
culture that people are so thirsting for
what he's talking about
Peterson first was very bright
I saw Denis articulate and in some ways
a compelling speaker so he said he's an
attractive figure in some ways when I
read him I sense a lot of suppressed
rage in him in fact I think his voice is
choking with a Rachel out of a time it's
interesting as he talks about rage that
you have to deal with that I don't think
you'll understand just how angry he is
and it's and if you look at his websites
the comments were full of rage by his
young acolytes well that's an energetic
thing but it's his energy that draws
people as much as what he actually
teaches secondly he teaches a repression
I mean he he very rightly takes an issue
where somebody mandates the cencon
language and he very rightly and
righteously since up I will not be
dictated to about what language I'm
gonna use but good for him
I'm all in favor of not mandating
language on the one hand on the other
hand he basically advocates repression
in his book he talks about how an angry
to your child needs to be sit by
themselves until they get over it rather
than understanding why a child would be
angry
- what frustrations are having and what
human contact they need to help them
move through that anger he says repress
the anger so he's all about repressed
anger for example circuit and it's very
interesting he talks about children you
have some little varmints and little
monsters and so on I know that's meant
to be humorous but it's also certain way
of thinking of the young human child so
fundamentally I steam as an agent of
repression he posing as an agent of
libertarianism not to mention he's got
this big in his bonnet about what he
considers to be seems to consider to be
conspiracies by left-wing intellectuals
they seem to be his bete noire being a
left-wing intellectual myself I'd like
to talk to him so now what we so upset
about Jordan what are you so afraid of
you know he talks about these bloody
Marxists and and any any points are very
accurately all the horror that occurred
under so-called Marxist regimes
particularly in the Soviet Union
he's absolutely accurate about that but
then he promotes Christianity shall I
tell him about the mass murders that
occurred in the name of Christianity
should I tell him about all the millions
that were slaughtered in the names of
the gentle Jesus in other words let's be
fair about it he seems to pick
ideologies to attack and abhor and
embrace other ideologies that are just
as murderers in practice sometimes it's
a much more interesting question for me
what happened in Eastern Europe how come
under an ideology it was meant to be
liberate people so many people who were
oppressed I come from Eastern Europe I
was born in Hungary he doesn't have to
tell me about what was like but how
about asking how come a religious
philosophy that was meant to promote
love and acceptance and compassion has
become such an agent of two million a of
repression oppression and
and killing so can we be objective or
we're gonna be simply tribal about it I
have a lot to say to Jordan or a lot to
as much as I appreciate actually some of
what he says and as interesting as I
find them I think is a very mixed figure
largely an occasion to of repression
[Music]
you
[Music]