[Music]
I'm Stephen Blackwood I'm part of a
small team of people found in a new
University in Savannah Georgia I'm the
president of that new institution I'm
here today at Cambridge University an
ancient August and beautiful institution
and I have the great pleasure today to
have with me dr. Jordan Peterson
professor of psychology of the
University of Toronto and I think it is
safe to say an unknowable figure of our
time Jordan it's a real pleasure to have
you here today thank you thanks pleasure
to be here this unbelievable place
Jordan and I are going to talk today
about what he has called the inflection
point and my hope is that that
conversation will lead us into a
discussion of the possibilities for
cultural renewal indeed the
possibilities for the the renewal the
Renaissance of a more fully human
culture Jordan I think you've called
that the inflection point or called our
cultural temporal moment a kind of
inflection point where do we start there
what is the inflection point well I
think we're deciding we're trying to
decide if there's such a thing as a
direction to move forward to into the
future that's what it looks like to me I
mean on the one hand we're making
tremendous technological progress in all
sorts of directions simultaneously and
that seems to be having mostly positive
effects especially economically
especially on a global scale and on the
other hand we seem more confused about
are the foundations of our culture and
the potential directions that we're
moving in than we have been for a while
and that seems especially acute in
educational institutions and that seems
to be a consequence of the constant
cultural critique that's been generated
I would say mostly on the on the
postmodern edge edge of the academic
what would you say academic
territory so so we're trying to figure
out what's next when what do we have to
offer to students all of that mm-hmm I
know that it was that this yesterday was
published the 50th anniversary edition
of Sol's nichkhun's Gulag Archipelago
with a foreword that you've forward
written by you which I think you've
described the writing of as one of the
greatest owners of your life if I got
that right academic honor that now I
suppose the question I have there is is
why is that so important
well the book was important because it
was the first it was the first work that
succeeded in undermining the Marxist
project from moral and an intellectual
perspective simultaneously I mean other
people had pointed out the terror of the
Soviet enterprise Malcolm Muggeridge and
George Orwell among others often people
on the Left interestingly enough but it
was always possible right up until the
end of the 1960s
for the people who held on to that
collectivist utopian dream in the West
to rationalize what had happened in the
Soviet Union partly by sweeping it under
the rug but also partly by while using
the old adage that you can't make an
omelet without breaking a few eggs it
became obvious by the end of the 1960's
that the omelet wasn't very well
prepared and that millions of eggs so to
speak to belabor a metaphor had been
broken and so when Solzhenitsyn wrote
his great book it became impossible for
anyone who was willing to be part of the
cultural moment to ignore the fact that
something had gone dreadfully sideways
and that it couldn't be attributed
merely to a cult of personality or to
some abnormality that wasn't
intrinsically part of the doctrine
itself and
that was partly what soldier
Solzhenitsyn revealed about the Soviet
Union as such but at the same time the
evidence that precisely the same thing
had been happening in places like Maoist
China perhaps to even a larger degree
well undoubtedly to a larger degree and
then in Cambodia and all the other
places where Marxism produced utterly
murderous consequences and so that was
the book that did that and it made
Marxism morally repugnant you know it
was also one of the events that
catalyzed the transformation of Marxism
into identity politics as far as I'm
concerned because a lot of the people
who held the the victim victimizer
narrative as sacrosanct that that was
the appropriate way to look at the world
to divide people into identity groups of
whatever form and then to see history as
the battle between them history the
present and the future that that trends
that transmuted especially in France
because even though the Marxists had
been unmasked the murderous nosov the
doctrine had been unmasked that didn't
the people who'd held that doctrine were
still looking for the easiest lateral
move and so that was one of the driving
forces for the development of
post-modernism not the only one it's the
post modernists that are also figured
out something or run across something
that really is an intractable problem
they ran across the problem of
categorization and that that actually
happened in multiple disciplines at the
same time including artificial
intelligence and psychology people
realized start to realize about in the
early 60s and was probably under the
pressure of the AI types that it was
very difficult to perceive the world
because objects aren't just there for
the looking because every object is made
of sub objects and as part of a higher
order structure of objects and defining
what constitutes the appropriate
boundary to put around a phenomenon so
that it can be perceivable as an object
turns out to be a virtually impossible
task we're not sure how it can be
managed and so
that realization of the intrinsic
complexity of things led to a crisis I
would say an intellectual crisis which
was well if there's a near infinite
number of ways to perceive a finite set
of entities how is it that you can call
any one interpretation either canonical
or valuable and that's part of the
postmodern skepticism let's say of
meta-narratives and it's actually a
reasonable critique the problem is as
far as I'm concerned that what the post
modernists did was use that problem
which is a genuine problem as a critique
of the structure of the West and then
instead of addressing the problem
directly which is well the world is very
complex but we do in fact perceive it
and they're actually our value
structures they just circumvented that
and pop back into a bastardized form of
mark the bastardized form of Marxism
that we see today is identity politics
and that's been extraordinarily
destructive to the universities well
that's well let's talk about that a bit
more because it seems to me that that it
would be a great shame if people were to
think that you're you're writing this
forward to souls nichkhun was simply to
document something as an historic
phenomenon as essentially important as
that historic documentation is it seems
to me that what is of interest to you is
not simply to shed light on the terrors
the hundred million slaughtered in the
course of the various communist
revolutions of the 20th century that
those various ideologies motivated by
Marxism and other other forms of
philosophical ideology but because it
seems to me that you take what was
present in that philosophically
ideologically still to be at work in in
or to have been as it were reborn in the
West and so I suppose what I'd like to
ask you about is what are the what are
the characteristics of the Marxist
ideology that led to those debt that
that that very obvious death and
destruction which in in a subtler way
you seem to be am i right to say you see
to be a war
in the West said like it seems to be
very important that we have a deep sense
of what the the governing assumptions of
our culture are or it's hard to
transcend them yeah well that is exactly
the issue because the question is
whether or not the past is over I mean
there's a Marx a Marxist philosopher
named Richard Wolff who challenged me
recently on YouTube to a a debate and
really the answer that I posted was this
forward and he accused me of being stuck
in the past you know it's well the you
know the The Wall fell in 1989 and the
horrors of the Soviet era are over and
we we can't paint
we can't eternally tar Marxism with the
brush of these past events I mean as if
these events are over or as if 50 years
is sufficient time to forget about the
corpses but that's his idea you know and
to me it's the same idea that you might
put forward if you were a neo-nazi
by saying that well you know all that
happened back in 1945 the fundamental
doctrine was sound and we can't allow
our judgement about these eternal truths
manifested in the National Socialist
doctrine to be forever tainted by some
unfortunate historical events and I
think that that's just well I don't even
know what to say about it I mean one of
the telling things about his comments
was that he only talked about the Soviet
Union and not all the other terrible
places that the same doctrine had been
implemented with equally murderous
effects and so that was quite the
argument by evasion but I what I tried
to do in the foreword and in my thinking
in general is I'm always trying to get
to the bottom of things what's at the
bottom and it seems to me that what
happened if you look at what happened in
the Russian Revolution like the first
thing you want to do is give the devil
is do ok and the way you do that is by
pointing out that hierarchical
structures no well we'll start even
before that people have problems that
have to be solved life is a sequence of
problems that have to be solved if you
don't solve the problems that life puts
forward you suffer and you die so
assuming the
you don't want those two outcomes then
there are problems you have to solve and
and so you have to set a name and the
aim is to solve the problem and then
because we're social creatures we have
to solve the problems by organizing
collectively and the way we do that
generally speaking in relationship to an
aim is to produce a hierarchy and the
reason for that is that if you have a
problem and you want it to be solved and
you get a variety of people working on
it you're soon going to discover that
some people are much better at solving
the problem than others and that will
inevitably produce a hierarchy and it
should because then the even the the
structure of authority is is in sync
with the aim and the aim is valuable
because it's a problem that everybody
agrees that is an actual problem so
you're going to get hierarchical
organizations and you should now the
problem with that is that as soon as you
produce a hierarchical organization two
things happen one is that a small
minority of the people do almost all the
creative work that's the period of
principal and the other is that the
benefits of the hierarchy flow
disproportionately to a small number of
people at the top so and that's another
manifestation of the Prix de principle
and it is something that Marx pointed
out although he blamed it on capitalism
which which is a big mistake even if
you're concerned for those the hierarchy
dispossesses so you produce a hierarchy
both the work the work flows from a
minority of people and the benefits flow
to a minority of people and those might
not be the same people by the way right
because hierarchies aren't perfect in
their ability to distribute resources as
a consequence of productive effort
that's part of the problem with
hierarchical organizations but then what
the hierarchy does is produce a layer of
the dispossessed that stack up at the
bottom near zero and it's the majority
it's always the majority so that's the
price you pay for hierarchies now what
the left does is say look at the
dispossessed and keep the hierarchy
flexible enough so that it can twist and
Bend and transform when necessary but
also so that the dispossessed don't fall
so close to zero that they that they're
done they're in misery B that the
talents they might possess can't be
utilized and see that the whole
structure doesn't become so untenable
that it destroys itself because of the
inequality perfectly reasonable
propositions and so then you could say
well there's a certain number of people
on the Left who are genuinely motivated
by concern about dispossession as well
as the dispossessed of course fine so
that's to give the devil his due and so
then you might say well there was moral
reasons there were moral reasons for at
least a subset of those who were
involved in the Russian Revolution to be
involved they were interested in helping
the dispossessed but there's a problem
and this is the problem of the left
there's a problem so on the right as
well the problem on the right is once
the higher arc is established those who
dominate the top have every right to
overstate the moral virtue of the
hierarchy because it privileges them in
particular on the left the problem is is
that it's not easy to distinguish
between care for the dispossessed and
hatred for those who occupy positions of
well you could say Authority the
leftists would say power
you could also say competence which i
think is more to the case or ability
it's not easy to distinguish care for
the dispossessed from hatred for those
who occupy the preeminent positions in
the hierarchy and if it's power than its
hatred for power but if it's competence
and it is competence if the hierarchy is
functional then its hatred for the
competent okay then you say all right so
those are the two competing motivations
care for the dispossessed and hatred for
the let's say competent let's play that
out historically speaking and see which
is the more powerful force well that got
played out very rapidly in the Russian
Revolution and what happened was even if
there was a a minority and perhaps even
a majority although there wasn't but
perhaps even a majority of those who
truly cared for the dispossessed those
who hated the competent slaughtered them
it turned out that the hatred was a much
more potent geopolitical force than the
compassion and then and another twist
occurred too because the the narrative
was burrs huazi against proletariat
let's say and so that's those at the
uppermost pinnacle of the hierarchy
against those who the dispossessed and
that was also the historical narrative
and then it was the
right and responsibility of those who
were oppressed to rise up but that ran
into another problem which is basically
the problem that the that the the post
modernists especially on the feminist
side have now identified as
intersectionality it's like well turns
out that you're you can't so easily be
placed into one group like in fact this
is the perception problem that we talked
about before there's a very large number
of groups you could be placed in it
might be an unlimited number of groups
in fact and so then if you're motivated
primarily by hatred and your your your
desire is to produce as much mayhem as
possible you can take any given person
and you can analyze the multiple groups
that they belong to and then you can
find one group in which they're the
oppressor and then because there's no
excuse whatsoever for the oppression
even if there's one dimension of your
identity along which you're an oppressor
then your grist for the for the for the
bone-crushing mill of the of the Soviet
work camp and that's exactly what
happened and so as the Soviet revolution
progressed more and more people got
thrown into the cauldron let's say the
Socialists the students the religious
people the old the the the old original
revolutionary still and had all them
killed because there was some and if it
wasn't you that was guilty because of
your group membership them they just
expanded the capacity of the parameters
of the idea of group well you're not an
imprint lopressor but your grandfather
was a landowner well that's good enough
that's that's that's your class that's
that's and so that's sufficient
justification to throw you to the wolves
as well and so what you saw is this just
unbelievable expansion of murderous Ness
driven by the twin improper
presuppositions that you could define
people by their group identity and that
history who was best conceptualized as a
battle between the fortunately
unfortunate along those group identities
yes and if we could pick up that notion
of the the group identity and to collect
what you call the color that's where the
collectivist thinking it seems to me
that might be opposed to a kind of
robust view of the
human individual as the site of
responsibility and agency suffering and
so it seems to me that what I'd like to
ask you about is that is the connection
between or the ways in which the
collectivist thinking results in the
annihilation of all human particularity
whether its economic or familial or you
might say it seems to me that what's
going on in the collectivist thinking is
the absolute enemy of human
particularity and freedom itself the
enemy of the idea of the individual the
sovereign individual which is the
central idea of the West I mean and
that's manifested in the underlying
religious structure so if you think
about Christianity for example you think
about Christianity psychologically and
strip it of its metaphysics at least for
the purposes of the argument you see the
emergence of the idea of the divine
individual as as well as as what as as
part of what's what as part of divinity
itself right as an integral part that's
part of the Trinitarian idea the part of
of divinity itself and that divinity to
me is the capacity of the of individual
consciousness to generate order from
potential so the way I look at people
first of all so like people who have
been criticizing what I'd be doing think
about my philosophy such as it is not
that it's mine as a sort of variant of
Iran's ideas of the centrality of the
individual individual above all that's
not the issue it's a conceptual issue is
that what what what category is to be
primary and for me the individual is to
be primary and there's a variety of
reasons for that
first of all the individual is the locus
of suffering and also the locus of
responsibility so those are really the
two reasons for that the individual has
to be made primary but and and the
divinity element of the individual and
this I think is coded in our deepest
stories it's really deeply coded in in
Genesis particularly in the opening
chapters of opening verses of Genesis is
that what human-beings confront in their
lives is akin to what God Himself
confronted at the beginning of time and
so it's easy for us to believe that were
deterministic creatures like clocks and
and that it's the past that drives us
forward in a deterministic manner into
the future but I don't believe that's
the case I actually don't think there's
any evidence that that's the case
because people are so complex you
actually can't predict them as if
they're deterministic except in in very
constrained circumstances and so it's a
hypothesis but it's not a very good one
and although it has its utility what
what
what seems to me to be the case and I
think this is how people conceptualize
themselves and how they act towards
themselves and towards other people and
how our social structures our political
structures are constituted is that human
beings constantly confront a landscape
of possibility its potential itself and
and we have a belief in the idea of
potential we have an idea that there are
things that could be it's a very strange
conception of reality because it's not a
materialistic conception because things
that could be aren't measurable in any
sense right but we certainly act as if
they exist and we all treat each other
as if our one of our fundamental ethical
requirements is for you to confront that
potential properly and that would be to
live up to your responsibility it is you
have these gifts and talents and and
possibilities that have been granted to
you and if you fail to make use of them
your talents let's say then that's a sin
of sorts and that's a religious way of
thinking about it but it doesn't matter
because that's how people treat each
other if you have a child for example or
a spouse or a friend brother to anyone
you care about and you see you have the
intuition that they could be making more
of themselves and what they have then
they are then you're deeply disappointed
in that and the reason you're
disappointed in that is because there's
a call to us an existential call to
confront that potential
that's everywhere that faces us in every
direction and to transform it into the
most functional and habitable order
possible and the way that that is to be
done properly is with truth and and I
think that all of those ideas are
integral to the judeo-christian
substrate of Western culture there are
fundamental ideas and so if you put the
group before the individual then all of
that disappears I guess when you're when
you're debating with the radical leftist
postmodern types about free speech
you're actually not debating with them
about free speech because they don't
believe in free speech it's not part of
their conceptual universe because for
for speech to be free and therefore
valuable the people conducting the
conversation have to be sovereign
individuals capable of generating
independent thought independent of their
canonical group identity and reach a
consensus through that process of
dialogue none of that exists in the
postmodern world all of those
preconceptions would be attributed to
well something like Eurocentric neo
colonialism
something like that though seems to me
that was the work of that is is a
radical dismissal of the possibility
that the individual has access to
anything at all that is to say that that
that in if you don't the belief in free
speech is fundamentally motivated by the
by or or sustained by the confidence
that our discourse our dialogue that
human thinking itself can reach
something stable that it has a
relationship beyond by Beyond immediacy
and that and that and that there are
beyond power
and beyond power really it reaches
beyond power to truth there's no point
in ever having a conversation about
anything if the conversation itself
doesn't have access to something
transcendent exactly right well so what
happens with this is especially true for
people like Foucault and Derrida to to
some degree is well the first thing you
do is you define the fundamental
motivation as power because that's all
there is is there's the dominance of one
group or the other and so then the
dialogue has to serve power because
that's all there is and so yeah all of
that is obliterated and
and by doing that actually the the the
postmodernists make it impossible for
them to solve the conundrum that validly
drove pause post-modernism to begin with
so the conundrum is infinite set of
potential interpretations that's a real
conundrum that's the problem of
complexity right and and it's real so
then the question is well is there any
solution to the problem of complexity
and this is where issues of moral
relativism start to become paramount
because if there's no solution to the
problem of complexity then there's no
canonical interpretations and all the
interpretations are just well what would
you call it there their expedient they
have the expedience of power but see my
best pathway through that essentially I
think has come from the developmental
psychologist Jean Piaget and Piaget
could be considered a neo-kantian you
know the Kant's fundamental doctrine was
act such that if your action became a
universal Maxim that that would be of
universal benefit and so and but but
Piaget differentiated that and and and
and demonstrated how that evolves
naturally in the course of the
spontaneous maturation of children
through play it's absolutely brilliant
so I can give you a quick example so my
granddaughter who's 14 months old has
just learned a new game and the game is
she plays it with her wooden spoon and
the game is she has the spoon and then
she looks at you and then she gives you
the spoon and then you take it from her
and she lets it go and then she watches
you and then you give the spoon back and
she's very happy to get the spoon back
but she's also very happy to give it to
you and then she turns to the next
person and she gives them the spoon and
then she gets it back and then you can
play with her and and the play is well
now you've you've you've started to
embody the principle of reciprocity
right we can trade and and it's a
repeating game it's not one trade you
don't end up with a spoon and I don't
end up with the spoon we both have the
spoon some of the time across time and
there's some utility in the exchange
itself okay so she's playing with that
and thrilled about
wonder cuz it's a walloping walloping
discovery and so then you take the spoon
from her and maybe you you hold it a
little longer than she expects and that
makes her a little nervous but then you
give it back and then she's relieved and
that makes her happy or you cover the
spoon with your hand and then she's a
bit confused about where it might be and
you show it to her and you give it back
and she's happy about that or she
reaches out to grab it and you pull it
away a little bit and move it back and
forth so she has to do a little more
effort to get it and as long as you
don't push that and it's a bit of a
challenge to her both both physically in
terms of coordination but also
psychologically in terms of delay of
gratification she also finds that
gratifying and and the reason for that
is that you're you're showing how her
how robust and resilient the idea of
reciprocity is across sequences of
transformations and it's just this
little thing you do at the table you
think well that's nothing it's like no
it's something and so the PIA jetty an
idea is something like there's an if
there's an implicit morality that
emerges to constrain the infinite set of
interpretations and it has to do with
the structure that will maintain
reciprocity optimally in the largest
including the largest number of people
across the largest amount of time and so
and so the way that I've been portraying
that for the people who've been
listening to my lectures is that well
you need to take responsibility for
yourself as if you care for yourself
okay so first we figure out what's
yourself well it's not just you now
because you aren't just you now you're
the community of use that extra stretch
across time so in order for you to take
care of yourself properly now you have
to learn to play an inter ativ game with
yourself that's sustainable and even
potentially improvable across time and
there aren't many games that you can
play like that so that starts to
radically constrain the set of
possibilities and then it's more
constrained than that because not only
do you have to play a game with yourself
that can repeat across time to minimize
suffering to remove the possibility of
death to allow for the possibility of
productive movement and a certain amount
of happiness but you have to do that
with other people around you and across
time and so there's you and the multiple
use embedded in your family and the
multiplicity of your
members embedded inside a culture and
and the extension of that culture across
time and so for you to act properly then
all of those things have to be
harmoniously balanced at the same time
and that radically reduces the set of
potential interpretations and that's the
antidote to the to the chaos of of the
infinite array of potential perceptual
worlds and and well and then there are
questions that emerge out of that like
well what's the best way to play that
game but we certainly know that
reciprocity fair play the spirit of fair
plays is is immensely important to that
that's what Piaget documented and that
what it's what we all know and also that
there's something about truth that's
absolutely integral to that as well so
and the post modernists just they just
they got the problem right but they they
never went the next steps and it's
partly because well why is it why is it
they had an easy answer at hand that
required almost no transformation in
their original worldview well we'll just
keep the Marxism we'll just transform it
into something that looks different and
that'll be good enough minimal change so
it seems to me that the the the
collective the collectivist thinking
that's at work in the insistence that
only the group matters has the effect of
radically annihilating the integrity of
the individual in fact that maybe even
its its asset well I think I think it's
it's a actually that isn't saying I
believe so at the border like and
because there's a there's a murderous
'no sat the bottom of the collectivism
that needs to be accounted for and so I
see what's at the bottom and this is
partly consequence say of the insistence
that the West is a patriarchal tyranny
the the desire is it's the Cain and Abel
desire see Cain was jealous of Abel not
so much because Abel was God's favorite
but because Abel deserved to be God's
favorite because he had done things
right and it's very bitter it's very
bitter in life to see a gap widening
between you and someone else period but
it's particularly bitter if you know the
gap is widening because the person who
is
doing well is doing is actually doing
good and doing well and that implies at
least in eradicating the vagaries and
randomness of life and I'm perfectly
aware of those as factors it's it's bad
enough to be down but it's worse to know
that you're down because you've put
yourself down and then you have a choice
which is do you do turn against the
ideal itself because it becomes so
painful to gaze upon it or do you
destroy the ideal out of vengeance and
spite and that's and that's that's a
simpler pathway forward than decomposing
and deconstructing yourself and being
reborn the Christian idea for for lack
of a better word is that something has
to be sacrificed in order for the
potential of the future to be manifest
in the best possible way there's always
a demand for sacrifice the question is
what should be sacrificed and the answer
is you that's the answer it's you that
should be sacrificed and then the
question is well what part of you and
and the answer that is well the part of
you that's not worthy that needs to be
put into the flame that needs to be
burnt off and that's a process of death
and and rebirth and if there's lots of
you that has become corrupt then most of
what passes through the fire will be
burnt off and that's terribly painful
for people it's that's the desert you
know imagine that your that your
essential personality structure is
tyrannical so you're a rigid ideologue
you're cast in stone and so you decide
to move from the tyranny you escape from
the tyranny well where do you end up
well you don't end up in the promised
land you end up in the desert for 40
years and maybe you die there I mean
even Moses did so it's out of the frying
pan into the fire that's for sure and
it's no wonder that people are loath to
to let go and then the more tyrannical
they've become the more they've
restricted their possibility and all of
that and sold their soul to the dogma of
human beings let's say a Solzhenitsyn
would describe it the less there is of
them that will be left after everything
is stripped bare and that's a terrifying
that's a terrifying possibility it's
much easier to take the
the root and it becomes easier and
easier and then well there are other
motivations that pile up as well
bitterness the hatred that bitterness
can because you know you've lost your
chance right you had your chance and
you've and you squandered it and that
and the feeling of that I think that's
why Cain tells God after he gets caught
after his murderous act he says that his
punishment is more than he can bear
because it's the realization of what
he's done he's destroyed his own ideal
and that's what you do if you're a
collectivist you destroy yourself as an
individual and that's all you have and
so there's there's nothing in that
except I would say a continually opening
pit of hopelessness and despair and then
that drives bitterness and hatred and
desire for revenge and all of that
it's a terrible cycle and we've seen it
play itself out over and over and and
and we haven't yet precisely learned
from that so to me it's part of an
eternal struggle you know it's been
outlined as a as a war in some sense
that's going on in the human psyche
since the beginning of time for all
intents and purposes it seems to me
Jordan that your position is is
fundamentally a positive one it's an
affirmation of human dignity the freedom
that dignity demands and an affirmation
of the infinite particularity of human
life you would if one were to contrast
the collectivist thinking on the one
hand if one might call it a kind of
abstract rationality as if there's one
solution to fit them one size fits all
going to talk down logic what's on the
other side what's the what's the
antidote to that in the individual yes
particularly I mean one of the things I
talk about in twelve rules for life and
this is my lectures this has become a
meme
strangely enough something that's widely
distributed on the web partly because
there's a comical element to it it's to
clean up your room and everyone laughs
about that because I'm taking that
seriously it's like Paul clean up your
room
everyone's mother has told them that a
thousand times right but I try to
explain why it's like well you have a
bit of chaotic potential right in front
of you it's in some sense infinite in
its potential and
the the domain in which you can
manipulate that might be rather
restricted because of the restrictions
that that are part and parcel of your
existence but maybe you have your room
and you might think you might have
contempt for that and so it's a complete
bloody catastrophe but you don't have to
you could think well I've got a little
it isn't a room it's a place of
potential and as soon as you know that
then it's it's not your room anymore it
isn't a room the room that you see is
your preconception of the space that you
inhabit what's there is is a fragment of
infinity that's what's there and what
you see is the is the is the low
resolution consequence of your
assumption and lazy habit and blindness
that's your initial room and you think
well no that's not the room see part of
what artists do for example when Van
Gogh paints a room and you look at it
glowing
he's trying to show you what's beyond
your perception of the room and I mean
this technically like the way that your
visual system is set up is that whenever
memory and presumption can can can
replace direct perception it will
because it's simpler so you literally
see what you expect to see and if what
you see is dull and drab and boring and
pointless and and and uninspiring then
that's you it's not what's there and
what the artist does when he or she
represents that mundane reality is to
remind you of what's behind it the
potential that's there and so what I'm
suggesting to people is that they take
the potential that's right in front of
them it's like okay and here's the rule
you're aiming up there's something that
you could change that you would change
that might be a very small thing could
well that's within the grasp of your
power would is within the grasp of your
will to combine those two things might
be very small shift you might only be
willing to make a very tiny step forward
it's like fine good enough make a tiny
step forward and that makes you a slight
bit stronger than you were before and
then the next step can be
slightly larger and it's it's the path
of humility it's what people it's what
people act out when so there's this
Cathedral it's actually it's not a
Cathedral
it's an oratorio in Montreal I think
it's the second largest one in the world
it's set on a hill at the top of a hill
and there's a huge staircase leading up
to it from the bottom of the hill and
people often who are crippled and who
are on crutches and so forth or in
wheelchairs go there and make their way
painfully up the hill or maybe they do
that on their knees and the idea is that
they're struggling incrementally uphill
step by step despite their burdens to
reach the City of God on the hill and
they're acting out that's life it's like
the the proper aim is the City of God on
the hill and what is that well that's
that place that we talked about already
where these levels of responsibility are
stacked together harmoniously so that
you're acting in your best interest and
in your family's best interest and in
and in the world's best interest and I
would say in the best interests of
reality itself
right assuming that we have some
integral role to play in reality which
is certainly at least true at the human
level that's the City of God on the hill
that beckons to everyone and you you
move up that you move towards that
humbly so that's one step at a time and
you do it despite your burden and your
suffering all of that and that's all
dramatized in that and it's it's a
perfect drama of that and what do you
even say it's not to be despite your
suffering it's in and through your
particular suffering one thing that
strikes me about you clean up your room
clean up your room yes the affirmation
of the particularity of your life I mean
one thing that strikes people deepest in
our human experience is that it is
infinitely particular I mean that you
mentioned your your granddaughter I mean
that the the the loves the people the
experiences the places that were shaped
by they're not places in the abstract
this this top-down sense as if there
could be that well you know the same
kinds of clothes and the same kinds of
experience for all human beings it that
that that's the enemy of the very
deepest truth of our human experience
which it seems to me is infinitely
particular but not infinitely particular
in the sense of which those particular
needs to squall off into nothingness
those particular czar precisely our
points of access to the transcendent to
the infinite to the to the to to to to
that that's where the reality is yes
yeah well that's why you said that
modern man can't see God because they
don't look low enough yes they're not
they're not paying attention to the
importance of the particularity x'
because if the particularity is where
the pen meets the paper right yes and
it's just a tiny dot every every like
when you're when you're writing it's
it's a dot and then it extends into a
line and those transform into words and
sentences and paragraphs but the
particular act is where the pen means
yes yes yes that focal point right
that's the center of the cross by the
way yes same yes yes we mentioned the
cross I mean certainly in the in in in
in in the in the history of of the West
one of the ways this comes through is
and in the East to is in Christian
theology is the very notion of the
Incarnation you know what is that to say
but that the the infinite is in the
particular and that they that that they
are that they are Co inherent that the
infinite in fact has no life except in
the particular and the particular itself
has a relation to or is comprehended by
that very infinite and so it seems to me
that that what is going on there is an
affirmation that every particularity no
matter how tiny itself is revelatory of
a transcendent and yes I think it was
from the Gospel of Thomas but I might
have this wrong the kingdom of God is
spread upon the earth but men do not see
it and that's that that's that infinite
that's that infinite possibility in each
moment of particularity and that is what
artists that is what great artists are
reminding us of they'll take a slice of
space and time it was it money who
painted the haystacks he went out into
the fields in France and he painted the
same haystack like many many times under
different conditions of lighting just to
show how different it yes if it's if
it's a haystack it's the same thing but
it wasn't he
attention to the particularity x' and so
what great artists are trying to do is
well first of all so imagine a painting
so it's a painting of a landscape and so
the first thing is that it's it's layers
of time because the painter has gone out
there and seeing the landscape and then
seen it again and then seen it again and
then seen it again and then seen it
again and it has to pay attention to the
particularity x' of the light and the
color and all of that to represent it
properly so it's and and and the mere
fact that he's done that is it's it's
the acting out of the idea that in this
tiny slice of time and space there's
something worth attending to for an
infinite amount of time but you can't
because you just can't do it but you
need to know that you could do it and
then it would be worthwhile and so the
painter encapsulate s' the landscape and
then frames it and says like look look
through this window at the transcendent
that's behind the low-resolution
representation of your assumption the
blindness that you the expedient
blindness that you by necessity bring to
bear to every situation remember what's
behind this always remember what's
behind this and that's what art calls us
to do
that's what beauty calls us to do is to
make contact with that then you say well
the problem with the particularly the
problem with it particularly is that it
brings suffering and the bringing of
suffering with particularly can also
allow evil to enter the world because
that particular suffering can engender
bitterness and resentment and hatred and
all of those things and the desire to
destroy so that particularly carries
with it a tremendous risk and a
tremendous burden and so the answer the
question is well how do you tolerate the
particularity and take advantage of the
potential and the answer is to make a
relationship with the infinite that's
behind the particularly and that's the
fundamental religious idea is to if you
can maintain that particularly but also
stay in contact with what's transcendent
and infinite beyond that then you can
then you have the potential strength to
tolerate the catastrophe of yes what's
limited yes and then you get to have
your cake and eat it too
in principle yes
yes I want to return to education in a
moment but but on the way there as it
were Jordan I want to ask you you you've
you've talked about this the inflection
point what is the inflection point and
how might it be understood relative to
what I would I take to be a very
decadent worldview in its last gasps it
seems to me even that many of the
frankly simply slanderous attacks on you
personal personally blatant
misrepresentations of the the very plain
fact of what you're saying it seems to
me that there's an animus there that is
precisely there's an animus there but
the question is where is that coming
from
well we've if you look at Derrida for
example and his critique of the idea of
logo centrism you know as as the central
motif of the West let's say and and he
and he knew at multiple levels what that
critique meant because he knew what
logos meant logos means embodied truth
and there is of course a religious
dimension to that and so he was
criticizing the notion of FAL logo
centrism and and so he was going right
at the core of the doctrine of the
individual now the question is why might
someone do that now I think the reason
for that fundamentally is that there's a
terrible responsibility that goes along
with it so imagine that you offered
people here's the offer offer one you
you don't matter you it's it's a really
say the narrowest of materialist
viewpoints is you weren't here than you
were for a brief period of time and then
you're gone and that all washes out in
the endless sands of time nothing in
your life is significant nothing about
humanity is significant nothing about
the world itself is significant it's all
a matter of blind random chance and it's
all the same in the end
who cares in a million years right and
and the price you pay for that is
insignificance but the advantage that
you gain from that is that fundamentally
you have noticed
possibility because nothing you do
matters and so then there's no moral
burden there's no obligation and of
course if you can gather expedient
pleasure well your deteriorating
pointlessly then that's all to the good
so it's it's a libertine ism as well and
that's inviting obviously because
short-term pleasure is by definition
inviting and so you can abandon any
pretension to a relationship with the
infinite and consider that only a sign
of delusion and weakness assume that
your life is material and irrelevant it
doesn't matter and then you can shrug
off all responsibilities and pursue
short-term pleasure well there's some
real advantages in that it's very it's a
very easy pathway the alternative is as
far as I'm concerned is note you don't
understand you are the you are the
center of the world a center of the
world it has many centers and you do
partake in this process of casting the
potential of the future into the reality
of the present and the past that's what
your consciousness does and the quality
of what you produce is dependent on your
on the ethics of your choice your choice
between good and evil in every moment is
what determines the course of the world
and that's on you it's like well that's
deeply meaningful but it's unbelievable
it's in its ultimate responsibility in
the literal sense and I think that in
order for us to set things right we have
to understand that we we have to take on
that burden of ultimate responsibility
as if it's not only as if it's ours
which it is but as if there isn't
anything better that we could do and I
and one of the things that I found so
gratifying about the lecture tour that
I've been doing is that my I keep doing
it the live events in particular because
we've done about a hundred of them now
so far is that when I explain to the
audiences and this is especially true
it's been seems to be especially true of
men but of young men but not so young
even to say look you you have you you
have an ethical obligation to lift the
heaviest load you can possibly conceive
of
that's the primary call to adventure in
life and that call to adventure is so
worthwhile that it justifies the
particularity everybody it's like light
school oh I see so you need a meaning to
set against the suffering and to protect
you against that temptation towards men
malevolence you need that well where's
the meaning to be found well it's not
happiness it's not short-term pleasure
it's not it's not self development it's
not self esteem it's none of those
things that are so focused on on on the
individual psyche either it's it's
literally the stumbling uphill towards
the City of God yes with your burden
people go well that's where the meaning
is and they know that because they know
responsible people they know they admire
responsible people they're they already
got that say well that's what you should
become and they think and normally that
that that's what you could become
because that's what you are in the
deepest sense yes yes would you would
you say that that that that the antidote
to nihilism is meaning and if so you
know I think you've described yourself
Jordan as you've said I think you're the
surfer not the wave and I suppose I want
to ask you what is the wave because it
seems to me we're at a moment of very
great cultural potential and it could go
any number of ways but that the very
fact of what one might call the the
jordan peterson phenomenon a worldwide
you book translated into dozens of
languages your reck lecture halls pact
is a sign of a longing a self-conscious
longing for for meaning how would how
would you how would you describe what
that wave is that that you didn't create
but that you will see some of its
technological so so I would say that
wave is it's got multiple levels so so
we could start from we'll start from I
would say what's most obvious and that
would be the medium rather than the
message so I and these people that I've
been associated with this intellectual
dark web group where we're in the
fortunate position of being early
adopters of extraordinarily powerful
technologies so and the technologies are
twofold there's there's online video and
then there's
podcasts and and so they're
technologically revolutionary in a
variety of ways so online video is
revolutionary because it brings
something closely akin to a live
performance to an infinitely large
number of people on demand permanently
so then you think well what's the
advantage of a book
well it's permanent it's relatively
low-cost it's easily distributable right
so well what's the advantage to online
video well it's it's inexpensive it's
not inexpensive it's free it's far
easier to produce than a book like the
lag time from video to publication is
the day like we could put this online
today instead of the three year lag that
a book would require and then far more
people can watch and listen then can
read because reading is a minority
ability in some sense really real expert
level reading you know that because such
a tiny minority of people buy books and
people are made uncomfortable by books
they're intimidated by them even if they
have the intelligence in principle to do
the reading it's not part of their
cultural milieu that's a small minority
of people and so all of a sudden online
video allows allows the spoken word to
have the same impact as the written word
and that's deadly that's a good and
Burgh revolution and then with podcasts
that's even magnified because you don't
have to sit and watch a podcast you can
walk around you can exercise you can do
the dishes you can you can drive many
people who come to my lectures are like
long-haul truckers and guys who run
forklifts and you know they're in their
machinery all day and all they do is
listen to podcasts and so all of us and
they can listen to the podcasts because
more people can listen then can read and
may be way more people can listen than
can read we have no idea maybe the
potential market is ten times as big and
so they can do it when they want to they
can also do it in private if you read
and you're on the subway people can tell
you're reading if you're sitting at home
and reading well then you're with a book
and if you're uncomfortable with a book
you think that's pretentious or
presumptuous or part of a class that you
don't belong to or anything that makes
you feel inferior well you can just
circumvent that you listen
private and so people and people are
taking that opportunity like mad and so
that's part of the wave let's say that
technological revolution in
communication that's illustrated that
people have far more depth and capacity
to concentrate that anyone would have
imagined you even see this with Netflix
and HBO it used to be on TV there was an
idea that well movie was about as long
as you could attract people's attention
for 90 minutes that's the most the
typical person could concentrate for
it's like that turned out to be complete
rubbish people will follow these
incredibly complex like literary level
net narratives Breaking Bad for example
that has multiple characters following
multiple streams of development for four
endless hours and they'll binge watch it
so we have way more capacity for
sustained concentration that we thought
and these new bandwidth unlimited
technologies are revealing that to us
and I happen to be an early adopter of
this and so that's that's part one of
the wave and then then there's the
message part and it has something to do
with see our culture for a very long
time has articulated out a right of
rights you have rights you need to
demand them you need to claim them it's
like but but that's that's that's half
the story and it's not the most salutary
half because it turns out that the
meaning in your life isn't the
consequence of the claiming of rights
that rights are in some sense what other
people owe you I know there's more to it
than that but but it's that in large
part well you can just get what you're
owed it's like no that's not where
you're gonna find your meaning what
you're gonna find where you're gonna
find your meaning is responsibility
which is the other half of the rights
responsibility equation and people don't
know that this is that the the the the
the that what would you call this is
where this is where this is the point
where things come together properly you
need a meaning in your life to forestall
the suffering and to make you strong
enough to resist malevolence where is
the meaning to be found
rights impulsive pleasure and happiness
no responsibilities oh who would have
guessed that it's not part of the
narrative because the responsibility
narrative even is usually about duty
patriotism or something like that which
which is okay but it's it's it's an
ideological narrative - in its own right
this is different it's like no you don't
understand is that what makes life worth
living is to pick up the tube to to take
its catastrophe and embrace it and carry
it and to realize through that process
who you are so one of the things I
figured out in this lecture tour there's
this old idea that you go into the abyss
it's a Nietzsche an idea that you could
gaze into the abyss you gaze long and
what you find in the abyss is a monster
Tolstoy wrote about that that's the
dragon at the bottom of the abyss let's
say that's Satan himself for that matter
and but if you go into that into that as
deeply as you can what you find is
you're you find you find you find your
your your your fragmented father you
know in a comatose condition in a you
know in a in a desiccated and and and
separated condition and then you Rivera
fie that well what does that mean it
means something what means that if you
look in the darkness you find the light
that's one thing it means and that the
light really stands out against the
darkness but that the light is to be
found in the darkness so that's a very
interesting thing that's a quest
narrative but it means more than that it
means something fundamental so we know
for example that if you take yourself
out of your current state of
predictability and safety and you put
yourself in a new situation you'll learn
right you'll absorb you incorporate new
information so that's a cognitive issue
but that isn't all that happens what
happens is that new genes turn on within
you and code for the production of new
proteins that happens neurologically new
parts of you turn on and so the idea is
that if you can move yourself out into
the world and push yourself out against
a maxim array of challenges more and
more of you turn on turns on and - and
then the question would be well what
would you be if all of you that could be
turned on was turned on and the answer
would be you would be the resurrection
of the ancestral father that's what you
would be and so that's why Christ says
I am the way and the truth and the life
and no one comes to the Father except
through me what that means is that if
you take on the unbearable burden of
being voluntarily then that transforms
you into the ancestral father and that's
true
and so that's unbelievably optimistic
because what it it's so interesting
because it's it's dark beyond belief
rights to say well the world is
characterized by suffering and by
malevolence of a depth that's virtually
beyond comprehension but if you choose
to comprehend that what you discover in
that is the light that destroys the
darkness and that's well that's and
that's really something to discover it's
it's the it's it's the discovery that
there isn't a discovery that's more
profound than that that's the search for
the Holy Grail or the Philosopher's
Stone all of that and isn't that that
isn't that the search and indeed the
finding that every human being is is
made for what I want to ask you Arden is
about the role of Education here it
seems to me that that what the meaning
that people are finding in your work
that you can listen to in a podcast you
can you can't you can while you're doing
a long run drive across the prairies or
whatever it may be but it seems to me
that that the the deconstruction of our
culture by a worldview that has denied
the integrity of the individual that has
denied the individuals relation to the
transcendent to any stable knowing
denied the dignity of the individual
that that deconstruction is not for no
reason that the the postmodern view
calls itself deconstruction that has
very deconstructive effects in my view
in the world it seems to me that the
rebirth or the the Renaissance of a more
adequate a more fully human culture
depends on more than it depends on
institutional life we need cultural
forms we architecture there's all kinds
of a fully a full culture is a complex
an infinitely complex structure but I
think we've we've as it were deleted out
the memory banks in so many profound
and so what I'm what I would like to ask
you about is the we still have the
libraries we still have the libraries
well you thank God well thank God for
that and that's where I want to turn to
education because you say in at one
point you say that we need to rescue the
treasure trove of the past the trestle
we rescue the values of the treasure
trove of the past and to integrate them
and I suppose did like to ask you about
the role the universities are for is to
remind people to to lead people to doing
that I mean we wandered around Cambridge
today and you showed me King's chapel
for example which is so beautiful that
it's just beyond belief and that's a
call right that's it's a call to a mode
of being and it's a Socrates believed
that all learning was remembering and
and it's true in the sense that we just
discussed is that through encounter with
the tragedy of life and the malevolence
of life that that more of you will come
to manifest itself but that can be that
can be facilitated by your incorporation
of the greatness of the past so you say
well each great philosopher each great
thinker is a fragment of the ultimate
ancestral being is a fragment of God the
Father let's say and you get a fragment
from Nietzsche and you get a fragment
from Plato and you get a fragment for
Vidkun Stein and you get a fragment from
Shakespeare and and and there's
something imagine this there's something
that makes all those people great it's
whatever greatness is and it's broken up
apart it's broken up across all of them
but if you and if you experience if
you're exposed to each of them then you
you absorb what's your you're exposed to
and have the possibility to imitate and
absorb that greatness across it's it's
fragmentation across many people and
then you can that can come to awaken
that within you and that is the purpose
of the universities and the reason for
that it isn't it isn't something casual
it's like well it's it's it's good to be
more if you go to university and you
take a humanities degree you'll come out
more well-rounded you know that's that's
not the that's not it's such it's such a
weak way of putting it it's that no you
wake up and realize who you are and then
you're ready to take it it's on your
shoulders yes and that's what the
universities are here and that's what
students do
are dying for that yes that's why men
are abandoning the universities is
because that call isn't there yes well
there's no answer to the call you might
say that seems to me that the wave is
the longing the longing for that call to
be answered and it seems to me that
their universities have failed us and
not only failed exact antithetical to
you you might call them the the water
main that is distributing a worldview
that is corrosive of what is best in the
human being well the the the doctrine so
one of the fundamental doctrines of the
of the collectivist leftists especially
on the feminist end of things is the
idea that Western culture is a
patriarchal tyranny and so first of all
we could say well that's inappropriate
psychologically because the way that you
represent culture archetype is with the
tyrant and the wise King and so you can
say that there's the tyrant and that's
always true but you also have to say
that there's the wise king but there's
no wise king there's only a tyrant okay
and that tyrant is that's all men it's
all male and so and so then and so
that's a view of history right is that
the view of history is that well women
have been a primary force of oppression
in relationship to women throughout
history has been men no idea about the
cooperative endeavor of men and women or
their mutual desire to lift each other
out of misery which is a much more
accurate way of representing history and
a much more grateful inappropriate way
none of that no it's a patriarchal
tyranny and men are responsible okay
well so where does that leave young men
well let's say young men are attempting
to manifest competence in the world and
to become good people well there's no
good and there's no competence there's
only power and it's related to the
patriarchal tyranny and so that
conflation of competence with power
which is an absolutely pathological move
in my estimation is also the desire to
discourage and to devalue and to destroy
and partly it's based on fear because
the idea would be well a fully-fledged
man is nothing but a powerful tyrant and
therefore dangerous better to emasculate
him completely
so is nothing but harmless even though
he's useless he can't do anything that's
bad
who said unbelievably horrifying that's
the castrating mother the Freudian
castrating mother that's the terrible
element of of the of the female body
politic that's the evil queen that's the
counterpart to the evil king something
we never talked about so and that's
what's facing young men is that at least
they're discouraged from for becoming
what they could be at least they're not
encouraged but it's worse than that
they're actively discouraged and so the
universities have become they've become
institutions of active discouragement
and especially for men and so what's the
consequence of that well especially in
the humanities and social sciences well
it's obvious all you have to do is look
at the statistics all the men are
leaving there won't be a man left in the
humanities and Social Sciences in 15
years at the current rate of of gender
transformation of the disciplines and
then you see this equally appalling
phenomena occurring phenomenon occurring
which is that virtually all of the
female dominated disciplines are
politically correct and I think that the
reason for that is that the reasonable
women don't know how to regulate the
behavior of the unreasonable women the
the benevolent queen can't regulate the
Evil Queen and that and that hatred for
the patriarchy that's the feminist part
of the postmodern neo-marxist monster is
is has decided that emasculated and weak
men are preferable to tyrants and but
and those are the only options because
there's no such thing as genuine
competence what you want to call young
men forward to do is to take their place
and say look you have you have to
understand it's not just about you is
the world will be a lesser place without
without that which you could reveal to
it because of your particularly and that
hole that you leave by the absence of
your presence is going to be filled with
something terrible not just something
neutral but something terrible and
that's on you and so you you you have a
calling that's that's vital and and
people people need that they're dying
they die yes yes it seems to me that the
ideology that's dominant and very much
the university is not only just
attractive in all these ways but chess
boring and that it's patent inadequacy
to our deepest human longings
male/female of owl of all races and
kinds that the deep transcendent
longings that we all have that the need
for self longing for self knowledge that
that ideology is its is is patently
inadequate to its satisfaction what I
see in young people today many many
young people I know you see this in the
thousands that you encounter is is
they're not interested in fighting some
cultural war they simply want to
discover the deepest truth of themselves
and so I want to ask you a little bit
about about the role of Education we
talked about the lighting up and that
the awakening the encounter with depth
and truth you know there's a certain
kind of abstract view of Education as
though it's a kind of inert process you
know you're just sort of downloading
into the into the into the mind but in
fact the nature of our of our of our the
nature of our souls is such that it's an
it's a dynamic reality you know the room
is not just the room it's the place in
which you and you encounter yourself and
the in the in the rule of clean up your
room but it seems to me that that's
what's going on in in in all education
at its best and that it's not enough
simply for the library to be there there
needs the certain mediation of the
institution so for example ie we could
have the piano and the other side of
this room you know we could say well
there's a piano you're free to play the
piano but I can't play the piano I don't
know the chords and the scales I haven't
and yet if I if I if I did all that then
what I can make happen on the piano is
infinitely richer than if I've never
learned to play the piano and I suppose
I suppose when we talk about rescuing
the values of the treasure trove that's
discipline as the precondition for
freedom yes right which is which is a
which is actually a Nietzschean idea at
least in part I mean it's older than
that it's the apprenticeship idea it's
that it's that before before you can be
a painter who can paint what's beyond
mere memory you you have to inculcate
that discipline skill and a lot
that is painful repetition and hard
grinding work it's the sacrifice of the
present for the future but once you
manage that then things open up and
virtually everything you learn of value
is like that's very very very difficult
to learn to write and there's arbitrary
arbitrary rules that you have to follow
and bind yourself to and while you're
learning those rules the probability
that you have any creative freedom to
speak of or any facility with the rules
is very low you're you're a rank
beginner and and even to some degree
whatever creativity you have is going to
have to be stifled well you're passing
through that that keyhole but if you
pass through it then something massive
opens up on the other side and it is
definitely the case that disciplinary
institutions universities are exactly
that is their places of guidance and and
their places to encourage people to
develop the discipline that's necessary
to see beyond the discipline I mean
that's why we have disciplines right I
mean the words aren't there by accident
you have to narrow yourself first and
then you can broaden outward and so
that's and that's part of the process of
maturation that part of the that's part
of the sacrifice of childhood say in
childhood you're nothing but potential
but it's not realized and you don't know
how to realize it and so then the
question is well how do you get to a
point where you realize the potential
and the answer is you sacrifice almost
all of it to a single Direction this is
Nietzsche's commentary on the Catholic
Church because a great admirer of the
Catholic Church despite the fact that he
was also a radical critic a critic of
Christianity said the count see the
thing about the Catholic Church is that
it forced everything to be interpreted
within a single explanatory framework
and that was a discipline and once that
discipline was established then the
disciplined mind could explode in every
direction which is precisely what
happened and so and and and that's the
thing about growing up is that when
you're a teenager and a young adult you
have to sacrifice everything you could
have been as a child to be the one thing
that you're aiming at but then that
opens up and the universities are part
and parcel of that process and you need
the guidance because the
the the library is too large to wander
through it unaided yes and that and I
think that hat comes down to to the
question of what you need to what what
are the books that can be read to be
transformative I mean we you know it's
into the the other nests that realizes
in that awakens and opens up the self
that light that turns those lights on is
not just a random otherness I mean you
can look at a brick wall all day and
never get anything like what we get by
looking at the King's chapel that we
just came from a few minutes ago that
that the the levels of pattern and
depths and beauty that are present in
that building that's a kind of metaphor
for what the most wonderful most for
contexts of our own of our own past
offered to us you know they're they are
lying in the Shelf but when opened up
and explored fully they in Ostia they're
portals so I suppose a book isn't paper
yes that that's that's your memory
that's your perception of the book it's
a portal yes and and and you know one of
the ideas the postmodern idea is that
well there's no Canon and if there is a
Canon it's only there to support the
tyrannical patriarchy because of course
the tyrannical patriarchy is the
explanation for everything but I've been
trying to solve that problem technically
with I have a small staff that's trying
to produce an educational system online
and we've been trying to understand well
what is it that makes a book canonical
there's actually a technical answer to
that so you imagine that books exist in
relationship to one another that's a
perfectly reasonable post modernist
claim by the way books exist in
relationship to one another okay well
some books have hardly any relationship
to other books those are trivial books
now they might be undiscovered works of
genius that's another possibility if
they're recently written but it doesn't
matter because you can't separate the
wheat from the chaff at present it's too
difficult there's too much chaff
but if you go back into the past you can
rank order books by the degree to which
they've influenced other books so it's
like citations in some sense and the
books that have influenced the largest
number of other books are the canonical
books
and the ultimate canonical book in the
West is clearly the biblical corpus
because it's influenced virtually
everything and so you have to know it
because it's implicit in everything else
and so you start there and so you have
that you have that knowledge at least to
some degree and it gives you the
foundation the metaphorical foundation
the conceptual foundation the mythical
foundation that you can use to then well
then maybe you can know that now
Shakespeare opens up to some degree and
now Milton opens up to some degree and
Dante opens up to some degree and you
think well why should those open up and
the answer as well as the social
constructionist claim you're at least in
part a historical creature well then
those books are about you they're the
the patterns in those books are the
patterns of your perceptions and your
actions and without understanding them
then you don't know who you are and you
can't guide yourself properly through
life and so you you you come into
university and you encounter experts and
they say look this is canonical why
because it's had a disproportionate
influence on everything else so you need
there's something here that you need to
know about because it's about you and
and it isn't about the you that's here
now in some sense it's about the you
that can unfold across time in the in
the best possible way so each of those
works is a call to adventure every
painting that's a great painting or a
building like the King's chapel if
that's not a call to adventure I mean
what else could it be we were talking
about that
so these ancient buildings these great
ancient buildings that Europe is
littered with these were people would
were aiming at something beyond
themselves beyond the span of their
lifetime they they engaged in the color
the collective manifestation of these
great works to aim to to participate in
aiming something that at something that
was beyond them it was a divine aim they
had that that will to produce this
beauty that transcended centuries you
know and maybe the will that produces
beauty is always aligned with that which
transcends centuries maybe those are the
same things in even paintings oil
paintings you know they they take a
moment in time and they cast it into a
permanent form that can be that can be
preserved
across centuries and so there's
something about there's something about
the establishing a relationship with
eternity that's key to the construction
of something that's beautiful and then
that in itself becomes a call to a
relationship within with eternity so and
you need that people hunger for it I'm
at the University of Toronto there's the
the there's the European Cathedral side
of the campus the older part and then
there's the modern factory side of the
campus and it's soul deadening my
building is made out of cinder blocks
you know and my my brother-in-law who's
his own sort of genius calls that hose
about architecture anything could happen
there and you could wash it away it's
like and it's just it's it's it's I have
my students now and then sit in a
classroom like that and look at it and
tell me how it makes them feel random
wires hanging from the ceiling you know
nothing but cinder block the cheapest
form of construction nothing that's
beautiful pure boring dull
utilitarianism with these bare shiny
desks and terrible fluorescent lighting
it's like it's ugly right to the core
and it's it's corrosive it eats away at
the heart of the university which is
about the beauty that's eternal and and
that isn't optional
it's not impractical it's it's the most
practical it's it's it's that upon which
the idea of practicality itself is
predicated and that's the University and
people should be flocking to the
universities dying to be educated
because they are dying to be educated I
have dozens of young men who come to me
all the time after my talks and say look
they give me a note one did last night
here's the note six weeks six months ago
I was deeply suicidal I had no reason to
live I was completely nihilistic I
started watching your lectures I started
to adopt a more responsible outlook I
realized that that was important I
started to try to tell the truth and to
put myself together and without that I
wouldn't be here and that's a little
note and that happens over and over you
know and then I go talk to journalists
and this happened in Scandinavia it
happened with this GQ interview I just
did well your message is primarily
directed towards you
man it's like and there's this judgment
about that it's like oh there's a
problem with that is there I mean that
wasn't the point but that is the
audience is what there's something
there's something wrong with talking to
young men and encouraging them it's like
that makes me somehow somehow suspicious
the hatred of humanity that is present
in that critique is mind blow it's
absolutely beyond belief and you think
well it's only misogyny it's like no
it's not it's like what who are you
leaving for the women to have as
partners these did demolished and weak
whether it's a zero-sum quality of it I
mean as if as if as if lifting up any
human being is not a good for all of us
I mean that's the whole point about the
necessity of our care for the oppressed
is because they are part of us no you
only care about them in groups the
individual impressed person is
irrelevant it's the group of oppressed
people that's relevant and so if you
just help one person oh well you see
then then that's in that's that that
that flies at the heart of the
collectivist doctrine you say something
very very powerful when you talked about
you people should be flocking to the
universities in an image that comes to
my mind is the image of a fountain and
you know people come to the fountain to
drink dislike their thirst and and and
and it seems to me that we need we need
new institutions of higher education
that's the fountain of living water yes
yes yes Moses that's why Moses is a
master of water in the desert
yes so we've got a master of stone yes
yes yes and one thing that really
excites me Jordan is that is that what
we see right now in is is this longing
there's so many thirsty people it seems
to me we simply need to to build new
fountains because you know as you say
the books are in the library we can we
can we can give a rebirth to the past in
the form of the hunger and thirst that
are in young people simply by feeding it
and that it seems to me that that
there's a kind of piss cultural
passivity particularly when it comes to
the university people will say oh well
you know you could never do anything
about that well you know the universe
they're just well you just have to kind
of write them off well people have been
thousands of universities started over
where the students come into the
university and they've got this facade
of cynicism you
that partly because they haven't had
great experiences with the educational
system and it's no wonder and partly
because all the way back to the to the
beginning yes I mean you've talked about
this in your book the University
neuropathy that the what moves in in the
whole k-12 educational system in a
certain sense was founded with in large
part to bring about that collectivist
control and to Delta Phi and to
annihilate the the the freedom of the
individual and so that's that's pretty
well ingrained by the time someone comes
to university and no wonder they don't
like it they don't think they like
educational institutions yes well but
they're still desperate enough to come
and they might say well I'm doing this
practically because I need a degree to
get a job which is you know as professor
it's perfectly reasonable as a as a
fragmentary ambition it's it's a good
fragmentary ambition but they're they're
they're their core is dying for
something deeper than that and they're
coming they're coming to university the
way that you enter a Cathedral properly
if you enter it properly they come
prayerfully they're hoping but they
won't talk to anyone about it
they're hoping god I hope that what I
need is here and if you provide that
then they're just overwhelmed by it and
and then they're motivated to to work
and to move and to put themselves
together because it doesn't take much
water to really transform a part surface
and these young people they have their
cynical facade and it's easy to be
intimidated by that because they're
they're judgmental in their lectures and
in your lectures and maybe they're not
paying attention and they're snapping
dumb and they're playing with their
computers but they're they're is part of
them that's at the back listening and
hoping that something will emerge that
will captivate them and when that
happens then well then well then that's
when it becomes something absolutely
remarkable to be an educator because
then you're providing guidance and
you're providing the guidance that
that's that's well that that's that's
the bread that's more than mere material
bread and then the students are
extraordinary extraordinary rewarding to
work with because they're so it's not
pleased it's way more than pleased
they're so engaged by what's happening
that the whole thing comes alive
that's that's when it's a great thing to
be an educator and it's been great for
me to go on this lecture tour because
which is why I keep doing it is because
every evening it's like that I get
twenty five hundred people in an
auditorium and I start talking about the
things we've been talking about
everybody's dead silent and they're
locked on to it and it's it's an
unbelievably gratifying process and then
people come up and say you know oh this
has been so useful to me things were so
terrible and falling apart in so many
ways and like all of a sudden I'm just
stacking these things up and putting
them together it's so interesting
watching the young men who come in and
talk to me and it's it's young women as
well well nor don't always just so young
many of the women come and say thank you
very much for what you've done for my
son's for example but the men come up
and they say it's like they're telling
me a secret you know and it's the sort
of secret that you'd only tell an
intimate friend that you trusted it's
like you know man I wasn't doing so well
and these are often rough looking guys
you know they say look I've been really
trying to get my act together you know
I've been working it out with my wife
and I mean I've been trying to get my
relationship with my son straighten out
and and here's my father by the way he
came along with me and we're getting
along just fine and it's really working
and they say a hushed voice you know and
they say thank you very much and I say
great that's so great I'm so thrilled to
hear that and they they're telling me
that because they're hoping that I would
in fact be thrilled to hear that because
they want to tell it to someone who
would be thrilled to hear it and I am
thrilled to hear it because I do believe
that that redemption is something that
is accomplished at the level of the
individual and every time you hear
someone say that they that they're a bit
oriented themselves properly it's like a
bell rings in heaven it's exactly that
and so well so well so that's absolutely
and chronically overwhelming but it's
it's absolutely remarkable to see this
to see how much desperation there is for
this when I talk to audiences about the
relationship between responsibility and
meaning they inevitably go dead silent
there's not a there's not a rustle
there's not a coffee it's like
is that the secret is that the secret is
that it's the voluntary adoption of
responsibility it's like well that's the
that's the central message of the West
it's like to pick up your cross and bear
it you know and everyone's been told
that but they don't know what it means
because it's not been articulated enough
so that it becomes something that's
practical it's like yes look at the
terrible responsibilities you have right
in front of you your family is hurting
you're in trouble there's problems in
the world it's like all of that's right
there and all you have to do is all you
have to do is take responsibility for it
and then you've got what you need all of
a sudden you think oh that's what I
needed I didn't know that I thought that
was something to avoid
it's an impediment to short-term
hedonistic pleasure you know and to
happiness
there's nothing happiness about happy
about lifting the suffering of the world
onto your shoulders it's like this is
way way better that happiness isn't what
you feel in the King's chapel it's
something so magnificent that happiness
pales in comparison and so it's it's
it's thin gruel happiness and young
people know that they're pursuing
hedonistic pleasure and you know no
wonder but there's nothing in it that's
sustaining and all it does is make you
cynical it's like is that's all there is
another one-night-stand another another
binge party you know and it's not like I
have anything against in principle
against some of that exuberant youthful
hedonism but but it's it's not if look
the universities have turned into places
of parties why well because that's what
the students find best to do there well
that's not good but you want to offer
them as a reason to not party it's like
no you got to understand you come to
this class hungover you're not going to
be able to get it you're not going to be
able to write properly you're gonna pay
a price for that hedonism it's like and
the price will be too high for you to
bear it's like oh well enough hedonism
for me then like I've got something
important to do that's the way out of
that but that that thing that's more
important has to be offered and it can
be offered so when I've seen it happen
over and over to people and it's it's
it's extraordinarily good
if you're an addict and I've talked to
many people who are addicted you need a
reason to stop being addicted which
means you need something better than the
drug well that's what you offer at
universities it's something better it's
something better than everything else
and if you're not offering that then
it's all a facade it's all a factory a
knowledge factory which is the modern
University factory knowledge factory
products seems to me and will conclude
here I think momentarily it seems to me
that that the time is ripe for a radical
and beautiful rebirth of a more fully
human culture and when I hear you speak
Jordan about your lectures and you know
what what what moves me deeply is is the
the love that you have for the people
who come to you and I suppose I want to
just conclude on a question about a
quote I want to conclude on an
optimistic note by by drawing out what's
in that love it's that the potential
that is that lies in those in each and
every individual for deep transformation
for a connection to the transcendent and
and and and and and and just to talk
about that that longing that seems to me
that that that longing is overwhelming
and if only we can start to can refill
the fountains with water or build new
fountains that the possibilities are
beyond our imagining yeah the point
we're at at the moment yeah that's what
partly why this is an inflection point
too because so many things are
transforming the landscape of
possibility is opening up to us in a way
that it never has partly because of our
technological transformations and so the
importance of the particularity z' of
our ethical choices are becoming more
and more mathilde artificial
intelligence and it's going to be a
reflection of us and so we better make
sure that it reflects the part of us
that we want reflected and you talked
about that
care for people as the care for me is
predicated on my realization that I
prefer heaven to hell
having done what I could to explore hell
let's say in my academic career and in
my private life and in my and in my
clinical practice and to see what's
there that unnecessary suffering in that
malevolence is like well it it would be
best to move away from that towards
something better that's something I
genuinely believe that it's it's it's
for the best for everything that we aim
up and then when I see someone decide to
aim up I think well that's that's
something that's one more step away from
hell it's not just the it's not just the
climbing up the hill painfully towards
the city of god it's move away from the
abyss and I think it's easier for people
to believe in the abyss it was for me to
believe in the existence of malevolence
and apocalypse and catastrophe
I mean all you have to do is study
history to believe that think well not
that anything but that away from that
well away from that is amorphous right
it's again it's like Moses leading his
people from from the tyranny in Egypt
it's like well where are we going well
away from that well that's into the
desert and that's where we are now well
that's not so good but at least it's
away from that well that's something but
then there's something beyond that it's
like well what is it that we're striving
towards and and well we can each imagine
that in our own way in some sense but I
would say what you start locally is like
fix up what you can fix up when you see
a problem that announces itself to you a
small problem that's your problem that
you could fix that's your one step you
take it yes it seems to be in addition
to that that life of the individual we
we need to think very broadly about the
institutional life that supports all of
that individual realization and freedom
we need to think about universities when
you think about our architecture we need
to think about that is to say that that
the the whole horizon that lies before
us needs to be considered for the
fullness of possibility that that it
holds and that those possibilities are
not realizable simply by you know this
individual doing this
that ended into doing that but that they
also require a kind of it requires that
we think about the whole and that we
allow to give birth we allow to come
into being the kinds of institutional
lives institutional life that upon which
our realization depends upon which that
awakening depends and so it simply can't
be simply a matter of about living our
lives in a kind of solitary way nobody
know what we what to think about what
are the fountains on which you know if
we're in the desert it seems to me that
that okay so we're in the desert it's a
it's a it's a lonely and dry place but
there are the narrative fragments were
there sure that's all the deities that
the Israelites come to worship the false
idols because the narrative fragments
and that is the precisely the moment
paradoxically at which we can rediscover
ourselves what our what our nature what
our longing is for and so it seems to me
that we're at a time of astonishing
possibility but that we must take it up
well hopefully you know when you train
graduate students and you train
undergraduates you know you orient them
towards the truth and then they learn to
teach in accordance with that and that
and that facilitates the process that
we're describing and that they regard
the relationship with individual
students as a of paramount importance in
something noble and the research as well
yes yes the awakening of each particular
individual at say in an educational
institution is precisely what allows
them to go on in in 10,000 ways and ten
hundred thousand ways throughout their
lives to to to transmit and open up
those transcendent possibilities Thank
You Jordan very much our pleasure