hi everyone thanks for tuning in to the
April 2019 Q&A probably won't do another
one till June I'm traveling almost
completely through May although it's
getting easier to do these on the road
camera quality usually isn't as good so
we'll see what happens I like doing but
but be nice to do it with the right
equipment so look before we get started
I've got a bunch of things I'd like to
tell you about I hope that you're
interested in them the first one and the
oddest one I suppose is the fact that
I'm going to be debating the renowned
Marxist philosopher Slava Dziedzic who's
a very well well-known continental
academic tomorrow at the Sony Centre in
Toronto at 7:30 on the topic happiness
capitalism versus Marxism we've decided
we'll livestream this event for those
who might be what interested in watching
the events as they unfold tickets for
the livestream are available on my
website
Jordan B Petersen calm but I'll put all
the proper links below so if you pick up
a livestream ticket you can view the
debate at any time up to 30 days
afterwards we're also going to put the
debate eventually up on YouTube probably
within a month so if you don't want to
watch it live well then you can always
wait watch it later but if you want to
participate in it in so far as you can
do that electronically then I guess the
live stream idea is the right one we
thought we'd run it as an experiment
anyways maybe you can have a Peterson
vs. Dziedzic party if that's the sort of
party you're interested in on a Friday
night I'd also like to know let you know
that season two of the Jordan B Peterson
podcast is now started with the first
three episodes up two of them are twelve
rules for life lectures taken from my
tour last year one of them from Seattle
and one from Portland as well as an
interview with General Stanley
McChrystal retired four-star general and
former commander
US forces Afghanistan we partnered this
year with Westwood one largest audio
network in the US and my daughter
Mikaela is going to serve as co-host
so hopefully that allowed a little bit
of lightness and warmth and a little bit
of humor to the podcast and we're hoping
as a consequence of partnering with
Westwood One which also means by the way
that the podcast will now be
ad-supported that that would help
incentivize me to make sure that I got a
podcast out every week it was a bit
haphazard over the last year the podcast
was generally a lower priority item and
we've decided this year to make it well
a top priority or perhaps at least in
the top five let's say so and we hope
we'll get higher production quality out
of it and be able to find a larger
audience and so I guess we'll see how
that goes the initial feedback has been
pretty good with about 600 thousand or
so views per episode so that seems to be
performing quite nicely so thank you all
for that
Jordan B Petersen videos on YouTube
which will will also feature most of the
podcast content like it has in the past
will remain unmonitored as previously no
next we will get to the questions I
promise I'm going to London in May to
celebrate and promote the release of the
may 2nd standard paperback of 12 rules
for life into the UK Australia New
Zealand Indian and other international
English markets not including the US and
Canada yet pre-orders of that paperback
can be obtained at the penguin website
I'll leave the links below I'm extremely
excited one of the things I was really
excited about this year you know I wrote
the foreword to Alexander Solzhenitsyn
abridged Gulag Archipelago so that was
that was a I was a pretty good honor
that was a last week by the way in New
York I talked to his son ignite and we
we spent about an hour discussing as
Oracle material related to the Gulag and
that'll be released with the audio
version which I've read the foreword
because I as I said I wrote the foreword
and they'd not I believe read the rest
of the audio but that will be released
an audiobook form fairly soon along with
that interview so that was extremely
interesting he's a very accomplished man
in his own right is a pianist and and
conductor and has a very successful
international career so he has his
father's intellect that's for sure so
it's really exciting for me it was very
exciting for me to do that forward but
it's I would say equally exciting to
have a paperback in the great tradition
of penguin paperbacks which I've loved
ever since I was old enough to know the
difference between let's know let's
rephrase that old enough to start to
read serious literature and so to have a
paperback come out on the penguin label
is well I just saw the first copy of it
this week they sent it to me it's hard
to believe man it's uh it's a I think I
don't even how you think I even had that
as a dream you know I didn't I didn't
think that was there ever any likelihood
of that so it's better than a dream come
true in some sense because it's a dream
that I never even suspected might occur
that came true so that's good anyways
you can pre-order that if you're
inclined to it's discounted in price of
course too though in comparison to the
hardcover maybe it make a good gift for
someone you like assuming you like the
book so finally most of the time when I
do a Q&A I also talk a little bit about
two programs that my colleagues and I
have developed one called self authoring
dot-com and the other called understand
myself common the first one is a set of
writing programs that help you write an
autobiography and a description of your
present personality and a plan for the
future and they're all laid out so that
doing that is what guided and scaffold
and and simplified
so that you don't have to answer the
terribly difficult question who was I
when I grew up till now all as one
question anyway a lot of people have
used the programs there's tens of
thousands of them now and we have good
evidence for the Future authoring
program in particular which helps people
make a plan and develop a vision and
make a plan for the future that for
example among college students and
decreases their dropout rate by about 25
percent and seems to have about the same
effect on their grade point average so
anyways these writing exercises if
there's anything bothering you about
your past you know you can tell that
because you have negative memories let's
say of anything that happened to you 18
months or previous shouldn't really mess
around with traumatic memories before
they're about 18 months old but if your
path still haunts you you know if you
can't stop thinking about it then
there's there's things that have
happened to you that you don't
understand you don't understand the
causal pathways that led you down the
path that you are now afraid of or
regret and they alarm systems that make
up your the the parts of your brain that
control anxiety never let you free of
that because their job is to alert you
to danger and past or present perhaps in
case you encounter the same situation
again and unless you've come up with an
elaborated causal account of what put
you at risk then you're likely to suffer
from those anxiety related or trauma
related memories for your whole life so
you can write the autobiography part of
self authoring calm it asks you to break
your life into seven epochs and write
about the important positive and
negative experiences in each and analyze
them I've had plenty of people I'm not
making a formal scientific claim here by
the way but there is good evidence that
this kind of writing does help people
come to terms with their past and
increase their psychological health we
haven't done those studies specifically
on our program so I don't want to claim
that we have but I have had many people
mention that after completing the past
authoring program a lot of the things
that they had
other democratically had begin to recede
into the past where they belonged so
anyways we're offering those programs
the self authoring program you could buy
two for one there's a special on it's
rather permanent special because it
seems to be very popular
anyways that means you can buy one for
you and a friend and it's 20% off and so
is understand myself calm that's a
personality test that I developed with
my colleagues that gives you a big five
read out extraversion neuroticism
agreeableness conscientiousness and
openness I think I got all five there
and ten of the aspects that make them up
so it's very high resolution personality
test and it's bit on the harsh side it's
not designed to make you feel good it's
designed to actually tell you about your
strengths and weaknesses and look man
everybody has strengths and weaknesses
so you know if there's a bit that's
harsh in the in the test results don't
feel too bad it's not like you're alone
in that anyways the code for the 20%
discount is May and it's valid until the
end of May and so look these these
programs you know let's to think about
the future authoring program it's it's
really a good thing to have a plan for
your life you know you're not gonna get
what you need you want less you aim at
it and you know I'm gonna aim at it
unless you know what it is and you're
not gonna know what it is unless you
think about what it is that you need and
you want and it's hard for people to do
that and we're not trained to do that
doesn't happen to us in school doesn't
happen to us in university we liked
future authoring program and just and
the past authoring program in the
present Ottoman program they all the
clinical evidence about programs like
this suggests that they work very well
and they're there and you can do them
badly that's the other thing that's kind
of cool is you don't have to get all
perfectionistic about it you don't have
to write a perfect account of your past
and you don't have to come up with a
right plan for the future cuz you're not
gonna anyways because what do you know
about what the future is going to bring
it's still worthwhile to chart a course
though you know because it increases the
probability that you'll get what you
want so
you know my my colleagues Daniel Higgins
he's at Harvard and or was at Harvard
he's a Pete as a PhD from Harvard and
and Bob peel who it's just resigned or
just retired from McGill we built these
programs over a couple of years along
with some of my graduate students
particularly Raymond Mawr and we think
they've been really useful for people so
and you know we were trying to figure
out low-cost psychological interventions
that could be scaled that would not do
people any harm that they could do on
their own with minimal administrative
overhead and cost and so like that's the
philosophy that underlies them so well
that's enough of that I should also
mention finally for those of you who
might be interested I was in New York
this week on Monday for example I taped
16 interviews with dr. oz now there's a
man with energy I'll tell you we did
that I was pretty much fried by the end
of that his wife Lisa who's very bright
person and who knows my work very well
asked wrote out all the questions that
dr. oz used to interview me and they
were killer questions I had to think
about every one of them and so we seemed
to have a good time there there was a
bit of a studio audience there and they
seem to like the discussion and so these
will appear as 10 to 15 minute video
clips either on dr. Oz's broadcast show
or on youtube or both and you know never
know they might show up on my channel as
well
but be forewarned they're coming and
hopefully what did he call them he
thought it would be useful if there were
good 10 minute clips of some of the
things that I've talked about for people
to access and so he's got a nice
professional studio and I like working
with him so well that was New York house
did a talk last night at the Beacon
Theater which was sold out so that's the
third time the Beacon is sold out so I
don't know what it is about New Yorkers
but they seem to like to talk about
sorrow and suffering and
and Russian communists camps and well
maybe also the possibility of having a
reasonable and productive and meaningful
life and that's really why people are
there so it was a good a good event and
my daughter Mikaela opened the show so
that was kind of fun and she also did
the Q&A because there's a Q&A portion of
its that was different and it it was
cute warm as far as I was concerned and
she's kind of funny and so that was
helpful as well so anyways there's a lot
of news hopefully it wasn't too much and
so now I'll do my best to answer your
questions I'm a little no I guess I'm
not quite met here a little nervous
about the debate was jejak tomorrow I'm
not a political philosopher you know and
it's been a long time since I read Marx
reread the Communist Manifesto over the
last couple of weeks and tried to think
it through and so I'm gonna talk to more
about the essence of the capitalist flaw
or the communist philosophy um I don't
think I've read a book well we'll leave
it at that
I'm gonna take it apart tomorrow at the
lecture and I hope I'm ready I've got 25
minutes to make my case pretty short
shouldn't take a lot of prep time if I'm
careful but I I can't waste any of the
time and and I'd really like to do a
good job because I think it's an
important debate know it's an important
subject I don't know if it's gonna be an
important debate I know a lot of people
in Europe will be watching it so alright
everyone let's see what we've got here
to to address if you had been allotted
the opportunity asked Michael Mix what
would you have discussed with Nietzsche
well I think I would
discussed with them what the
psychoanalysts discovered in the 20th
century or what they claimed to have
discovered which I believe was a genuine
discovery see when Nietzsche announced
the death of God which by the way as you
may know from listening to my lectures
was not precisely a trump 'fl was an
announcement of triumph it was announced
it was a warning and the tolling of
bells of sorrow that's a that's a good
way of thinking about it even though
Nietzsche was a style himself as a
vicious an intellectually vicious critic
of institutionalized Christianity which
he certainly was it was also a strange
friend to the faith I think in the most
fundamental sense that's the truth he
wrote some things about Christ for
example which were very positive and I
think the reason he he understood as
well how important the narrative sub
structure of the judeo-christian
tradition was to the maintenance of
Western civilization i unders he's one
of the people I learned that from you
know so see so when each announced the
death of God he did it sorrowfully and
and then he tried to think about what we
might be able to do about that because
it was gonna lead us down two bad
pathways either towards nihilism
and the belief or what would you call
the direct experience that because God
was dead everything might be permitted
as as Dostoevsky pointed out or
totalitarianism which would arise as a
rational substitute for them dogmas of
religion and he knew that that both of
those would be catastrophic occurrences
and so he was trying to figure out what
we could do to to heal ourselves I
suppose as a consequence of this great
loss because Nietzsche also believed
well I mentioned this that you know the
belief in God which is not something so
simple as belief and you know a bearded
man in the sky it's sad to even have to
say that maybe it's not necessary
but but at least you know more more
profoundly that the death of the idea of
a a universe ordered by something that's
akin to the living and conscience and
conscious and and aware and intelligent
so it's rough to replace that with pure
random meaninglessness and of course
that's the path weighted nihilism
anyways
Nietzsche thought we would have to
create our own values to replace those
that would fall because of the death of
Christianity and the psychoanalysts
Freud and Jung particularly young but
Freud began at I think and and you made
this explicit I think found a fatal flaw
in Nietzsche's theorizing and maybe it's
a fatal flaw in relationship to
modernism per se even to the idea of
rational thought itself as master of its
own house eat you're not you can't make
your own values like you can aim you can
direct your life you can you can
cooperate in determining the values that
you pursue but you cooperate with forces
in yourself that aren't you and and
can't be made you not not in any
straightforward way and it's easy to
understand this if you think about for
example the fact that if you do
something that you shouldn't do or if
you don't do something that you should
do that you'll lay awake in bed at night
and torment yourself about it and worry
about it and consider yourself an
unworthy person you know as if you
believed in the idea of sin it's a very
strange thing that there's an ethic that
calls to you from within that you can't
control that that holds you responsible
for your actions that's just one of many
sub personalities in some sense that are
operative within people and it it
depends I suppose on how integrated
their personality is though less
integrated people are more different
what emotional state they're in but you
know with the the you that's overwhelmed
with grief or the you that's overwhelmed
with with love or lust or or the you
that's overwhelmed with anger possessed
by those things is really often by no
means the same you that you like to
think of yourself as when you're under
full conscious control and and in your
normal state of mind I mean even the
idea of drunkenness intoxication that's
possession by a spirit right that's why
whiskey is a spirit it's the spirit of
Dionysius and you drink and you become
something that you normally aren't you
know they say in vino veritas but it's
not necessarily reasonable to believe
that everything you do and say well
you're intoxicated by alcohol is true
the point is that there are multiple
personalities that work within you and
they have a fair bit of autonomy like a
stranger Tana me if you could just
create your own values you could imagine
on some sense you'd be doing what
Raskolnikov tried to do in crime and
punishment which is a book I'd really
recommend he believed that Nietzsche an
idea that you could create your own
values as a consequence he decided to
murder a terrible old woman who was
opressing many of the people in her
neighborhood and seemed loved by no one
and hated by everyone and who was a
vicious slave master to her not very
bright nice and Raskolnikov thought that
he could do away with her that would
that would get him out of some financial
trouble and then he would do good things
with the money and that if he was a real
Superman in some sense in the
Nietzschean manner of thinking that he
could just dispense with all the guilt
that might logically be associated with
murder because after all if there's no
God everything is permitted and we can
create our own values and crime and
punishment is an unbelievably deep study
of what happens when you cross a line
that you shouldn't have crossed because
of your own arrogance and so Skolnick
off this is a thriller this this book
you know a real detective story
well he hey I'm not gonna blow the plot
but he he's sort of successful in the
murder he gets away with it although it
doesn't exactly turn out the way he
expects even the act itself and but what
he discovers in the aftermath of what he
did is that he was no where near as in
control of himself and his personality
and his emotional reactions and he says
he thought and he tortures himself for a
very long time with very interesting
psychological and social consequences as
well as driving the plot ahead very
rapidly with what what he's done
absolute start traumatised disbelief at
what he's done so what I'd like to ask
Nietzsche because that's the question
that I'm supposed to be answering is
given the mutability of man the fact
that we are composed of multiple sub
personalities which by the way it was
something that Nietzsche actually
mentioned and that I believe that both
Freud and you relied on when they were
formulating their psychoanalytic
theories given the fact that we aren't
masters of our own houses given the fact
that were divided amongst ourselves how
in the world is it possible for us to
develop our own values when when we're a
mass of internal contradictions and were
and each of those contradictions is a
consequence of something live trying to
make its case made you know like if you
were your own creation whatever that
might mean if you're in full control of
your own consciousness and emotions and
motivations well then you certainly
wouldn't be guilty about things you
didn't do or did do because you could
just revamp your value structure at will
to optimize let's say your emotional
state and you know it's good to some
degree to be able to do that to cheer
yourself up and to dampen your grief but
man you know it is in control of
yourself as you'd like to think and
you're haunted by many things that you
could be and many things that you are
one of the things that really terrified
me I think enough to change when I was
to change the way I was living when when
I was studying psychology was that
encounter with that psychoanalytic idea
that you're not alone in your psyche you
know you can even tell that if you're a
student if you're trying to read
something that you have to read you know
there's difference between reading
something you have to read and something
that you want to read if you want to
read it you can just read it if you have
to read it you might not read it at all
you might just procrastinate endlessly
even even if there's an important
outcome like an exam even if the
consequence of that exam might be
failing a course and destroying your
academic record you'll still find
yourself very resistant to read the
paper unless you happen to be personally
interested in it and that's so
interesting too because even at that
level you're not the sort of person that
can create their own values man you
can't even convince yourself to read a
piece of complex writing if you're a
university student enrolled in a course
that you chose that that assignment is
part of and so that's a pretty good
indication of just how many directions
you're pulled in simultaneously so I
would really like to discuss that with
Nietzsche I would like to know what he
thinks thought about that you know maybe
he thought that despite our disability
and the multiplicity of our personality
that the possibility or the necessity of
creating our own values was the only
chance we have but but but what see what
I learned from Jung and and this is
probably the most profound thing I
learned I think of all the things that I
know perhaps is that values aren't
created they're discovered and they're
discovered through a consultation with
the parts of yourself that you're not
conscious of that you're not fully
conscious of that aren't articulated
that aren't fully articulated elements
of your primary personality you have to
discover what your values are and you're
informed about that well partly by other
people who will object if your values
aren't appropriate but certainly by a
dialogue with yourself and with your
conscience
that's that's a very important thing to
know it's part of the reason why I think
that you need to tell the truth because
you're forced to negotiate with yourself
to operate properly in the world and if
you've warped yourself let's say or some
elements of yourself by engaging in self
deception and lies and and you're not
now because of that you're not who you
could be and you don't live in the world
as you should live in it then when you
discuss with yourself what your value
should be it will be as if you're
discussing it with someone that you
can't trust and that's that's not good
like you you can't afford that life is
difficult and it contains many pitfalls
and unless you're careful and you search
your cellphone properly and you aim high
and walk on the straight and narrow path
you don't have a hope of understanding
where you should be and at what time
when the crisis hits and the crisis will
hit so you want to get all those little
sub personalities in line if you can
it's part of the reason for example why
you thought you had me integrate your
shadow which is the dark part of your
character thought that was necessary or
where would go and have a little
autonomous life of its own maybe
manifesting itself for example when
you're angry or drunk instead of
integrated into the rest of your
personality like a properly disciplined
player in a complex and sophisticated
game so
hmm Oh lots of tough questions today
here's one from Basel I live in constant
worry my children are going to be hit by
a car
kidnapped murdered beaten up it's a
torture how can I stop well I guess the
first thing I would say is that you
should reassure yourself and I know
that's a paradoxical weighted think
about it that these things could happen
you know look I've never been surprised
as a clinician that people are anxious
so what you say doesn't surprise me
except that the constancy part of it
perhaps is surprising because children
can get hit by cars kidnapped murdered
and beaten up and it is a torture to
contemplate that and so you might ask
yourself not basil not why so much
you're living in constant worry that
that could happen to your children but
why everyone else isn't always living in
constant worried that that could happen
you know because tragedy can strike and
it strikes children and apparently
you're quite attached to your children
and so aren't very what would you say
soothe by the realization that something
terrible could happen to them now you
know first of all I might say you might
want to go talk to somebody professional
about this you know because maybe you're
depressed more than you should be and
maybe you have an anxiety disorder I'm
not saying that that is not a diagnosis
and I certainly couldn't derive that
from what you said but it's one of the
possible things that could contribute to
this constant worry you know or maybe
you're physiologically ill and less
resilient than you should be maybe
you're not eating enough one thing I
would recommend to begin with is to make
sure that you just try this I know it's
surprising advice but try to eat a big
breakfast for
like two weeks see what happens see if
that drives the worry down now then the
next thing I would ask is when does it
happen like is it are these dreams are
these thoughts before you go to bed do
you wake up in the middle of the night
with these visions running through your
head and again this has to do with food
is it more likely to happen if you're
hungry that's where something worth
checking out because the next time you
get worried in the middle of the day you
might try eating something I would
recommend something high protein high
fat rather than high carbohydrate and
just see if that helps because that
might indicate that some of your worry
is consequence of hyperglycemia and
that's a lot more common than people
think
so if it's dreams and visions at night
you know one of the things you can do
that's counterproductive is take one of
those fantasies that's torturing you you
know and that euro print you're
suppressing because you will be
suppressing it and let it play itself
out you see what's happening is that the
parts of you mind the parts of your
brain the parts of your psyche that our
alarm system so that's the anxiety
systems are they're trying to think
something through and they're using
fantasy to think it through right and so
this is actually a form of thought
that's torturing you because it's
reasonable for the parts of your brain
that are on the outlook for negative
occurrences to think well what if what
if what if that's what thinking is and
sometimes you think positively what if
and sometimes you think negatively and
well you're in all likelihood doing
everything you can to escape from these
thoughts when they make themselves
manifest but all that does is make the
systems that are producing those
thoughts even more likely to produce
them because now they think the alarm
system thinks oh well here's a danger
which is basically the vulnerability of
children and I'm trying to present the
active agent the person who I inhabit
with evidence of this potential threat
as a good alarm system should
turns out that they're so afraid of the
message that I'm delivering that they
won't even listen to it
therefore the situation must be much
more dire than I supposed and I'm going
to am going to have to amplify and
increase the emotion of my statement and
the repetitiveness of the thought and so
that's just not helpful at all
right because what you've done is you've
taken a worry and you've now
recategorize it as a worry that's so
terrible that you won't even think about
it and so now the alarm systems think
that you're being chased by he who can't
be named that's a good way of thinking
about it and a good allusion to
something popular in culture and so
they're just gonna be screaming non-stop
so what do you have to do well man this
is counterproductive but I'll tell you
it works next time you have a there's a
couple of wit things you could do you
could start by bringing to mind those
fantasies sit down somewhere take some
deep breaths try to calm yourself down a
little bit and let those thoughts come
forward you know what they are and then
watch them like you're watching a movie
even if it's a horror movie watch them
let the whole fantasy play out and see
what what comes out at the end now even
if it's it's gonna be frightening to do
this now look even if the vision is
quite horrific right the entire thought
is quite horrific you have now indicated
to your anxiety systems that you have
enough courage to face the worrisome
event and just that alone should be
helpful now you may have to do this
multiple times and you might have to do
it with all the thoughts and you'll know
that you're you know that you'll have
done it you'll know that you've done it
enough when doing it starts to become
mundane when all the emotion goes out of
it and if you're particularly frightened
that might take a long time now the
other thing that you might really
consider this is something you can do as
an adjunct is you should think about
what you would do if this would
if this happened you know as if it
happened in real life and and to take
even the worst-case situation you know
so let's say let's say that you received
the news that your child would was hit
by a car well you know you could receive
news like that and then the question is
well what would you do and what usually
what should you do and the answer is you
don't know you think that that would
kill you you think that that would be
unbearable and and the end of the world
and it's not surprising that you think
that but it's not helpful you know
because people have to live through
catastrophe and you have more than one
child apparently and I would presume as
well that you have a spouse and other
people that love you and need you and so
it isn't good that you would fall apart
and die like in an in an apocalyptic
dread if something happened to one of
the people that you love because then
you would leave all the other people
bereft of you as well and that's not
helpful and so if your child was hit by
a car well what would you do we have to
think it through
you know you'd grieve you'd go to the
hospital you'd have a terrible time
you'd have a terrible year you know and
and that would be that and you'd have
the funeral end you'd have the loss of
the child and all of that would be awful
but people live through that you know
and maybe you could have a name a name
would be that if that happened your
determination would be to live through
it
so that you could be there for the rest
of your people and so that you wouldn't
fall apart and collapse because the
death of someone and the subsequent
utter collapse of a person closely
associated with them that that second
event does not improve the first one it
makes it worse and it's incumbent upon
you to develop the psychological
strength to be able to tolerate what it
is that your anxiety alarm systems are
tormenting you
with and you know you might think well
that's impossible but you know it's not
impossible because people live through
catastrophe and they do that in large
part there are no small part by by
discovering that there are darker and
stronger forces within them than they
might be willing to appreciate and that
one of the consequences of integrating
those forces is that you have the
strength and the cruelty in some strange
sense to endure right to dare continue
to live even if the unthinkable happens
and it's no simple matter to think of
that as a moral step forward but you
know people are called upon to be strong
and strong in the face of the worst
catastrophe and your psyche is
tormenting you with precisely that you
know it won't let you go it'll shake you
like a dog shakes a rack it won't let
you go until you deal with it deal with
mortality even the mortality of your
children and you find within you what
would allow you to withstand that
damaged or not to withstand that and you
do that by letting yourself go where
your thoughts take you even though you
don't want to now it's a trip into the
abyss you know that's a trip into the
underworld and those are best taken
voluntarily you're being dragged down
there by forces that are beyond your
control and the mythological motif is
that those who are pulled into the
underworld by forces beyond their
control do not come out not come out
easily it can be the end you know so you
go there courageously
and so if you're a parent one of the
places you have to go courageously is to
that place where your children are ill
or dying or deceased you have to do that
you
haven't grown up until you have done
that even though it's a terrible thing
so that's how you could deal with that
it's rough man but I'll tell you it's a
lot better than living in constant worry
that your children are going to be hit
by a car
kidnapped murdered or beaten up so you
know you're like you're in a situation
that characterizes the situation of many
people in life you don't have a good
choice you've got two rough choices you
could go left and that's rough and you
can go right and that's rough and that's
all you've got and I would say you have
the freedom to choose which of the two
difficult paths you're going to choose
and the one that involves voluntary
confrontation with what tortures and
torments you with the terrible predator
of death that's the pathway that's going
to lead back to the stability that not
only you need but that your family
requires you to have so that's that and
you guys you're asking tough questions
tonight news of real atrocities
committed by humans especially tortured
leave me physically shell-shocked and
paralyzed because if I had PTSD is there
something wrong with me well yours
you're more sensitive than the typical
person perhaps you're more imaginative
you know maybe you're more open you
could take a personality test and find
out but your personality traits are that
probably be the best that really be the
best way of figuring it out my guess is
that you're extremely high in compassion
which is a an aspect of agreeableness
and it's the maternal aspect
fundamentally and so you're you're
probably very high in compassion I have
a personality test at a site called
understand myself you could go there
understand myself calm
you can go there and you can do the
personality test and that would help
tell you I would say that you're very
high in compassion and I would guess
that you're also very high in trait
neuroticism which is the trait that
measures sensitivity to negative emotion
anxieties say and emotional pain and the
combination of high compassion and high
negative emotion sensitivity would
produce what would increase the
probability of someone suffering from
the consequences that you described if
that was also allied by high o with high
openness which is the creative
creativity dimension it would mean that
you're someone who can get really lost
in the stories of other people so high
people are high in openness like fiction
for example and the reason for that is
that they they they're imitative in some
sense cognitively they can really take
on another character and they can take
that on to the exclusion of everything
else so that they're deeply engrossed in
the in the story you know someone who's
high in openness you can kind of tell
person like that because if they're
reading a book fiction book and you call
their name even multiple times they they
may not respond because they're so
deeply embedded in the narrative and
have become the characters to such a
degree that they've shut off the outside
world and they're living in their
mediated imagination you know and so I'd
be my guess with regards to your
personality traits if it's really
affecting you like your statement is
quite extreme as if I had PTSD to
develop PTSD generally exposure to
malevolence is necessary and so that
element of your experience is in keeping
with that statement but PTSD is is
relatively rare and generally requires a
very intensely traumatic personal
experience now one of the predictors of
the development of PTSD after exposure
to trauma is something called
depersonalization some of you may have
experienced this depersonalization tends
to occur when something happens to you
that's so
far outside the manner that you
conceptualize reality that you cannot
believe that it's happening and so the D
realization is that all of a sudden
you're in a world that doesn't seem real
because something that isn't possible by
your as a consequence of your philosophy
let's say your perceptual structure your
value structure has just occurred and
posed a unspecified threat to the
integrity of your entire belief system
which is really what what happens when
you develop post-traumatic stress
disorder is the value hierarchy that
regulates your negative emotion gets
destroyed at some fundamental level by
your encounter with something that you
didn't believe could possibly exist I
doubt that your response is sufficient
to produce PTSD if that is the case then
you're sensitive to anxiety at a level
that far exceeds the normal and it might
be worth going to talk to someone about
that it's possible that like I don't
know because you haven't provided me
with any information I don't know what
your mood is like like are you are you
are you depressed are you anxious all
the time right you wake up in the middle
of the night and worry about things you
know because maybe there's something
that's broader that characterizes
dysfunctions in your negative emotion
systems that might be addressed maybe
you're going through a particularly
rough time in your life and so you're
hypersensitive it's impossible to tell
from the context but at least now you
know a little bit more about what might
be what might be resulting in your
responses
God boon hem dr. Peterson I recently
found out that my father was a former
Khmer Rouge now the Khmer Rouge exiled
and killed millions of people in
Cambodia so this is a rough discovery I
feel hurt that he was part of the horror
in Cambodia how do I deal with this well
you know the first thing I'd recommend
is that you read a book and the book is
called ordinary men and it's a story
about how ordinary men in Germany
policemen were trained and encouraged to
become cold-blooded murderers of naked
pregnant women in Poland during World
War two
and it's a it's a horrifying book and so
you might think well why in the world
would you read a horrifying book of that
nature and I would say because it will
help you understand that people who did
such things were in Nietzsche's phrase
human all too human and might help you
bridge the gap between the father that
you thought you knew and the father that
once was and to bridge the gap between
you and those two if you understand that
the sorts of things that your father may
have been involved in or in or the
organization at least that he was
involved with if you understand that
people including yourself have the
propensity to behave in that manner and
that it's not something unique to your
father terrible though it may be if it's
part of the what would you say the
eternal proclivity for malevolence and
evil that's part and parcel of the human
spirit you know as the caf
I've always insisted with their doctrine
of original sin then that may allow you
to understand the situation of your
father better that's the first thing
said you have to learn something about
evil and you have to learn something
about how it possesses people and you
have to learn something about how it
possesses ordinary people and that will
mean you'll have to learn something
about how it might possess you and
that's rough learning so you've got
rough learning to do and then the next
thing I would say is look it was a long
time ago and what's your father being
like for you you know like maybe he's
changed
you know people can repent and and
rejoin the world that the Christian idea
which is remarkable one is that there's
no sin that you can commit that's so
terrible that you can't be redeemed
now people laugh at that idea because
they think well that means that you can
they think cynically that that means
that you can be the worst and the most
impulsive sinner possible throughout
your entire life and then conveniently
in the moments before death repent and
you know enter the everlasting kingdom
of God and unfortunately it's not that
simple because to repent and to be
redeemed is to truly understand what you
did to allow the parts of yourself that
did that to wither away and die or burn
away which i think is a better metaphor
because there's plenty of pain involved
to chart a new course and to swear by
everything that's holy that you're going
to stay on it and maybe your dad did
that and so in which case your job is to
find out how even now knowing something
about the evil that can possess people
and even people that you love even
yourself you'll have to find it within
you too
forgive if you determine that this man
with all the hidden complexity that
you've now discovered is someone you
love and so good luck cuz that's uh
that's a tough road you've got to walk
there so but like I said I would say
read ordinary man that'll teach you
something that you need to know the
Greeks is by anonymous the Greeks had
the maxim know thyself how do we come to
know ourselves in terms of our
personalities and more importantly
potential well you know one of the
things I often told my students and all
my clinical clients as well I guess I
probably told my family members this as
well some of the many ways that one of
the first ways to come to know yourself
is to understand that you don't and that
you all still know the people you love
very well but we'll get to that you know
you can learn to kind of watch yourself
like you're watching a stranger but you
have to adopt a position is a position
of radical humility I would say both
both humility in two senses so one sense
would be the humility of recognizing
your ignorance so you have to understand
that you don't know who you are and
that's not easy to understand cuz you
think you know but then you know you
remember you can't control yourself very
well you're not very disciplined you're
full of flaws maybe you don't know
yourself as well as you think but it's
hard to get low enough to understand how
deeply it is the case that you are
ignorant about who you are now there's
an upside to that too which also is that
you're also ignorant about who you could
be and so the discovery of that
you know is some reward for the horror
of determining who you actually are then
I would say well whoa
then he watch yourself you know and and
you attend to your conscience and you
see you watch yourself like you're
watching a stranger you watch what you
say and you listen you think what what
sort of person would say that and how am
i reacting emotionally when I'm
communicating in that manner you know is
that making me feel stronger weaker is
it is it is filling me with shame is it
helping my confidence am i am i laying
out a lie
am i deceiving myself and other people
am i adopting this personality at
parties that is designed to impress and
to amuse and that comes across as
nothing but like self-centered
narcissism what are my dark fantasies
what are my aggressive fantasies what is
it that I'm willing to do what am i
interested in so that I'll spontaneously
pursue it what do i procrastinate about
and why what am i unwilling to do um
what do I think is good what do I
congratulate myself for accomplishing
and what do I berate myself for failing
to confront and to implement those are
all incredibly complicated questions and
you don't know the answers to them so
that's that's a start
and then in terms of potential well
you'll discover a little bit more about
your potential as you discover who you
are especially the darker parts of
yourself because then you discover your
potential for mayhem there's some real
utility in that you know the discovery
that you're dangerous it's such a useful
discovery it's actually something that
strengthens you because the first thing
that a realization like that can in fact
produce is the the ambition to
incorporate that danger into a higher
order personality that dangerousness
into a higher order personality and that
can make you implacable I can make you
someone who can say no when you need to
say no you know that can make you
someone who won't avoid necessary
conflict and so that's unbelievably
useful and so that's one of the
potentials that you might discover um
the other thing you do to discover your
potential is - well you challenge
yourself you know it's like rule 4 in my
book 12 rules for life is comparing
yourself to who you were yesterday and
not to some who someone else is today
and that's kind of a good way to start
this it's like well take a bit of a look
at yourself and think about what's not
so good that you could improve that you
should improve by your own standards and
that you would improve you know and set
yourself a little goal you know maybe
you're not studying at all at you and
your university or maybe you're maybe
you're at work and you've got this stack
of paper there you know and you haven't
looked at that damn stack for like a
month and you know that you should be
and you're bored bothering yourself at
night because you're avoiding that it's
like maybe they got avoided that stack
of paper completely for one month I'm
quite a coward when it comes to whatever
snakes might be hidden in that stack of
paper how about tomorrow I just like put
that stack of paper in front of me on my
desk and I like a glance through it for
15 seconds see if I can do that it's
like well you set yourself a goal of
improvement you know it's a humble goal
because really are you such a coward
that the best that you can bloody well
manage after a month of avoidance is 15
seconds of exposure to a stack of paper
you know it could easily be you've been
avoiding it so you're obviously afraid
of it and so the situation could be that
dismal and dire and you might think well
geez it's no bomb to my ego it's no it's
no it's not fostering the strength of my
ego to recognize myself someone who
could only withstand 15 seconds of
exposure to that thing I'm afraid of and
so that's a form of humility too it's
like there's things you could do to
improve and you know what they are and
there's small steps that you could take
that you might take that would put you
in that direction and then the question
is are you big enough to take those
small steps you know are you capable of
grappling with the fact that you're
fundamentally flawed to the point where
you have to break things down and almost
childlike steps in order to manage them
and the answer to that is yeah you are
and that's the Lord of I don't know if
it's a lot of everyone
most people have things they avoid you
know and they're afraid of so I would
say to some degree it's the lord of
everyone people vary in the degree to
which they've conquered them and you do
meet people from time to time who are
extraordinarily disciplined but most of
the time they've got disciplined and
exactly this manner it's through slow
incremental improvement and then you
challenge yourself it's like well could
I do this that would be better then you
find out and then you think well is
there something slightly larger and more
challenging that I can do that would be
better and and you try it and you find
out and as you try it and you find out
generally you get better at it and you
can take on larger and larger challenges
that's why I suggested again in twelve
rules for life and also in maps of
meaning is that you know you take
responsibility for yourself that's part
of standing up straight with your
shoulders back it's like take on the
world man but only in the in them in the
what would you say only at the level
that you can manage you know when when
you're deeply when you're ignorant and
biased and deeply flawed and immature
it's where everyone starts you don't
want to take you don't wanna bite off
more than you can chew but it doesn't
mean that you can wrestle with it's part
of reality you know some part that's
small enough so that you have a good
shot at victory
and then you attain victory over some
small part of the chaos and then you're
the person who's victorious over chaos
you're just a beginner but that's who
you are and then maybe you can get
unbelievably good at at it maybe you can
ally to that the ability to
recast tyrannical order into chaos and
restructured into something deeper more
profound and more suitable for human
habitation that's the other half of the
hero myth right half is to overcome
chaos itself and half is to confront
tyranny where it needs to be confronted
to allow the chaotic dee-dee-dee-dee
generation no can allow the chaos to
emerge in place of the tyranny and then
to can recast that into the order that's
proper and you do that by challenging
yourself humbly at the level that you're
able to function that's right and you
can think of it you know it's easier to
understand if you think about a child
that you're trying to rear properly and
you want to make that child help that
child reveal their their highest
potential whatever that is whatever that
means and what you do is you don't set
them a series of impossible tasks in the
hope of undermining their
self-confidence you form a relationship
with them that is predicated on your
interest in their highest mode of being
and then you offer them challenges that
are precisely optimized to their ability
right so they can do them but they have
to stretch the two elements of their
ability would be what they can do and
what and how much they're capable of
that transforming what they can do and
an optimal challenge is stretches you to
the end of what you can do and then into
the domain of what you of how you can
transform and so if you love a child
then you set them tasks of that nature
and maybe they have a reasonable chance
of success 70% chance of success or an
80% chance of success might depend on
how sensitive your child is you do the
same thing for yourself but you have to
be humble and wise enough to understand
that you might have to aim pretty damn
low especially in those places where
you're not functioning well and it might
be so embarrassing that you
even but you can't bring yourself to
fathom that that's actually who you are
but you know you described the fool the
archetypal figure of the trickster and
the fool as the precursor to the savior
to the Redeemer and that's unbelievable
bit of wisdom because what you meant was
that to put yourself together which is
to follow the path of redemption to
follow the Redeemer
if the Redeemer is a type of personality
that you could in fact be inhabited by
our manifest then this first step
towards that is to allow yourself to be
a fool right it's because you don't know
what you're doing you have to admit that
and there's going to be a loss of Eagle
or destruction of Eagle arrogant ego
that necessarily accompanies that but
you need the loss of that arrogant ego
because it's precisely what's
interfering with your movement forward
you know it's part of the adversarial
process mythologically speaking that
stops moral progress you're too proud of
who you think you are to notice what
you're like so that you could change
properly you don't want to sacrifice
that part of yourself it's probably
associated with some delusion that helps
you maintain you know what would you say
a positive although very fragile
self-image you know in the absence of
genuine effort it's not to be
recommended so you know yourself by
watching and paying attention that's why
the Egyptians worshiped Horus the eye as
a god they knew that attention was
important and and the Mesopotamians did
the same thing with their God Marduk
it's not thinking exactly it's not
imagination it's just it's watching like
you're it like you're a snake a snake
you know it's a symbol of wisdom in part
because a snake is a symbol of many
things but wisdom is one of them I
suppose it's because encounters with
snakes that
if they're not fatal they make you wise
because a snake watches like
cold-bloodedly with no emotional
reaction just to see what's there
doesn't allow symbolically speaking
doesn't allow what is wanted or desired
to interfere with what is observed so
you watch yourself like that as if you
don't know who you are well that's the
beginning and then you challenge
yourself continually to see how far past
yesterday you can push today and
tomorrow and to continually experiment
with expanding that domains not only of
your competence but of your ability to
increase that competence and it's not
obvious to me the upper limit to that is
proportional to the moral effort that
you put into it the more that's guided
by by the highest of all possible
visions right the alliance with the
highest of all possible conceivable good
and the more it's motivated by the more
it's accompanied by truth in speech and
action the more you will develop your
potential and I believe that potential
to be as an unlimited in the upward
direction more unlimited in the upward
direction than it is unlimited in the
direction that brings people to to the
political and social hell's that so
often characterize the world that we
inhabit and so you also I suppose have
to be willing to undertake that as an
adventurer because it's a hell of a
thing to bear that kind of
responsibility you know it it takes it
takes a person out of the ordinary
it takes them out of themselves and
and there's an inalienable honest and a
great sorrow all of that together but
there's deep meaning to be had in it and
it's and there isn't anything better
that you can do so that's the answer
that question anonymous asks how do you
reconcile the fact that Nietzsche is
often taken to be a precursor to
postmodern philosophers such as Foucault
do the post modernists misuse Nietzsche
well Nietzsche is a precursor to the
post modernists I mean he's a precursor
to virtually every strand of serious
literary philosophical and psychological
thought since Nietzsche so for the
entirety of the 20th and the 21st
centuries and to say that he the only
way Nietzsche could not influence the
post modernists would be if he wasn't a
great philosopher which he was or if
they didn't know his writings which they
do to some greater or lesser extent the
post modernists read Nietzsche I would
say as someone who was essentially
triumphal about the death of
Christianity and about the rise of the
individual human let's say as the locus
of values but but first of all I don't
think that's true I don't think
Nietzsche was triumphant about that at
all I think that he was wise enough to
understand
the catastrophic price we would pay for
the breakdown of our meta-narrative see
the the post modernists disbelieve above
all perhaps I mean if you needed one
phrase to define them it is that they
don't believe in meta-narratives so
overarching stories that that bring
communities together
now you know there's a problem with
disbelief in meta-narratives because i
don't know where you stop like how big
does a narrative have to be before it's
a meta-narrative and therefore no longer
worthy of belief do you end up not
believing in any narrative whatsoever
all the way down to the bottom which
means your entire value arc is destroyed
which means technically that you would
be unable to act because you act within
a narrative framework that posits that
one thing is more important than another
and therefore worth moving actively
toward so you lose that whole structure
and what you can't lose it you're you're
done it's it's not even technically
possible you might be able to fragment
it badly that happens in schizophrenia
you might be able to subvert the
positive elements of other have it
subverted as happens in the case of
depression you might lose faith in it as
happens with the nihilists but there's
no demolishing your faith in narratives
all the way down so they they misused
nietzsche in that manner i because they
take his criticism of his criticism of
christianity and his statement about the
death of god to indicate that all
narrative has now become invalidated
and they offer nothing as an alternative
now Nietzsche at least offered the idea
that you could create your own values
it's not obvious to me that the post
modernists have incorporated that
element of Nietzsche and thought I don't
think they misuse Nietzsche that's the
funny thing it's not based on a
misunderstanding of Nietzsche his
pronouncement of the death of God was
his conviction that the meta-narrative
had disintegrated and that the
consequence of that would be
disintegration all the way down the
structure and the post modernists
believe that that disintegration this is
maybe see it isn't obvious that
Nietzsche thought that that was
he thought it was inevitable I don't
know if he thought it was right it's not
always obvious reading Nietzsche if he
believed that the reason that God had
died was as he put it because we had
killed him you know there's a there's a
there's an idea of criminality there
that our carelessness you see the same
thing echoed in the old Mesopotamian
myth of the ANU malysh where the younger
gods get careless and kill the father
upon whom they rest that's absolute and
because of that chaos comes back in the
form of Tiamat to destroy all of them
that's the same story Nietzsche told
with the death of God and he does treat
the fact that God is dead as a murder
that was undertaken by careless human
beings and seems to hold us morally
responsible for that and I don't believe
the post modernists are sensitive or I
don't believe that there I can't can't
get the word right I don't believe
they've adopted that element of of
Nietzsche's sorrow let's say the
postmodern description of the demolition
of the narrative is triumphalist it
means that the old this is where it gets
oddly mixed up with Marxism in my
estimation it means that the old power
structure which was by definition
tyrannical and oppressive no longer has
any justification and those who were
alienated and isolated by that set of
presuppositions can now compete and take
their rightful place and so they replace
it's a funny thing they replaced the
overarching narrative with a landscape
of warring smaller narratives that are
tribal and they disguise that to some
degree by associating them with ethnic
and racial
and sexual characteristics right would
seem immutable in some sense and
therefore not so obviously tribal it's a
very tricky game they don't seem to as
they should extend their skepticism even
if they were avid followers of Nietzsche
to the narratives that make up the
notion that there's something coherent
and useful and superordinate let's say
about group identity predicated on race
ethnicity and sexuality and so that's
not precisely a misuse that is a misuse
of Nietzsche I suppose it's it's the
arbitrary determination of where his
prognosis of narrative degeneration
would stop the post modernists say it
stops at ethnic sexual and racial
identity and I don't see a justification
for that so they're they're misusing
Nietzsche that way I think the people
who use Nietzsche properly were I think
that was young particularly that Freud
to some degree but Freud's solution
although useful was not as deep as
Nietzsche as Jung's
you know Jung solution to you to the
problem that Nietzsche posed was that we
had to go into the abyss to rescue the
father who had collapsed and died and
that meant to go to the darkest possible
places to find the brightest possible
light and I believe that you was correct
I think he Camille Paglia has said the
same thing about Erik Newman's works
especially two books one called the
origins and history of consciousness
which is a great book it's on my list of
great books on my website which you
could go take a look at it's a hard book
it's quite a bit like my book maps of
meaning like they're really the same
book in a funny way there's three books
that are the same that were published in
the 20th century there's young symbols
of transformation there's Eric Norman's
origins and history of consciousness
there's my book maps of meaning I'm not
stating that they're all of the same
quality by the way that would be a bit
on the presumptuous side and I guess you
could also include Joseph Campbell's
book the hero with a thousand faces
they're all trying to tell the same
story and that story is precisely the
reclamation of the fractured and
mortally wounded father
so that's God in the final analysis
although it can also be your own father
or the father within you or the father
you could be from the from that from the
abyss into which he's fallen then it's
an ancient archetypal motif that that's
required of each individual it's an
existential requirement to for each of
us to rescue our fallen society from the
abyss into which it's eternally plunging
that requires our attention and our
sovereignty and our citizenship and our
ability to adopt responsibility and our
willingness to work to envision and work
towards a better future one that's
better for better in the piagetian sense
better in the integrated sense right
better for you better for your family
better for the community and to think
that through carefully and to understand
that that's that the world is structured
so that you're either doing that or
you're wasting your potential in a
manner that allows terrible things to
enter the world and for me it was really
the second realization rather than the
first that was transformative it wasn't
so much that I believed that I could do
good that motivated me to begin to be a
conscientious person and and dedicated
to to something it was the realization
that in the absence of that I would be a
con
through which things that should not be
allowed into the world would poor would
inevitably poor even by Marion action
even by merely not being who I couldn't
be and that after I had read the
literature on totalitarian atrocity and
on general criminal psychopathology so
deeply I couldn't allow that to be
something I would partake in it it it it
was wrong enough in my estimation it
appeared wrong enough in my estimation
so that I was properly cowed into the
sort of submission that might possibly
make you attempt to be a decent person
and whether or not I'm a decent person
seems to be subject to a substantial
amount of debate some of which I take
part in myself but I would say that like
there's been some effort put in that
direction how am I prepared for my
debate with jejak what are your goals
for the conversation to be productive
well I haven't prepared enough but I've
got tomorrow you know and you can do a
lot with one day I want to review some
more of ggx YouTube videos I want to go
through a couple of his books I've got
some good lists of what seems central
but what I've done so far I really have
25 minutes to make my case you know the
rest of its discussion and Q&A and not
too worried about that because it's
easier for me to answer on the fly than
to deliver a prepared argument there's
something more involuntary about it you
know something more habitual anyways I
don't know the reasons precisely but
it's definitely easier I've got 25
minutes to make my case and
the way I prepared for that was that I
reread the Communist Manifesto and
thought it through and I've identified
what I think the fundamental every
philosophical treatise or every tree
dice that purports to be philosophical
is predicated on a set of assumptions or
axioms that make up the undeclared
articles of faith of the statement and
so I've tried to identify what those are
some of them anyways I won't have time
to cover all of them so I've identified
let's say five it's going to be
somewhere between five and ten and then
I've thought through whether or not they
were credible as axioms and I I don't I
don't believe that I don't think I
discovered a single axiom in the
Communist Manifesto that was credible I
discovered what I discovered instead I
think is that that tract was written by
two people who could think but who
couldn't think about what they were
thinking because the propositions that
they put forward are so uncritically
accepted by the writers of the tract
that it's actually a kind of miracle you
know I'll just give you one example and
I will bring this up tomorrow in the
debate marks and angles because angles
also help right the Communist Manifesto
appeared to presume that and also to
hope for and to wish for and to work in
a revolutionary manner towards ensuring
that private property would be abolished
and that that means of production so the
entire economy in some sense would be
held by the dictatorship of the
proletariat and that would be a
consequence of the working class seizing
control but there's no real development
of that as an idea it's like well
seizing control
how and and who like and just because is
it really the case that just because
it's members of the working class that
have now seized control of the means of
production that they're going to be
benevolent in a way that the capitalists
weren't mean that seems to be
psychologically naive beyond even the
capacity of Marx and I I have to watch
the sarcasm because I'm going to try to
keep that and any potential anger at a
minimum tomorrow but to not think that
through it's like and then well really
you're going to centralize all the
production and and and that's gonna
result in better decision making than a
distributed market who are going to be
these geniuses that will run the
centralized decision-making of the
dictatorship of the proletariat assuming
that it isn't the most malevolent of the
proletariat that's risen up to take
control which is the most likely outcome
if you're not absolutely naive about
human nature and so the fact that and
then they that both presume that somehow
and this is not specified either the
dictatorship of the proletariat
I suppose be perhaps because it would
free the working class from the enslaved
shackles of their labor and motivate
them more effectively that although they
do not elaborate on that you're left to
guess that an an era of super abundance
material super abundance would manifest
itself in which everyone would have what
they needed so that they could pursue
their creative endeavors in freedom and
that would constitute the communist
utopia it's like there's so many
unexamined assumptions in that set of
propositions that it's almost impossible
to know even where to start it's like I
don't understand how this hyper
abundance was supposed to manifest
itself um it certainly didn't manifest
itself in any actual communist countries
it's especially peculiar because Marx
even in the communist men
Festo admits that one of the things that
communism is really good at doing is
producing a surplus of commodities but
and these are material commodities and
because and and so that seems to me in
paradoxical contradiction with the whole
communist what would you call it
ambition because if it's hyper abundance
that's going to bring about the Marxist
utopia and eventual classless Ness and
capitalism is good at producing hyper
abundance why wouldn't you just let the
capitalist system run out until it
produced universal hyper abundance and
we'd have the Utopia now the Marxist
answer to that would because would be
that it would be because the selfish
capitalists for structural and
class-based reasons would keep all the
excess production to themselves but god
that's a lot of pessimism with regards
to those on the capitalist side and a
lot of optimism with regards to those on
the working-class side no real
understanding whatsoever of their common
humanity and common flaws and then the
idea that the best way to read history
is as the struggle between the
proletariat numbers or Z that strikes me
as almost impossibly one-sided and naive
I won't get into that tonight because
I'm going to discuss that quite
substantially tomorrow but first of all
there's lots of reasons for conflict and
class position might be one of them but
it is by no means the only one and even
if it was there's no reason to assume
that that's a natural and unique
consequence of capitalism and so the
other thing that's staggering about
Marx's Communist Manifesto is its
absolute the absolute absence of any
form of biological conceptualization you
know and maybe that's not surprising
given when it was written you know it
was pre Darwin and
and biology is really exploded in the
20th century but I read that track now
and I think well you just didn't you
just don't know anything about human
nature and I don't mean the human nature
that's on the surface you know that we
only share with other human beings for
example I mean nature itself and the
nature of social interactions and the
structure of social hierarchies and the
nature of implicit motivation you knew
none of that and like that's actually
you that's actually a big problem a
hundred and sixty years later when we do
know something about human psychology
and so well and then the other thing I
hope to do see I've probably taken 15
minutes up just to answer that I've only
got 25 minutes in total the other thing
that I want to do is just lay out some
of the statistics that have been
gathered over the last 10 years by
people like Steven Pinker and Hans
Rosling and Miriam 2p at human progress
and just point out the magnitude of the
absolute economic miracle that's
occurring all around the world as
millions of poverty-stricken people are
lifted out of abject and horrible
privation at a rate that's um it's
incomprehensible and that was unforeseen
and so I don't know what a Marxist does
with that deny it I suppose certainly
the working class in the US and perhaps
elsewhere in the Western world has taken
us a certain relative hit as a
consequence of opening up competition to
the rest of the world and then being
exposed to competition by third world
working class people who could you know
work for lower wages but the net
consequence of that as far as I can tell
is that it's not a mere opinion on my
part that things are so much better
economically now than they were like
when I was born that you can only
describe it as miraculous I mean one
exam just one
example is the child mortality rate now
Africa is now the same as it was in
Europe in 1952 like that's within the
span of a single lifetime and that's in
the poorest place of the poorest area of
the world
it's absolutely miraculous and so you
know I know 10 statistics of that
magnitude and well I'm gonna review them
and make sure I get this the correct ten
to just make the case that while all the
dismal consequences of capitalism have
fundamentally failed to manifest
themselves especially in comparison to
the sins of other forms of communal
organization and so then after that well
he'll have a chance to make his case and
we're gonna ask each other some
questions and then the moderator and the
audience will participate in questions
and I hope I can have a good
conversation with cheese yet because
he's an interesting thinker and it isn't
even clear to me why he identifies as a
Marxist because he's creative in it
enough in his own right in some sense to
be his own man you know to be his own
thinker so anyways that's how I've
that's how I've prepared well that you
know whatever preparation forty years of
thinking and argumentation might also
constitute so ok so look it's 9:30 and
I've got a big day tomorrow because I
have to prepare for a debate with Slava
Dziedzic and I have to do a good job
because it's an important topic and it
could have
repercussions that are of sufficient
magnitude so that it should be taken
with the utmost seriousness I hope I can
keep my sense of humor and I can keep my
anger under control I hope I can listen
to him as if he is someone who knows
something I don't I hope we can have a
productive discussion I hope I'm
prepared properly I let you all know
that you can pick up livestream tickets
for that event that's at 7:30 tomorrow
night Eastern Standard Time if you go to
my website you can find it under talks
you can find the link but I I think I've
already put it in the description of
this video so if you want to participate
in this live then you can electronically
anyways otherwise we will put the
lecture the discussion or the debate up
on YouTube within approximately 4 weeks
and so that's that I guess thank you all
for tuning in
those were good questions we didn't get
too many of them but they were deep and
and well worth answering and and well
worth contemplating and hopefully so
that mutual active caught participative
contemplation that we all just engaged
in will have salutary effects on each of
us that would be the hope so
best of luck to all of you and good luck
moving upwards we'll see you in June