[Music]
hello everyone it's been a very strange
day so I'm going to tell you about what
happened and then I'll start the lecture
so I got up this morning and started to
put my day together and then I tried to
sign into my gmail account and it said
that it had been disabled because I
violated the terms of service with Gmail
and I thought well I didn't violate any
Terms of Service that I know of now I
set up a new YouTube channel yesterday
called Jordan B Peterson clips and so we
made some technical changes and so I
thought maybe it had something to do
with that and I had been shout out of
Google one other time years ago so when
you get a shout out like that there's a
little form you can fill out and so I
filled out the form and I said that I
had been shut out and that I didn't know
why and I sent it off and then I
realized one of my staff members called
me and said that she was locked out of
the YouTube account
oh yeah the YouTube account is hooked to
the gmail account so that meant that I
couldn't get access to any of my youtube
videos they were still up and online but
I couldn't get access to them I couldn't
post last week's biblical lecture for 4
for example
and so that was worrisome and made me
suspicious and then about two hours
later or something like that I got an
email from Google and they said that
they had reviewed my request to be
reinstated and that I had violated
Google's Terms of agreement or a Terms
of Service and they weren't going to
turn my account back on and I thought
and they didn't say why they didn't say
anything I got there is no warning
whatsoever about any of this they didn't
tell me why and they didn't say why in
the email response and
I wrote them back and I said because
they said I could I wrote them back and
I said this might not be a good idea
basically and you might want to think
about it and then I twittered tweeted
what had happened right I took
screenshots and I tweeted and I
contacted a whole bunch of journalists
because it turns out that I know a whole
bunch of journalists and so and so then
what happened then was that I got a call
from the Daily Caller in the United
States I had done an interview with them
last week which isn't posted yet and
they interviewed me and within 20
minutes posted it online and so they
have a fairly big audience and so that
was good and then somebody phoned me
from Ottawa and I did a live radio show
about that and that was good and then a
number of other journalists contacted me
and I sent them the information but
another one of my staff and actually my
son emailed me and he said look you
should hold off because maybe there's
still a mistake here and I thought yeah
there might be it might be just a
mistake but then why in the world did I
email Google and they contacted me and
they said they would not reinstate it
and they didn't provide me with any
information so I contacted the other
journalists and I said well you never
know maybe this is just a mistake so
let's hold off and then well I was about
half an hour later while I was trying to
get into my I used this AdWords account
that's Luke link to Google I don't run
ads on my videos but I need the AdWords
account because it helps me add some
little gadgets to the videos that I
wouldn't otherwise be able to and I was
I was playing with that the system came
back online I thought well that's
interesting and lots of people had
emailed me and twittered me and some
people within Google and some people
elsewhere and they were doing whatever
they were going to do to help me get all
this material back up and running and so
something worked my suspicions are that
what worked was the publicity now so but
maybe not you know and it's very weird
being in this situation because there
has been a number of recent episodes
where these larger companies Facebook
Google patreon
not that it's a massive company but it's
starting to become reasonably
significant have decided on rather
arbitrary grounds to shut down their
users and this is very ominous to me
partly because we've we've turned our
communications over to very large
systems or very large systems have
emerged to mediate our communication
right I mean there's lots of benefit to
it so you don't want to get too cynical
about it but we're blind with regards to
the policies that regulate the the
actions the regulatory actions of these
large organizations and that's really a
bad thing and something else is even
more ominous really ominous you know
it's highly probable that we're going to
build political algorithms into our
artificial intelligence and this sort of
thing will be regulated by machines that
no one understands and that's a really
bad idea and that's a really likely
possibility so anyways I was all
confused about this I thought Jesus
maybe I flew off the handle you know
because I was sort of it was stressful
man you know because I have like a
hundred and fifty thousand emails in
that account like that's a lot of emails
and it's all my correspondence for the
last ten years you know so it's an
archive as well as an ongoing email
system I have a commercial email system
that I just set up three weeks ago with
like six different email addresses now
to try to organize my correspondence so
I wasn't completely unable to
communicate but my calendar was gone and
that's a bloody disaster because like
I've got things scheduled out forever
and I don't remember what they are I
can't even remember what I'm doing in a
day so much less in a month but I
thought maybe I flew off the handle and
I was worried that I contacted the
journalist too soon and you know but
anyways it all worked out so then what
happened well just as I was coming to
this lecture I stepped outside and there
was a little package outside and luckily
it wasn't a bomb there was a there's a
package outside nice little packages and
we looked my wife and I looked inside it
there was a couple of bottles of wine in
there so that was nice and there was a
little note and so I'm gonna read you
the little note because it's actually
pretty interesting so so this person
said that they had finally tackled
self altering sweets oh they seem to be
happy about that but that's not so
interesting except peripherally a friend
on Twitter has contact with Google
engineers she said quote I spoke with
some friends inside Google who offered
to help and I did get contacted by quite
a few people at Google who said that
they had been you know watching my
lectures and so on and were happy about
what I was doing anyways I spoke with
some friends inside Google who offered
to help but they suggest he set up a
back-up plan
the teams are feeling significant
pressure from advocacy groups and quote
I have at least four Google engineers
who offered to speak up on his behalf
but they know the team dynamics and
unfortunately especially YouTube is an
SJW cesspool I hope this information is
useful to you it's like yeah it's kind
of useful alright so that was that was
part of what happened today and so
anyways I still don't really understand
it right because I don't know why it got
shut down and I don't know if anything I
did got it turned back on and I don't
know the reasons for it and that's also
rather ominous it seems to me that when
I was thinking it through and was that I
know I have a fairly what would you call
it
respectable YouTube following I don't
know if you'd necessarily call it
respectable it's fairly large YouTube
following and it seems to me that it
would have been appropriate for Google
if they were going to shut down my
account to tell me why I would think and
also maybe look me up maybe especially
after I emailed them and then maybe not
to have emailed me back and said no
we're not going to reinstate you but
we're not going to tell you any reasons
that they didn't say they wouldn't tell
me any reasons they just didn't tell me
any reasons and then it also seems very
strange to me that it just all of a
sudden went back on after two hours and
so well so I don't know what
that may be more information will come
to light over the next few days I hope
that I didn't jump the gun but it's very
a very peculiar set of circumstances I
thought it was kind of amusing actually
that the video that they stopped me from
posting today was the last biblical
lecture you wouldn't necessarily think
that that would be the sort of thing
that people would want to stop from
being posted but we're in very very
strange times
so that was my adventure for today and
so I didn't you know I hate speakers who
apologize to the crowd before they talk
to them because you know if you're
speaking to people and they put all this
effort into coming then you shouldn't
tell them what a sorry and useless
creature you are before you talk to them
you know and ask for their forbearance
and forgiveness it's like it's a little
you're a little late for that but I'm
still gonna do that a little bit today
because you know I wanted to spend all
day preparing this lecture
I mean I've prepared it a lot before him
but that rattled me up a lot and so I
didn't prepare as much as I could have
anyways we'll stumble forward and see
how it goes I I'm I'm I'm reasonably
familiar with the stories now and so
onward and upward so I'm gonna reiterate
this you know I've learned something I
have this idea that it would be a good
idea for young people and older people
citizens of the west let's say to learn
more about their culture and their
civilization right because it's a great
civilization and it's it's it's taken a
lot of work to put together but I don't
think that we really know you know I
know a fair a bit about it although I
wouldn't consider myself nearly as
educated as a person should be but I'm
not too badly educated and but I tell
you going through these biblical
lectures verse by verse just makes me
even more aware of how unbelievably
ignorant I am you know and partly for
two two reasons like one is because I've
been using this Bible hub calm place and
I think I told you last week
but I wanted to reiterate it because
it's important it's so interesting the
way that they've set it up because you
can go through the biblical stories
verse by verse and then for each verse
there's a whole small font page of
commentary from multiple sources and so
you know not only is the Bible hybrid
hyperlinked in the way that I discussed
in the first lecture with all the verses
referring to not all the other verses
but lots of them but it's I mean it's
got its tendrils out into literature you
know direct commentaries on the text but
also although all the literature that's
been influenced by it so it's it's it's
an unbelievably central and core text
and it's so interesting to read a book
where every sentence has been commented
on what really in volumes and then just
to get a sense of that volume of
material you know how much power brain
power there's been put into this and and
to also understand how bloody ignorant
like I'm so ignorant about this there's
all this work and and it seems that
we've left it to decay in the dust and
it's a big mistake man it's a big
mistake because the people who are
writing these commentaries like you know
a lot of its from the 14th and 15th and
16th century it's kind of archaic and
it's and it's some of it's outdated and
some of it you wouldn't agree with but
if you read all the commentaries side by
side you know you get a pretty good
blast of wisdom coming at you and like
the thing about wisdom is it stops you
from running face-first into walls you
know it's not just there to to so that
you can talk to people at parties about
what university you graduated from you
know and it's there because the the
information is unbelievably useful you
know one of the things that I've
realized that I want to return to
tonight because I've been thinking a lot
about this idea of the arc you know and
I think I mentioned to you last week
that I'd figured out that there is this
idea that Noah was perfect in his
generations and that meant that he has
said his family in order wasn't just him
but he had said his family in order and
because of that when when the
catastrophe came like it comes to
everyone he was able to withstand it
because he had the support of the people
who were near and dear to him and that's
really important when things come along
to lay you low like if you're alone and
the flood comes
man goodbye to you if you've got 10 or
15 people supporting you in a tight
Network you know and and your your
interrelationships with them or pristine
and you can tell them the truth and they
can tell the truth back to you it's
possible that you might be able to find
that thin way that will preserve you
when when when when you know the
terrible things come knocking at your
door and so there's this the idea of the
ark is very very concrete in Noah it's
actually a structure that that he
inhabits you know it's a concrete eyes
almost like a child's story and and I'm
not being cynical about that because
there are some bloody brilliant Charles
to children's stories but you know it's
really concrete eyes but then Abraham
comes along and instead of an ark
there's a covenant right now it says in
the story of Noah that Noah walked with
God and and of course Abraham it isn't
clear exactly did he's walking with God
or before God which we'll get into later
but you see I see this as part of the
increasing cycle psychologize ation of
the sacred ideas that were acted out by
archaic people so first of all it's
concretize in the form of a ship that
actually sustains you when the floods
come right it's it's very concrete
imagery the sort of thing you might see
in a movie but then with Abraham it
turns into a psychological covenant in
some sense it's like a contractual
agreement now it's a country it's a
contractual agreement between Abraham
and God but but that doesn't really
matter that I mean obviously it matters
but it's that it's it's only it's only
half of what's important about that the
other half is that it's a contract and
you know one of the things that you do
with your ideal let's say is you
establish a contract with it you also
establish like a social contract with
other people right that's what keeps
society organized and so there's this
idea that emerges in the Abraham stories
of a sacred contract and that has the
same function as the Ark and what it
does because what happens in Abraham
we'll see more of this today is that he
you know God tells him to go forward
into the world and we've we talked about
that last week and he does that the
encounters famine and the encounters
tyranny and he encounters powerful
people who want to take from him what is
his I mean god sends about
world but it's not like he has an easy
ride of it it isn't easy at all it's as
hard as it can be but there's this
consistent emphasis in the text and I
think it's something really worth
attending to that if you maintain your
contract which and that has that has to
do with honesty and trust and truth and
all of those things if you maintain your
contract and you have a good possibility
the best possible possibility of making
your way through the catastrophe in the
chaos and I don't want to be naive about
this you know when I read young and I
started to understand the idea of the
hero archetype you know the idea that
the human being is a is a force a logo's
force that can stand up against chaos
and catastrophe and tragedy and evil and
prevail I never did think that that
meant that if you did stand up and tell
the truth that you would necessarily
prevail right it's not it's not it's not
a magic trick it's your best bet that's
the thing you don't have a better option
and so and that's what's that's what
that I see the idea is emerging in the
Abrahamic texts it's like people are
figuring this out that would be
progressive revelation that's one way of
thinking about it and you can think
about that religious terms but you can
also think about it as humanity
consulting itself right each individual
talking to themselves which is what we
do when we when we think and each
individual communicating with every
other individual and gathering a body of
wisdom that helps people or orient
themselves in the toughest conditions
and it's an incremental process and I
think that I really do believe that
that's speaking purely secularly I do
believe that that's what manifests
itself in the biblical stories right
it's the dawning enlightenment of
mankind something like that as we start
to understand the principles by which we
have to live in order to orient
ourselves properly in the world so and I
also do believe and this is this is the
thing that's the unspoken question is
like you don't you don't have any idea
how rich and fulfilling your life could
be despite its tragedy and limitation if
you stop doing the things that you know
to be wrong it's a really grand
experiment and you know one of the
things that God tells Abraham Kahn's
as as the story progresses especially
every time Abraham makes a sacrifice as
God says walk with me and be perfect
it's something like that and so the
injunction is will aim high establish
this relationship with the highest thing
that you can conceive of which you might
as well do that because well what are
you gonna do is to have this
relationship with the most mediocre
thing you can conceive of or you're
gonna establish relationship with the
lowest thing you can conceive of people
do that and I wouldn't recommend it it's
a really bad thing and there's a lot of
pain associated with that and maybe you
know there's the there's pain that can
expand into a world destroying force
down that route and there's absolutely
no doubt about that so what is there
something superstitious and foolish
about attempting to establish a
contractual relationship with the source
of all being I mean I I just don't see
that as a as an erroneous conception and
you know it's not necessary perhaps to
get lost in the details we can argue
forever about what God might or might
not be but we could at least say that
the concept of God is an embodiment of
humanity's highest ideal right we could
at least agree on that and then you
might say well is that real and the
first thing I would say about that is
there's a lot of things about the world
we don't understand and the second thing
I would say is it depends bloody well on
what you mean by real that's for sure
and that turns out to be a very
complicated question so okay so we left
Abram remember at the end last time he
had just gone off to fight a bunch of
kings and get his nephew back which
seemed to be a pretty courageous act and
so that brought a story to an end and
it's interesting I think what happens in
the narrative is that there's a story so
Abraham is somewhere and he goes
somewhere else right that's the story
and he has adventures along the way and
those adventures are usually the typical
kind of adventure which is a riff in the
structure of the story and exposure to a
kind of chaos and novelty and then a
reconstitution of the of the mode of
being so that's
it's a classic story right you are
somewhere you're a certain way you're
moving forward something happens that
you don't expect it blows you into
pieces it introduces chaos right you you
face the drag and you get the gold or
maybe the bloody thing eats you and the
story is over and then and then you get
to where you're going but then the
question is well what happens when you
get to where you're going and that's a
really important issue because one of
the things that happens to people all
the time in their life is that they get
to where they're going and then they
don't know what to do right so for
example you graduate from university
it's like okay
story over who are you now who are you
the next day and so so what happens is
when you succeed then there's a success
crisis and the success crisis is well
I've run this story to its end now what
and that's exactly what happens in in
the Abrahamic stories and they're
punctuated by a period of contemplation
and sacrifice so every time an Abrahamic
story comes to its end then Abraham
makes another sacrifice and communes
with God and then he figures out what to
do next and that seems that seems right
it seems psychologically right because
what you should do when your story comes
to an end when you've achieved what it
is that you want to achieve or perhaps
when you're in terribly dire straits but
we won't talk about that at the moment
when you've achieved what you need to
achieve then the next question is okay
well now I'm that person or I have that
character what what do I need to do next
and some of that is always well what do
I need to give up now what do I need to
let go of so I can move to the next
plateau right assume that your life is a
hopefully a sequence of upward moving
what would you call them it's like
Sisyphus except you're actually each
time you climb up the mountain you get a
little higher on the mountain that's
something like that so it's Sisyphus
with an optimistic bent and and and
maybe if you push the rock up the
mountain properly and let it roll down
then and if you do that right then it's
okay every time you roll it back up it's
it's better in some sense I don't think
that's unrealistic either and so well
Abraham goes and rescues his nephew from
these two tyrannical kings that's very
brave and he doesn't take any reward for
it because his
he's concerned it's just a manifestation
of the right thing and then he has
another vision after these things that's
the battle the word of the Lord came
unto Abram in a vision saying fear not
Abram I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward and Abram said Lord God
what will I'll give me seeing I go
childless and the steward of my house is
this Alysia of Damascus and Abram said
Behold to me thou has given no seed and
lo no one born what one born in my house
is mine heir and behold the word of the
Lord came to him saying this shall not
be thine heir but he that shall come
forth out of the own tyne own bowels
shall be done here and he brought him
forth abroad and he said now look to
heaven and tell the stars if you're able
to number them number them and he said
unto Him so shall thy seed be and Abram
believed in the Lord and he counted it
to him for righteousness and he said
unto him I'm the Lord that brought thee
out of ur of the Chaldees to give this
land to you to inherit it and he said
Lord God whereby shall I know that I
shall inherit it and then he does this
sacrifice take me in effort a heifer of
three years old and a she-goat and a
Rabb and a Turtledove and a young pigeon
and then God comes down and well Abraham
goes into a trance that's what it
appears to be in the story and has a
great terror and then God appears to him
and I'll just review this commentary
again this is from Joseph Benson and
when the Sun was going down that's about
the time when you wash up for the
evening and he's he's praying and
waiting towards evening a deep sleep
fell upon Abraham not a common sleep
through weariness or carelessness but a
divine ecstasy that being wholly taken
off from things sensible he might be
wholly taken up with a contemplation of
things spiritual very strange very very
strange series of interpretations
because it does seem that what happens
to Abraham that he falls into some sort
of revelatory trance and so when as I've
taken some pains to explain we don't
really understand such things and and we
can't rule out their existence because
there's too much evidence that they do
in fact occur perhaps it's a technology
that we no longer possess that's one
possibility
perhaps we no longer know how
access these sorts of states of
consciousness it's certainly possible
and lo a horror of great darkness fell
upon him this was designed to strike
upon the spirit of Abram and to possess
him with holy reverence holy fear
prepares the soul for holy joy God
humbles first and then lifts lifts up
yeah well I think that's right too like
you know one of the experiences I've had
in my life fairly commonly in their
variety of different ways this is
especially true when I was paying a lot
of attention to my dreams which I did
for about 15 years I guess something
like that now and then I would feel like
I'd learned some things and had sort of
consolidated them and then before I went
to sleep I'd think okay I'm ready to
learn something else it's like and I
didn't say that without trepidation and
usually because usually when you learn
something you know it's not that
Pleasant because you usually learn
something about why you're wrong and the
deeper the thing that you learned the
more you learn about why you're wrong
and there's a death that's associated
with that because then you have to let
that part of you that's wrong die and
that's that's real that's the sacrifice
right and so you have to make a
sacrifice you have to be willing to make
a sacrifice before you're going to learn
something and the and perhaps your what
you'll learn is in proportion to your
willingness to make a sacrifice and I
really do believe that I do believe that
as well because I also think that if you
commit to something that means that you
don't do a bunch of other things right
and so that's the sacrifice of all those
other things you commit to it you set
your sights on it if you really commit
to it and you get the sacrifice right so
to speak then the probability that that
thing will be successful vastly
increases and I think that that's also
not a naive or or a naive way of
thinking or a foolish way of thinking I
my experience has been that that's the
case and so back to the dream I mean I
do think that we learn in trepidation
and that most of the time if if you have
to be laid low before the new revelation
can make itself manifest and I think
that's also what happens to people often
in psychedelic experiences when they
have a bad trip
they don't get through the bad part of
it and maybe that's because there's so
much mess in their lives now I'm
speculating but it's informed
speculation there's so much mess in
their lives that the altered state of
consciousness makes manifest that it's
like a little trip through hell and but
the mess is so complete and
comprehensive and all-pervading that
there's no way they can get through it
now if they could get through it and
started to sort those things out then
you know there would be perhaps what
would you call it a compensatory
positive revelation at the end but the
first thing is if you want to learn
something is that you're going to
encounter well you have to figure out
what's wrong before you you can figure
out what wisdom you need next to guide
yourself and that's no laughing matter
right and so I think that that's what
the that's what this refers to I think
that's the sort of psychological
experience that that refers to I also
think we built this a little bit into
this into the future authoring program
you know I read this really cool paper
once reviewed by this guy named Jeffrey
gray Jeffrey gray wrote a book called
the neural psychology of anxiety man and
that is a great book it is impossible to
read it took me really it took me like
six months to read it and the reason for
that is that he reviewed about 3,000
papers and they're all neurological
papers and and and heavy psychological /
biological papers he actually read them
all and he understood them and he
synthesized them and then he wrote this
book about the synthesis and so and he's
very very careful with this terminology
and so to read the book you have to
understand brain anatomy and you have to
understand neural neural pharmacology
and you have to end understand animal
behavior the whole literature on animal
behavior not whole whopping dose of
human psychology and cybernetics it's
like it's a vicious book but you really
learn something when you read it if you
go through it it by bit like it's it's
it's had an overwhelming influence on
psychology even among people who haven't
read it which is most of the people who
cite it by the way and so but he said he
outlined this real cool study maybe it
was a sequence of
is about how to motivate rats you know
and rats are a lot like us you know in
positive and negative ways
and you know biochemically and and
psycho pharmacologically they're very
very similar and they have very complex
social environments and you know they
have hierarchies and they play and they
laugh Jack panksepp Jaak panksepp found
out that routes laugh if you tickle them
you can tickle them with like the end of
a pencil eraser but you can't hear them
laughing because they laugh
ultrasonically like bats so you have to
record it and then slow it down then you
can hear them giggling away when you
tickle em so so which is you know you
think oh you know spend $50,000 on a
study demonstrating that rats laugh and
you think well wait a second wait a
second that's a major-league study you
know because he's outlined a ludic
circuit that's a play circuit and yock
banks have discovered the play circuited
mammals that's a bloody big deal you
know if you get that by like rubbing
rats with a pencil eraser well good for
you
so anyways so Great Auk Talaat about how
to motivate a a rat and you might have
heard about BF Skinner you know he used
food pellets to motivate his rats but
what you don't know about Skinner is
that those rats were starved to
three-quarters of their normal body
weight so they would they would work for
food and so Skinner's routes were kind
of oversimplified but you can get rats
to work for food they don't have to be
that hungry you can get them to work for
food and they'll do all sorts of things
they'll press levers and and they'll
open our open doors and they'll solve
problems and you know they'll do all
sorts of things and one of the things
you can do to kind of measure how much
the rat is motivated is let's say you've
read him through a maze and he knows
there's some food at the end of the maze
you can tie a little spring to his tail
and see how hard he pulls when you open
the door to the maze so that's because
that's how much rat work the route is
willing to do so you can measure that or
you can see how fast these skitters down
the maze and you can get an estimate
about the rats motivation and so then
you might say well how motivated is a
hungry rat and the answer would be
depends on how hungry is but there's
another answer it also depends on what's
chasing him when he's going after the
food so if you have a rat and you you
have food over here and you
often some cat odor rats hate cat odor
and it's innate they never have to see
or smell a cat to be absolutely
petrified by cat odor and so if you
walked in some cat odor and then open
the door that rat will zoom to that food
a lot faster than it will if it's just
hungry
so a rat running away from something
that it doesn't want towards something
that it does want is a very motivated
rat and so one of the things we did with
the future authoring program that's
germane to this idea of terror because
there's a business idea in the old
testament the fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom and it's a pretty
harsh idea but but there's something
really useful about it because one of
the things you see with people all the
time is that they're maybe they're
trying to stumble forward towards their
ideal as poorly defined as it might be
but then they're afraid right they're
afraid about what they might encounter
and that stops them because fear does
stop people it freezes you like a prey
animal and so people move ahead but then
they get afraid and then they start
moving ahead and so and that's not so
good because negative emotion is a
really powerful motivator so we're more
motivated by negative emotion than
positive emotion quantitatively speaking
quantitative quantitatively speaking you
can measure that and that's I think
because we can only be so happy but we
can really be suffering and yet you know
so we have to pay more attention to the
negative and that's bad because the
negative can stop you and then in my
clinical practice you know I often talk
to people who are trying to make a
difficult life decision and and they are
weighing out the costs and the benefits
of making the life decision you know and
one of the things I always talk to them
about is wait a second that's an
incomplete analysis you have to weigh
out the benefits and the costs of doing
this and you have to weigh out the costs
and benefits of not doing that not doing
it and that's not the same as the zero
that you assume that you're starting
with right because to not make a
decision it also has a cost and
sometimes the cost of not making a
decision is far worse than the cost of
making a decision even if the decision
is risky and so one of the things you
can derive from that and this is very
useful I think is that this is also I
think why it's so useful to contemplate
your mortality so to speak as you're
screwed no matter what you do
you know and that actually frees you is
that you you you have power fade that
has catastrophes and you have path B
that has catastrophes and you don't get
to have the no catastrophe path but you
get to pick which one and that's really
something because if you know that
there's terrible risk associated with
everything that you do and don't do then
you can afford to take some risks
because you're not you know this is all
within the arc metaphor I'm still making
the case that despite the fact that your
life is essentially catastrophic you can
you can make a covenant with the highest
ideal and that will take you through it
the best way possible and I'm still
making that case so so then you think
okay while I'm trying to make this
decision I'm gonna go try to do
something difficult and isn't that
terrifying and then you think yeah but
wait a minute
what's really terrifying is not doing it
and then you think about the cost of not
doing it so in the future authoring
program we have people do this little
meditative exercise which is okay just
think about your insufficiencies by your
own definition right the way that you
don't do what you know you should do
about the things that you do that you
shouldn't do that you know you shouldn't
do beyond a shadow of a doubt right
there's some things like that and that
that's bad habits and poor aim and all
of the resentment and hatred and
aggression and unresolved conflicts and
all those things that are demanding you
and warping you and then think okay
those things get the upper hand man they
get the upper hand and they take you the
worst possible place you could go in the
next three to five years what exactly
does that look like and so you sketch
all that out and you think hey I don't
want to go there and so the next time
that a temptation comes up you think
well I'd be a lot better for me if I
didn't succumb to this temptation it's
like that's kind of weak eh
you'd look a little better if you didn't
eat like a cheesecake a day or something
like that you know that's that's
something but it's not the same as I'm
gonna have diabeetus and I'm gonna lose
my damn leg in in in five years if I
don't get my eating under control that's
motivating and so then the temptation
comes along and you think oh how about
no seriously how about no not just
because a higher good would be obtained
if I avoided it but because a
terrible catastrophe would be averted if
I didn't and so well so you want to get
your fear behind you right you want to
get it behind you where it's pushing you
forward instead of in front of you where
it's stopping you and you get your fear
behind you pushing your for you forward
by actually thinking through the
consequences of not putting your life
together and the least of those is that
you waste it and suffer right because
you can suffer anyways man
so you waste it and suffer that's a bad
deal because maybe if you're gonna
suffer you could at least do something
noble and glorious and upright and
powerful and honorable and admirable and
helpful and difficult you know that's
just so much better and maybe that's
good enough so that you think hey you
know little suffering it's basically
worth it
at least it's up WayForward you know at
least it's a way forward and he said
unto Abram know of a surety that thy
seed shall be a stranger in the land
that is not theirs and shall serve those
people and nail flicked them for four
hundred years
go ahead he's hedging his bets here a
lot right he says to Abraham well go out
you know into the world and then he
confronts him with a famine and he
confronts him with the tyranny and with
powerful people he wants to take his
wife and then he loses his nephew and
who he has a fight with many has to go
fight a war and now he you know he's
reconstituting this covenant god says
yeah you're gonna have mmm a nation is
going to come from you but they're gonna
be slaves to tyrants for like four
hundred years is it's like he's not the
great salesman exactly but but the thing
about it is that the thing that I like
about it is that it's realistic you know
and you ought to think too because who
knows why it is that the Bible exists or
why people wrote it but you know if
they're gonna sell you something I don't
know if this is the way to do it you
know because unless you're a Salesman
who's sophisticated beyond belief
because you'd think that if it was just
a matter of controlling the masses let's
say which is once a Marxist
interpretation of religion or or
providing people with a primitive
defense against death anxiety which is
essentially the Freudian interpretation
that you'd kind of make the deals that
God cut with Abraham a little more on
the positive and polished side
instead of making them a realistic offer
constantly like they are that that's
also that that that's part of the reason
I think it is reasonable to treat the
Bible as literature it's it's more than
literature it's something other than
literature but you can treat it as
literature and I think the reason that
you can treat it as literature is
because the characters are all complex
including the character of God Himself
is complex and sophisticated it's not
one-sided
and it's it's paradoxical and
incomprehensible at times but I think
good literature is like that because you
know true art here's something about
true art this is something I learned
from young it's so smart he was so smart
so he imagined that you inhabit the land
that you know conceptually and
practically and then imagine outside of
that there's that massive space of
things that you don't know and even
outside of that there's the space of
things that no one knows right so it's
the known territory surrounded by the
unknown that's the canonical archetypal
landscape and the unknown manifests
itself to you and that's where new
knowledge comes from but the question is
how is that knowledge generated and it
doesn't just leap from completely
unknown to completely articulate it in
one move that isn't how it happens it
has to pass through stages of analysis
before it becomes articulable and the
first stage of analysis as far as I can
tell is that you act it out so if
something really surprises you
the first way that you react to it your
category is actually embodied too you'd
like this that that's your first
category it's not conceptual at all it's
embodied and then maybe you start to it
like you're at home at night and you
know something startled seeing you
freeze and then it's dark and then your
imagination populates the darkness with
whatever might be making the noise and
that's the sequence it's like embodied
response imaginative representation
exploration articulation that's how
information moves from the unknown to
the known and an artists are the people
who stand on that imagistic frontier and
they and they put themselves out into
the unknown and they and they they take
a piece of it and they and they
transform it into some mythological
image and they don't know what they're
doing exactly because they're guided by
their intuition if they're real artists
otherwise they're just propagandists
they have to be contending with
something they don't understand
and what they do is they make it more
understandable you know and and then
people gaze at those artworks or the or
they listen to the stories and then they
start to become informed by them but
they don't know how or why I was at the
Modern Art Museum Museum of Art in New
York I'm afraid I don't remember which
one unfortunately but I was in this
amazing room you know it had all these
priceless paintings from the from the
late Renaissance hanging in it you know
each painting worth who knows a billion
dollars maybe they're priceless bathing
so the room was it's a shrine and it was
full of people from all over the world
who are looking at these paintings you
think well what the hell are these
people doing coming to this room looking
at these paintings look whatever what
are they up to one of them was a
painting of the Assumption of Mary right
brilliantly composed and there rose all
these people looking at it and I thought
what are they doing they don't know what
that means like why are they looking at
that painting why is it in this room why
does it cost a billion dollars why is
that painting worth so much and the
answer to that is well we don't really
know like it happened there are there
sacred objects in some sense and we gaze
at them in ignorance and wonder and the
reason for that is that the unknown
shines through the Madison in partially
articulated form and so
well that's the role of art and that's
the role of artists you know real
artists real artists are contending with
unknown right and they're possessed by
it they have a personality trait
openness that makes them do that they
can't even help it and I've had lots of
creative people in my clinical practice
so they can tell you the worst thing for
creative people is to not be creative
because they just die and it because
it's it's it's it's like maybe you're a
tree with a few major branches you know
that's your personality so if you're
extroverted man you can't be cut off
from people because you just wither and
if you're agreeable you have to be in an
intimate relationship or you die you
know if you're conscientious man and you
get and you're unemployed you're just
gonna eat yourself up because you have
to have a duty and you have to carry a
load because you just can't stand it
otherwise and open people have to be
creative they have to be because
otherwise they die they don't have any
vitality and so they're cursed with the
necessity of putting a foot out into the
unknown and making sense of it and then
they're also cursed necessity of trying
to make a living while they're doing
that which they can't because you can't
it's almost impossible to monetize
creative creative action as many of you
who are creative will no doubt find out
it's very very frustrating it's not that
creative action is were without value
right because the creative people are
entrepreneurs and the creative people
revitalize cities and the creative
people make things magnificent and
beautiful you think about what's
happened in Europe over the last
thousand years say two thousand years
this amazing unbelievable collaboration
to make things so beautiful that they're
they're jaw-dropping when you walk into
them and you think about the economic
value of that right I mean I think it's
it's either France or Spain that's the
most visited country in the world it's
one of those two I think there's more
tourists in France than there are people
most of the time and part of the reason
for that is it's just so damn beautiful
you just can't stand it and you think
what's the economic value of that it's
absolutely incalculable and what's
interesting too is that you build that
beauty in and then the farther away you
get from it in time the more valuable it
becomes right instead of decaying it has
exactly the opposite
it's value magnifies and one of the
things that I'm deeply ashamed of as a
Canadian is that our sense of beauty is
so underdeveloped we're so primitive
it's not even primitive that's the wrong
word because you know I don't what it is
it's it's it's second rate it's second
rate at least it's terrorto because
people are afraid of beauty but the idea
that art is the conservatives really
have a problem with this in particular
because conservative people tend not to
be that creative and it's a misty
restaurant it's a mystery to me because
they should be concerned with economic
development and beauty is so
unbelievably crucial to economic
development it just yells out at you you
know so anyway so that's what artists
are doing and so one of the things I
would say is buy a damn piece of art you
know find one that really speaks to you
and and buy a piece of art because you
invite that into your life and it's it's
a look-out if you do it if it's a real
piece of art because you'll also get a
you know a little introduction to the
artist and then that'll seep into your
life and that'll change things like mad
but it's really it's unbelievably worth
it because it it opens your eyes to the
domain of the transcendent that's the
right way of thinking about a real piece
of art is a window into the transcendent
that's what it is and you need that in
your life because you're finite and
limited and bounded right by your
ignorance and your lack of knowing and
unless you can make a connection to the
transcendent then you don't have the
strength to prevail and that's part of
the Covenant that's part of the covenant
with God and you can see that because
you look at these magnificent cathedrals
that our civilization built over the
centuries you know some of those they're
still building this Sangre de Familia in
in in Barcelona right and it's an
amazing building I think it's gonna take
them like 300 years to build that you
know people in the Middle Ages they'd
start building a cathedral and they
think yeah we'll be done this in 300
years you know you imagine the vision
that it took to invest in something like
that we look at quarterly reports we
can't think 300 years into the future to
build something of that kind of
remarkable remarkable what those
cathedrals are so they're they're
perfect they're trees first right
they're a forest
right the Gothic cathedrals there they
were forced and the sun is shining
through the branches
that's the stained glass and they're the
perfect balance of light and structure
because they're representing something
about the proper structure of being
which is something like the proper
balance between light and structure and
and they represent like the sacred
tragedy of mankind that's why they're in
the shape of a cross and they're open to
the sky that's why they have a dome and
they're full of gold so that glitters
because that's like the City of God you
know and and and you you can see that
that integral to to our culture is the
idea that beauty is one pathway towards
God and it's in its saying if you can't
find another pathway then why don't use
beauty I sure most of you do that with
music because music is the one thing
that modern people can't be cynical
about thank God for that and being
fascinated by music because of that it
it speaks meaning to people right even
nihilistic punk rockers are so damn
engaged with their music that they can
hardly stand it and you can knock on
them and say look you know you're having
a transcendent religious experience and
they'll just tell you to [ __ ] off
because that's
[Applause]
cuz that's that's what punk rock
yourself to do but but that's still
what's happening you know I mean it's
still what's happening so okay so okay
so I got into all that because I was
talking about about the Bible as
literature you know and and and trying
to and trying to lay out because we need
in our culture to justify the arts and
you have to I don't want to do that by
talking about high culture talking about
something abstract and evanescent that's
the wrong way to go about it this is
vital you know like one of the things
that's really interesting about the
University of Toronto is that the the
one side of the campus where we are is
beautiful medieval cathedral and the
other side is god-awful factory and you
know and and that and the thing is the
attitude towards knowledge has
paralleled that architectural
transformation you know at one point the
humanities let's say we're a sacred
endeavor and and so was the art of being
educated in the university and that's
turned into like mass factory and that's
reflected in the architecture this isn't
accidental none of this happens none of
this happens by random chance you know
it's not like there's a conspiracy or
anything because there isn't but that
doesn't mean that these things aren't
tangled together and the loss of beauty
in the universities is a catastrophe
because without that beauty there's no
call to higher being you know you this
is also why I've mentioned to people
that they should clean up their rooms
that's become quite the internet meme
but I'm really serious about it because
it's really hard to do that and I've
been cleaning up my room by the way for
about four months now because my life
was thrown into such a catastrophe and
and also we were renovating and so but
it isn't just that you clean it up you
also make it beautiful and beauty hard
to make something beautiful and it's
really worthwhile and what's really cool
is if you learn to make something
beautiful even one thing if you can just
make one thing in your life beautiful
then you've established a relationship
with beauty and then you can start to
expand that relationship with beauty out
into into the world like into other
elements of your life
and that is so worthwhile it's just
incredibly crazily worthwhile and that's
an invitation to the divine you know you
have to be daring to do that and people
are terrified of it people are terrified
of color they paint their walls beige
they're terrified of art they buy some
mass-produced thing because they don't
want anybody laughing at them for their
lack of taste and they would get laughed
at because they have no taste but you
have to well that's right because what
do you know right you have to develop it
and so you're gonna stumble along and
make mistakes to begin with and you're
gonna show yourself because if you buy
who I I think this is pretty and you
know somebody comes over he goes hey
what's up with you it's kind of hard on
yourself esteem but but it's a stunt
you're stumbling towards the right
you're stumbling towards the kingdom of
God that's what you're stumbling towards
when you try to make an aesthetic
decision and to put something in your
life that's beautiful and it's
unbelievably worthwhile to do that and
you have to steer clear of the frauds
and the con artists and all of that and
art is full of that of course because
it's difficult to distinguish between
the real thing and the fraud but but
it's unbelievably worthwhile and so back
to literature I'm telling you this
partly because I've been thinking a lot
about the humanities and the arts and
practically speaking because I know that
artistic types are also entrepreneurial
types they're the same personality types
and so it's very much worthwhile to make
an economic and practical case for this
sort of thing you study literature in
the humanities so that you can
familiarize yourself with the wisdom of
our civilization man you should do that
because people have been working on this
thing for a long time and it's rich
beyond comparison so why wouldn't you do
that and you teach yourself to to read
and you teach yourself to speak and you
teach yourself to think and you teach
yourself to communicate and I can tell
you if you can read and think and
communicate you are absolutely 100%
unstoppable and that's another thing
that's so interesting about humanities
education that's at the core of the
university it's like there's nothing
more economically valuable than teaching
people how to articulate themselves and
communicate because they can identify
problems they can formulate solutions
they can negotiate to consensus they
they can negotiate on their own behalf
on the behalf of others it's like
absolutely no downside to it except that
there's a responsibility that goes along
with it but it doesn't matter because
there's no escape from responsibility
you can either take it voluntarily or
you can take it involuntarily those are
your options but there aren't any other
options and so we need to understand the
role of art and literature and and stop
thinking about it as an option it's not
an option it's not an option what is it
said man does not live by bread alone
that's exactly right
we live by beauty we live by literature
we live by art and literally not
metaphorically we cannot live without it
because life is too dismal and and and
tragic in the absence of the sublime so
and ourselves we have to be sharp so
that we can survive properly and orient
the world properly and not destroy
things including ourselves and so and so
back to the Bible which I do think is a
reasonable it's reasonably construed as
a piece of literature because it's deep
and because the people who wrote it had
at least one foot in the unknowable and
they're trying to communicate what they
experienced in the unknowable to make it
known and that's partly what we're
trying to do in this series and what
you're trying to do while you're
listening and all of that and so good
for that and also that nation whom they
shall serve I will judge and afterward
they'll come out with great substance
there'll be a period of tyranny you know
and there's a psychological truth to
that too one of the things I learned
from reading Nietzsche because you can
learn a lot from reading Nietzsche
that's for sure he he talked about the
Catholic Church you know Nietzsche is
often construed as a great critic of
Christianity and and he certainly was
but he was no casual critic in fact I
think he was this sort of critic that
you'd like to have as a friend
because he was the sort of critic that
said well here's the great things you've
done and that you could keep doing but
here's a bunch of really neat things
that you did that you really should stop
doing and he talked about the Catholic
Church and he said what the Catholic
Church had done to the European mind in
particular was discipline it so that
over a period of a thousand years
thirteen hundred years fourteen hundred
years there was this rule that there was
a conceptual structure within which you
had to interpret everything
and what that did was turn the European
educated you European mind into a
systematizing cognitive entity and that
once that systematizing cognitive entity
had been established then it could free
itself from those underlying
disciplinary structures and go off and
do such things as produced the
Scientific Revolution for example which
required incredible systematic thinking
and so Nietzsche had this really
interesting idea about freedom and he
believed that slavery was an
intermediary between the undeveloped
individual and the free individual that
you had to you had to submit yourself to
some intense disciplinary process for
some period of time in your life before
you could develop any true freedom and
so you think maybe you want to learn to
play the piano it's like that's not
gonna be any fun for a really long
period of time right because you're
really bad at it and there's a million
things you have to memorize and you have
to stumble around like a well like an
amateur and the same thing happens when
kids learn how to read and some of them
never get past that point and they never
get to the point where they can enjoy
reading but in order to put yourself
together you have to put yourself in a
vise and allow yourself to be
constricted and mangled even by the the
thing that enslaves you but the goal
should be that as a consequence of
submitting to the discipline that you
become disciplined and then once you
become disciplined you can emerge from
the disciplinary structure as someone
who is free and that's something that's
very much worth thinking about as well
so that's Illustrated conceptually in
this in this piece of literature let's
say because what what the psychological
meaning of what God tells Abraham is
that all people all people are subject
and I mean not equally obviously all
people are subject to the tyranny that
precedes freedom and that that ideas is
repeated over and over in the old
testament it comes out most particularly
in the story of moses right because of
course that's the story of movement from
tyranny where do you go from a tyranny
it's an absolute catastrophe you go from
materi into the desert you know where
you starve that's harsh that's what
happens in the in the story of Exodus
and so that's so interesting too because
what it means is that sometimes if
you're going to move uphill the first
thing that happens is you move
down hill a lot and so if you want to
escape from the straights that bind you
now you're not going to move forward and
go up you're gonna move forward and go
down and that's another reason this is
also something that you talked about a
lot is that you know on the road to
enlightenment you encounter all the
things that you don't want to encounter
first like all the weaknesses of
yourself all the realizations of the
tyranny of the world and the catastrophe
of nature and all of that and so you
step out of your encapsulation you're
ignorant encapsulation and its immediate
plummet into something that's a desert
let's say where everything is chaotic
and where you're wandering around
without direction a real catastrophe so
it's you know because one of the things
you might ask yourself is that if
enlightenment is possible then why
aren't people enlightened because if it
was just a matter of going from a good
place to a better place it's like well
man let's just get at it it's no it's no
problem right
why would we ever stop doing that but it
seems not to be that it's that you're
here and that's not good and it's
unstable and you step out of it it's
like down down to where you don't want
to be and you have to contend with that
and then maybe you can start your
struggle upward and so ever how God is
telling Abraham this and he's also
telling him that it's okay it's rough
though and now and now shall go to thy
fathers in peace thou shalt be buried in
a good old age but in the fourth
generation they shall come hither again
that's the Israelites the descendants of
Abraham for the iniquity of the amorite
says not yet full God is going to leave
the tyrants alone until they've
manifested their fold here any for
reasons that we don't fully understand
and it came to pass that when the Sun
went down it was dark behold a smoking
furnace and a burning lamp that passed
between the pieces all Albert Barnes
said the oven of smoke and lamp aflame
symbolized the smoke of destruction
which we've already talked about this
catastrophe of of the initial stages and
the light of salvation they're passing
through the pieces of the victims and
probably consuming them as an accepted
sacrifice or the ratification of the
Covenant on the part of God as the
dividing and presenting of them were on
the part of Abram in the same day the
Lord made a covenant with Abram saying
unto thy seed I've given this land from
the river of Egypt
to the great river euphrates now sarai
abram's wife bear him no children and
she had a handmaid an Egyptian whose
name was Hagar so this is a big
catastrophe for Abraham especially in
those times and perhaps now as much
although perhaps people aren't as
conscious of it as they once were I mean
for Abraham without a biological son
there was no there was no there was no
vision forward into the future you know
and I mean we don't really know what
sort of time span over which these
archaic people thought but the medieval
people we already said could think 300
years into the future without without
batting an eye and these people who were
who were concerned about their
descendants were obviously thinking
about existence in a way that wasn't
just focused on their immediate
existence right they were thinking about
well their children in the grandchildren
maybe their great-grandchildren maybe
the whole society that that stemmed out
from them and that's that's smart you
know one of the things I learned from
Piaget at least in part was that his
idea of the equilibrated state which he
thought about as partly part of the
biological basis of the idea of moral
progress it's something like that he was
a very very smart Piaget and we said
that the the proper equilibrated state
is one where imagine you have a family
you've got five people in it and you're
doing what you want and you're in your
family what's good for you but you're
doing it in such a way so that the other
four members of your family agree with
what you do and that it also facilitates
them doing what they want and what they
should be doing and so it's a really
tricky arrangement because it isn't just
for you it's for you in a way that's for
them and you could also see that that
would be something that would be a
multiplier right because if you have
everyone working voluntarily towards the
same common goal then you get a
multiplying effect of that and then you
might think well it's not just you and
your family it's you and your family
today and next week in next month next
year and ten years from now so you have
to take the time span into account and
then it should be you and your family in
a way that works well in society and
then it should work well now and next
week and next year and into the future
it should be iterative all right that's
like sustainability at something like
the idea of sustainability and that's
that's I would
say that's a reasonable way of
conceptualizing the holy city it's it's
something like that you know if you're
trying to make it concrete it's like how
should you live your life well let's say
you live your life in a manner that
justifies its limitation and tragedy
that's a good start but then let's say
that it does that in a way that also
reduces the limitations and suffering of
the people that you interact with and
now and into the future well maybe
there's a way to do that I mean a good
negotiation does that right because if
you're negotiating with someone like
your wife for example what you want is
for her to agree with the negotiation
and one of the things that Piaget said
which I think was brilliant brilliant he
said if you take an equilibrated system
a family let's say and a dis equilibrate
it system so that would be one way or
let's say the father is a tyrant and
everyone is operating under his whip and
you put them in a head-to-head
competition the equilibrated system will
out-compete the disequilibrium system
because the enforcement cost is such
that it will slow the system down you
know because you'll get resistances from
the people inside the system they'll
work in the system we'll be working at
counter purposes to itself plus there's
enforcement costs and so a tyranny
cannot beat an elaborated system and I
was really excited to encounter that
idea because when I encountered it I was
also trying to figure out if there was
some quantitative difference between the
system say of the Soviet Union and
Maoist China and the systems of the West
apart from just you know arbitrary world
interpretation as the postmodern
nihilists might have it if there was
something fundamental at stake in the
terrible Cold War that we fought or it
was just a matter of opinion
you know when the PIA jetty intake was
that well roughly speaking is that the
West was an equilibrated system no I'm
perfectly equilibrated but reasonably
equilibrate in that people were
essentially even if they were slaves to
some degree they were at least voluntary
slaves instead of involuntary slaves and
that that was better the system was
actually technically better and not just
as a matter of interpretation so that's
a lovely thing to know and I think it's
a really really solid really really
solid idea I haven't been able to you
know put crowbars under that idea and
lift it up I think it's a good one so
now sarai abram's wife bear him no
children so okay back to children muscle
one of what one of the things that's
worth thinking about with regards to
reading these old stories because we're
so not we're very arrogant modern people
i we look at these old stories and you
think hey we've transcended all that
superstition it's like don't be so
bloody sure about that these people
weren't stupid and so there's there are
ways that they viewed the world that we
don't have anymore and one of them seems
to be this concern for descendants
because that just isn't part of our way
of thinking we have a very short-term
way of thinking maybe it's it's not even
one lifetime long it's certainly not
multiple lifetimes long and it isn't
clear to me at all that that's for the
best and you know the the constant
complaint that the environmentalists
generate some of which is justified in
some of which is just anti-capitalist
anti-patriotic nonsense that should be
cleared out of that entire conversation
is that we need to take a longer view
and consider more things in our purview
when we act and like that fair enough
like do we really want a notion that has
nothing in it but jellyfish because
that's really what we're doing and we're
doing it very very rapidly and the data
on that are very clear and so you know
when you lift up your eyes and you make
a connection with something that's
transcendent then that should bring more
of the world within your purview and and
maybe that's concern for the endless
number of descendants that you might
have might think - well you know if
you're a successful person if you have a
successful family god only knows how
many people you will be the father of
right it's completely because you're a
nexus right all sorts of things have
come together in the cosmos to produce
you and then all things sorts of things
manifest themselves from you you have no
idea what your potential the potential
consequences of your actions might be as
they cascade across time right you have
no idea and so Abraham at least is
concerned with these sorts of things and
God seems to be concerned too because he
promises Abraham that if he maintains
the covenant that the most important
things that he needs will come to him
and they're pretty serious about this so
Sarai talks to Abram she's not very
happy about the fact that she can't have
children
she says behold now the LORD hath
restrained me from bearing I pray
they go in unto my maid it may be that I
obtain children by her and Abram
hearkened to the voice of Sarai well
that's not a very trivial thing I
wouldn't think I don't imagine that that
Sarah was sir I was very happy about
turning her maid over to her husband and
potentially being usurped in the whole
childbearing in the whole childbearing
process not in the least but you know so
it's also a major sacrifice on Sarai's
part there's no doubt about that and of
course it's very difficult for us to
talk about the ethics of the fact that
Hagar was a more or less involuntary
participant in this but that was the
times absolutely the case and of course
slavery and indentured servitude is the
way of mankind except in very very very
very limited circumstances Carl Jung had
something to say about that to which I
really liked he said that part of the
reason that modern people have it's not
the only reason
there's the Industrial Revolution
obviously but part of the reason that
modern people have been able to escape
from the catastrophe of tyranny and
slavery is because we've agreed to make
ourselves our own slaves right so
instead of owning a slave you own
yourself in a sense and so you trot
yourself off to work and exploit
yourself so that you can stay alive and
maybe it's not something that you want
to do but you've taken on the role of
slave in some sense in relationship to
your own survival instead of forcing
someone else to do it which is also
something I think that's very noble
about the West is that we're willing to
enslave ourselves as individuals and
we're not we're not doing that to other
people no we're doing it to some degree
obviously because the society is
imperfect but that's something that's
very much worth thinking about
so Ann Abram hearkened to the voice of
Saroyan and Sarai Abrams wife took Hagar
her made the Egyptian after Abram had
dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan
and gave her to her husband Abram to be
his wife that's the other thing that
been so interesting about doing this one
of the other things about doing this
biblical series and it's one of the
things that's so cool about Google
despite the fact that they cut off my
account you can find any piece of art
that ever existed on Google and so
that's great so you know when I'm trying
to illustrate these these lectures I
type in
Abraham Renaissance and then like I get
200 Renaissance paintings it's so great
and then I can look at them and one of
the other things that's so remarkable is
that all of these the major themes of
these stories have been illustrated by
people of spectacular mind mind
expanding talent you know there's just
this endless array of well look at that
I mean that's an amazing painting and so
and there's and and of this there's
there's dozens of paintings on this
theme and it's just another indication
of how obsessed people you know this was
the only book that existed for years and
people were absolutely obsessed by it
and produced all these amazing things
from it and we're in danger of losing
that and that's a big mistake because
it's magnificent a little humility would
go a long way towards restoring it and
he went in done unto Hagar and she
conceived and when she saw that she had
conceived her mistress was despised in
her eyes
so I Hagar was successful and like that
was a hallmark of feminine success now
and certainly then and so she started to
lord it over Sarai which seemed a little
bit on the ungrateful side I would say
because Sarai made a big sacrifice to
allow Hagar to become Abraham's wife and
so a little bit of gratitude would have
been an order I suppose at least that's
how the story goes and Sarai said unto
Abram my wrong be upon thee I have given
my maid into thy bosom and when she saw
that she had conceived I was despised in
her eyes the Lord judge between you and
I and Abraham said unto Sarai behold thy
maid is in thine hand do to her as it
pleases you and when Sarai dealt hardly
with her Hagar fled from her face and
the angel of the Lord found her by a
fountain of water in the wilderness by
the fountain in the way - sure and he
said Hagar Sarai's maid whence camest
thou and whither wilt thou go and she
said I flee from the face of my mistress
right and the angel of the Lord said
returned to thy mistress and submit
under her hands and the angel said I
will multiply your seed exceedingly and
shall not be numbered for multitude and
the angel said behold thou art with
child and thou shalt thou shalt bear a
son and shalt shall call his name
Ishmael and Ishmael means God here's by
the way because the LORD hath heard thy
affliction and he'll be a wild man his
hand will be against every man and every
man's hand against him and he should
dwell in the presence of all his
brothers and she called the name of the
Lord that spake unto her thou God seest
me for she said have I also here looked
after him that cioth me wherefore the
wall well was called beer-lahai-roi and
that means the well have seized me and
lives it's an interesting interlude
because you know Abraham God has
established this covenant with Abraham
and obviously things are going wrong in
the household in a really serious way
like a really serious way because well
he's now had a child by another woman
and that the two women are not getting
along and one is beating the other
because of her insubordination and and
contempt and so she's so desperate she
runs out into the desert where she's
probably going to die and God comes
along and says anyways to to to to Hagar
that her son shall as well be the father
of Nations and so that's partly a
reflection back on the power of
Abraham's covenant right even though
even though things are going terribly
wrong locally let's say the fact that
Abraham has made this overarching
agreement with God means that all of
these catastrophes are taking place
within a bounded space with an ark we
could say that's one way of looking
about it and I do think I do think that
that's right because it seems to me that
you know if everything falls apart
around you there's there's a couple of
things you're gonna want you're gonna
want someone standing beside you that's
for sure that you can trust you're gonna
want your family around you and you want
gonna want them to have your back
and you're gonna want to know that you
didn't do some goddamn stupid thing to
bring all hell down on yourself and if
you're locking any of those when that
crisis comes there's a high probability
it will flatten you and you won't be
able to get up you know it does seem to
me you can ask yourself this question
when things collapse around you how much
utility is knowledge of your own
moral virtue that's bad enough to be
late it's bad to be laid load but to be
laid low and to know that you were a
fault you were at fault for it and worse
the things that you did that you knew
you did that we're wrong brought you
there then I think you have nothing to
stand on in that situation and that's
also the circumstances under which I
think you're more more likely at least
to be abandoned by people around you so
given that you know that the catastrophe
is coming right that the tragedy of life
will strike you the question is well how
do you fortify yourself against that and
all obviously it's to some degree you do
that by being materially sensible and
these old people in the test in the old
testament these ancient people they
weren't blind to the utility of having a
good crop and some animals you know that
that's a that's an integral part of
their life to take care of themselves
physically but they're also wise enough
to know that there's an element of moral
this what would you call it there's a
necessity for moral integration that
defends you against the catastrophe of
existence even more effectively than
anything material and even more that the
stability of the material things is more
dependent on the integrity of your
spirit than the integrity of your spirit
is dependent on the material things and
I think the evidence for that is
actually quite clear I read it read a
very interesting book a while back
called the wealth and poverty of Nations
that was written by a Harvard emeritus
professor of history and one of the
things that he claimed I liked it I
thought it was very smart was that the
only true natural resource is
interpersonal trust if you can set up a
society where people trust each other
then it will instantly become rich and
he used the example of Japan which is a
very conscientious society and very rich
society but the Japanese have no natural
resources right none to speak of and yet
they're rich and then you have countries
like the Soviet Russia and and much of
South America where there's just natural
resources that you know they're just
like Venezuela just more natural
resources than you know what to do with
and the places are absolute catastrophes
absolute catastrophes of cynicism and
corruption and so he attempted to
document the relationship between
default interpersonal trust
among citizens within countries and
their their productivity in their GDP
and their their standard of living and
found a very very tight relationship and
and I like that a lot and I've got a
story about that quickly that I think is
very interesting I'll tell you two
stories one sort of generic well I'll
tell you one personal first so one day I
lent my car to one of my graduate
students and he took it to Montreal this
old Cadillac and mmm
he got it was a really bad rainstorm in
Montreal and he was in one of the
highways that are like set into the
ground and there was like six inches of
water and he was turning a corner hit
the brakes and skidded on the water and
smacked it into the wall and on the
corner of the of the bumper you know and
so then he brought it back and he was
very apologetic about it and and his
name was Matt Shane tell you that
because Matt might hear this and I could
shame him a bit for doing this 20 years
ago you know and he's a professor at the
Ontario Institute of Technology I think
now quite a successful one but anyways
he brought the car back and I went and
got it evaluated for damages it was like
$1,700 or something to repair it and or
maybe more but it was almost as much as
the car was worth I thought well I'm not
gonna do that so I went online and I
typed in the part and if you do that you
can get people to bid on sending you a
used part from all over North America so
that's kind of cool so there's all these
junk dealers have got together and they
have this you know network of
communication so you put in the car part
and then they send you a bid and so this
guy said well I'll send you the bumper
assembly which is the whole bumper and
the lights for like 250 bucks and I
thought yeah okay you could do that
that'd be good so then I said yes and
then he called me up about half an hour
later this guy from way down south he
had a really deep sort of Mississippi
accent he said wait a sec was that for
the bumper or the bumper assembly and I
said well it was for the bumper assembly
he said oh I thought it was for the
bumper and then he said but that's ok
I'll send it to you anyways I thought
well that's pretty good so I said well
thank you and then I hung up and then
half an hour later he called me up again
and he said look I just went out and
looked at that bumper assembly and
there's a plastic trim piece on the side
and
it has a scratch in it and I thought I'd
better tell you that just in case you
you didn't want it I thought wow that's
so amazing it's like there's a miracle
man it's like this guy he's somewhere in
Mississippi I'm never gonna see him
again ever I'm never gonna have any
contact with him like he made a bad deal
right because the part was worth more
than he decided to sell it to me forever
but he stuck with his deal and then he
went over and above the call of duty he
said well this part that I'm selling you
to you for way less than it's worth is
damaged so I thought I'd better tell you
it's like man you got to recognize a
miracle when you see one that was a
miracle so I said hey look it's thanks
for calling man it's okay I can handle
the scratch said the part needed and and
I got the car fixed and forgave Matt and
you know it had a happy ending
so so that's trust right because I
didn't know him from Adam and he's a
primate full of snakes just like the
rest of us and yet he was willing to
simplify himself to the point where I
could just take him absolutely at his
word and that meant we could trade even
though we were strangers it's like man
do not underestimate the utility of that
and then there's eBay so when he Bay
first started you know the idea was it's
not gonna work because you'll send me
junk and I'll send you a check that
bounces and that'll be the end of eBay
right and so these escrow agents popped
up so you could ensure your transaction
with them for like 10% of the
transaction they would get the check and
the goods and make sure that they were
okay and then send them on or ensure the
transaction but what happened was the
escrow agents didn't make any money and
the reason for that was no one cheated
now you think about how amazing that is
right you bring these people together
across a whole continent they've never
seen each other before they're never
going to interact with each other again
and this was before there were any
reputation ratings on eBay and yet the
default transaction was you describe
your goods
honestly including their flaws you set a
reasonable price I decide to pay you you
ship the goods and I pay you and it
works and what happened was that eBay
produced it produced a tremendous amount
of capital that was previously frozen so
frozen capital is when you've invested
money in something but the thing is no
longer useful to you so the money is
just sitting there free
right so to speak and you can't get it
loose because well you've got attic full
of junk how are you gonna get rid of
that Oh II may and so all of a sudden
all these things that were just junk
became valuable and everybody got richer
and none of that wouldn't it would have
happened without the covenant that we
established between each other that's
predicated on trust and so you might say
that trust is the currency and currency
is trust because it's a promissory note
right and if people lie then the
currency gets to based very very rapidly
and so the economy runs on trust and so
that's part of the overarching covenant
so abraham makes this covenant with god
and he decides that he's gonna aim high
and live a good life and tell the truth
and that puts this boundary around him
it's like a walled garden it's like a
walled garden and the inside there
there's all sorts of things that are
happening that are complex and difficult
but outside there's a boundary and the
boundary is well maybe things won't it's
like God says after the flood he says
I'll never send a flood again that's
part of the story and so there's an
intimation there that no matter how bad
things get they won't get so bad that
they'll be catastrophic but there's a
but there's a coded to that which is
that you have to maintain the covenant
and we don't know what that means you
know because you know what you think
it's pretty obvious that if you treat
people well if you really think about it
and you're not being naively optimistic
and like you know a nice good person
with all the weakness that that that
that that that intimates of your being
hard-nosed and sensible you understand
that if you treat people
if you trust people that's an act of
courage if you're not naive right if
you're naive it's an act of stupidity
because you might get bit and you
probably will and if you're not even you
get bit you will suffer for it it'll
traumatize you but if you're not naive
and you know you can get bit then you
might ask well what should you do with
people and the answer is you should
trust them and not because you're naive
and not because they couldn't betray you
and not
because you don't know that they could
betray oh but because if you hold out
your hand in trust then you're inviting
the best part of that person to step
forward and that won't happen unless you
take that initial step and that's
courage not naivety and so to trust
someone once your eyes are open that's
an act of courage and that opens up the
world you know when you might say okay
and so there's this idea in this story
that you can withstand it a fair bit of
the catastrophe of life by establishing
the proper covenant and by acting in a
trustworthy manner and extending your
hand to people properly and you might
say well okay that's sensible I can
understand how that would work and I can
certainly see how the opposite wouldn't
work because you know if I have to be
absolutely terrified that you're gonna
betray me at every possible moment and
we're in a negotiation we're not gonna
get any work done man because I'm gonna
be figuring out what you're up to all
the time and you're gonna be figuring
out what I'm up to all the time and
we're just not going to get anywhere
you'll come and say you're gonna do
something and I can just simplify you I
can say you're gonna do what you said
you do I don't have to worry about you
and then the same applies to me and then
we can go do something and that's how we
generate wealth so then you might say
well if what's the ultimate limit of
that you know like we know that there's
corruption in our society that people
betray each other there's deceit and all
of that and it causes things like the
periodic collapse in 2008 which was
complicated but was partly engendered by
corruption like what would be the OP
side if we acted if we really determined
to act honestly what do you think it is
that people would be able to do with the
world if we stopped acting in a corrupt
manner I mean what what's the like what
what is the ops I do you think we could
could could how far back could we push
aging do you think if we hit it hard for
50 years can we triple our lifespan it
wouldn't surprise me you know all these
terrible diseases that beset the planet
we could get rid of them there's no
reason for hunger and starvation we make
enough food it's like what would happen
if we stopped acting badly how much
better could things get well you start
locally I think you start with yourself
and you start with your family but you
know there's intimations of the divine
there's intimations of the kingdom of
God and the covenant with God in the Old
Testament it's like you think well we
speak secularly
you think well that's an unprovable
assumption it's like well we'll just
hold on a sec what's the Assumption here
exactly what is the operon for Humanity
I mean who's who's gonna say right who's
gonna say especially in this day and age
man there's so many things happening
that you can't even comprehend them what
could we do if we put all of our effort
into it well you can experiment with
that because you can start in your own
household you can start in your own room
and you could make miracles happen in
the confines of your own space there's
no doubt about that
all you have to do is try you'll see
that that happens it happens and people
are writing to me and telling me that
they're trying this and that that's
exactly what's happening and so so we
don't want to be too cynical about about
where we might be headed and Hagar bore
Abram a son Abram called his son's name
which hagar bear ismael who is by
tradition the forefather of several Arab
nations and of Muhammad himself and
Abram was four score and six years old
when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram so
that's the end of another story and then
so that section ends and then again we
have an encounter between Abraham and
God who and Abram was ninety years old
and nine 99 years old the Lord appeared
to them and said I'm the Almighty God
walk before me and be thou perfect
Alexander McLaren who was a biblical
commentator who lived in the early 19th
century said this phrase walking before
God is not precisely walking with God
because that's what Noah did right he
says it's rather that of an act of life
spent in continual consciousness of
being naked and opened before the eyes
of him to have whom we have to give
account I was pretty happy to stumble
across that because it I mean I might
have picked and chosen of course you
never know that whether you do that but
it does seem in keeping with the
narrative strain of the chapter right
because what we've I bought this eye so
far is that God is called Abraham and
said you know get out there in the world
go go to where it's unknown go to where
you're a stranger and get away from the
familiar go out to the unknown establish
yourself and great things will come of
it regardless of the proximal evidence
great things will come of it and so I
think that's what the walking before God
refers to it's not like Abraham is
acting in certainty there's no certainty
here
that's the act of the leap of faith even
because it does require a leap of faith
for you to move into the world because
the world is a catastrophe
self-evidently the world is a
catastrophe and so there's there's
there's every reason for you to assume
that you should sit in your basement and
hide from it but that's that's not it
doesn't help it doesn't make things
better and the thing is perhaps you're
not built for that you're not built to
hide I don't think that people are built
to hide I think it destroys them and so
walking before God in some sense means
that Abraham is we could say is taking
the lead he's the person that's going
out there until the unknown God says
well the great things are gonna happen
he's a little short on details that's
for sure so the wait is still on Abraham
and that's a good thing because it also
that a noble's Abraham right that's the
other thing that's so cool is that if
God had just laid out the whole story
and and and you know brush the branches
from Abraham's path while he was walking
forward well then there'd be nothing for
Abraham to do there'd be no nobility in
his own pursuit and this is another
thing that we don't understand very well
it's a really tough thing to understand
it's like how much trouble would you
want there not to be it's a weird
question right because you want to have
something to contend with you want to
have something that that forces from you
the best that you have and so you have
to have real problems it's something
like that would you dispense with all
your real but you could just lay down on
a bed have pablum infused into your
mouth you know if all your problems were
solved and so maybe you want difficult
problems that you can solve something
like that because there's some I don't
know what it is about it there's there's
the overcoming and and the growth that
comes along with that there's something
about the nobility of the enterprise you
certainly see that when you go about
having children for example which is you
know the psychological literature is
quite clear if if you do
moment-to-moment comparisons of people
who have kids and people who don't have
kids the people who don't have kids are
happier and so psychologists who tend to
get things wrong even when they make
intelligent discoveries like that one
immediately some of them jump to the
conclusion that because happiness is the
goal that well there's something about
children that you know make you unhappy
and that's not good it's like well wait
a second and maybe that's the wrong
metric it's like
of course you're less happy once you
have children because you have to worry
about them you know my neighbor down the
street who's very smart woman said to me
once you can only be as happy as your
unhappiest child and which I thought it
was really good you know that's really
smart but then it isn't well if having
children doesn't make you happy the
answer isn't don't have children it's
like don't be so stupid about being
happy that's the answer it's because
there's a nobility in the pursuit right
and of course now you're responsible you
know who you have a new baby you think
especially if you're a new parent you
think what the hell is this is what am I
gonna do with it you know it's like and
then you're you're done for the rest of
your life you never sleep properly again
because you're gonna be worried about
this creature that you have to take care
of and but like what the hell good are
you if you're not doing that or it's
something else equally difficult because
you just you just haven't been called
out yet unless you take on a
responsibility like that the idea that
life is you know that happiness is the
purpose of life it's like great for
happiness man if it comes along you
should be thrilled that it's visiting
you but the notion that that's that
that's what you should pursue that's
that's the weakest possible notion first
of all as soon as something terrible
happens to you you're done it's like
life is to be happy it's like well now
you have cancer so how's that how's the
happiness thing working out for you now
or maybe it's not you you know maybe
it's your father that held a Alzheimer's
disease or some damn thing and you know
it's like it's a rare person that
doesn't have some cat-tastrophe one one
person away from them it's like life is
to be happy it's that's not right and
and we can at least derive that from
these stories that isn't what they say
at all God's perfectly happy in this
stories to grant the people with whom he
forms a covenant happiness and
prosperity but there's never a word that
that's the purpose that the rule is aim
high and get your bloody act together
that's the rule and establish this
contractual covenant with the ultimate
ideal and that will see you through the
catastrophes and that's a much more
mature way of looking at life as far as
I'm concerned because all you have to do
is have your eyes half open and you see
that the fundamental reality of life is
tragedy and suffering there's that's
inescapable
the quest that doesn't mean that it it
makes life unbearable or that it makes
being something that shouldn't have
existed right that isn't what it means
but it means that you have to contend
with it and you have to get ready and
the willingness to adopt responsibility
for yourself and for others is is the
precondition for that and and then maybe
if you do that properly then now and
then you get some happiness you know you
can sit at the end of the day and you
have half an hour where your conscience
is clear and there's nothing that you
need to be doing and you can relax and
think you know that's all right things
are okay and thank God for that and
that's that's maybe where you get your
happiness so and that's something that's
growing up man obviously and and to not
know that and to not be taught that like
everyone should be taught that it's so
obvious we should be taught that well
and that's partly what these biblical
stories do and I'll make my covenant
between me and thee and we'll multiply
the exceedingly and Abram fell on his
face yea and God talked with him saying
as for me behold my covenant is with
thee and thou shalt be a father of many
nations God says this alot taébem right
it's almost like he has to remind him
now and then and it's not surprising
because he keeps going through these
unbelievable adventures you know that
are really psychologically and socially
shattering so it's a good thing that
this reminder pops up in it and fairly
frequently but of course Abraham is also
open to it and I think what does it mean
you know I'll talk personally for a
moment I guess so I've asked myself a
lot of questions in the last eight
months man I can tell you that and I'm
still asking myself a lot of questions
and I've been conferring with a lot of
people I had lots of people who were
helping me negotiate whatever the hell
this is that's happening and you know I
could ask them how it was doing and they
would tell me a bunch of things I was
doing wrong and some things I was doing
right and I could listen to them and I
was asking questions all the time about
how the hell I should manage this
properly and you know what what I was
trying to do and what seemed to serve me
properly was to figure out how to do it
correctly that was the issue it's like I
didn't really care what happened and I
guess I really don't care what
and said but I do care if I do it
correctly because I don't want to screw
it up I don't want to screw things up
and that seems to be a reasonable goal
for people I mean wouldn't you like that
as a goal that you don't screw things up
because you can't control - you know
your life isn't fully under your control
by any stretch of the imagination but it
might be nice to - not have your
conscience eating at you saying look you
know you had a big opportunity there and
you mucked it up because you're weak and
blind and you didn't listen that's no
good the cast the catastrophe is bad
enough as I said without you being the
bloody source of it and so well that's
Abram falling on his face I guess and
also communing with God it's like you
don't he wants to get it right he wants
to get it right and there's these these
things that beckon and promise but but
it's it's bloody easy to make a
catastrophic mistake and he'll do that
in your life you know and and maybe
humility is one of the things that can
prevent that because you can look and
you can think okay what am I doing wrong
what am I doing wrong what can I do
better how could I do this properly and
then maybe you know you get you get you
get the intimation of the proper way to
move forward and maybe that's what
protects you when things are chaotic and
and in strife and who knows what that's
worth neither shall thy name anymore be
called Abram which means high king if I
remember correctly but thy name shall be
Abraham for a father of many nations
have I made thee oh yes Abram for high
father look at that Abraham means father
of a multitude and I will make the
exceedingly fruitful and I will make
nations have the productive right
productive and that seems to be
something that's that's good to be I
mean like one of the things that I've
thought about deeply I thought deeply
about death and the death of my family
members and about funerals and I thought
about it partly because I had this weird
experience once that I think I told you
about where I took one of my clients to
see an embalming which is very strange
experience and I had a chance to talk to
the funeral directors you know because
they have weird jobs you know there's
this idea well the Freudian idea that
people saw
for from this terrible death anxiety and
there's a whole line of social
psychological theory theorizing called
terror management theory that's
predicated on the idea that we defend
ourselves against death anxiety with our
belief systems and like it's a puppet
Ernest Becker's idea
he wrote the denial of death which is a
great book but there's a weakness in it
because you see some people who aren't
like that you know like emergency room
nurses aren't like that and palliative
care nurses aren't like that my
sister-in-law's a palliative care nurse
that's a hard job right because you go
in there you're caring for people you
have and they're in pain and they're in
the last legs you're trying to make them
comfortable and you have a relationship
with them because how the hell are you
gonna make them comfortable if you don't
and then they go and die on you and that
just happens that's what happens every
day right and what's weird is that
people can be palliative care nurses
it's like how do you figure that out
because people can actually thrive in
the face of death
strangely enough and like these funeral
parlor directors they were interesting
to talk to because that's all they do
right they just deal with they deal with
death and grief all the time and it was
very interesting talking to them because
I talked to two of them they found their
job extremely meaningful and I asked
them well you know does that what does
that do to your life you know you're
saturated with death and suffering and
there and this is the same answer that I
got from the palliative care nurse is
that it doesn't undermine your life it
enriches it now who would guess that
right I mean what the hell that just
doesn't make any sense at all but what
it does is speak to human possibility
because god only knows how tough you are
you know I mean if you read history and
you read about what people have done you
think wow we're pretty tough people are
I read there is a shipwreck in the
Antarctica hundred years ago is so and I
read the story it's not a biography if I
remember correctly of the of the captain
I might be wrong about that but I've got
the basic story right well they had a
shipwreck in the Antarctica was then
they were there for a whole year in the
Antarctica you know and none of them
died not one II didn't lose a single man
not one he kept their morale high and
then they took this boat that was on the
ship and they crossed like 400 miles of
the roughest ocean the
first frigid ocean in the world right
you don't go in that ocean and then they
went to an island and they walked across
the island across these mountains that
no one else has ever climbed since and
they went to the city on the other side
of the island they got a boat and went
rescued their compatriots and everyone
survived
it's like endurance is the name of the
book you read that book man you think
wow people are really tough you know and
it's ridiculous so who knows how tough
you are and maybe you find out by going
out to find out how tough you are
right so you take on a challenge one
that you think you can master just it's
just a bit beyond your grasp and you
master it and then you're a little
tougher and you think hey that worked
out pretty well and so then you're more
of a monster and then you go out and you
find another challenge that's even
bigger and you think well maybe I can do
that too and then all of a sudden you
can and you get a little bit bigger and
god only knows what the limit is of you
and you find out by pushing yourself
against the world and of course that's
what Abraham is doing and so see we're
very pessimistic us modern people you
know we're pessimistic about humanity
that's for sure dismal wretched planet
destroying cancer on the planet right as
the Club of Rome described us so
pleasantly back in the 1960s you know
and and I don't know maybe we're ashamed
of the Cold War
maybe we're ashamed of all the
destruction in the 20th century and the
hydrogen bomb and and that you know the
continuing catastrophes of our societies
and and were deeply ashamed of that and
ashamed of ourselves personally but it's
a hell of a thing to you know call us a
cancer on the planet there's just no
excuse for that because what you do with
cancer is eradicated and I don't think
that that's a very noble motive
personally and I think it says a lot
about the people who would use such
phraseology that they would dare to
conceptualize humanity in that manner
but you know it would be nice if we
could be optimistic and I think began
the problem with being optimistic is
that it's naive so then the question is
is there an optimism that's not naive
and I think there is and the optimism
that's not naive isn't just a a
visualization of how strong people can
be so what
the things that I tell people I told my
students in my class in maps of meaning
here is a goal you want to be the person
at the funeral of your father that
everyone can rely on how would that be
you want to be the person who's broken
and and and useless and adding to the
misery in the corner and look I'm not
making light of people's grief you know
I understand grief but who do you want
to be when there's a crisis right do you
want to be the person that everyone can
turn to for strength it's like why the
hell not why know what that is a goal
that would be a good goal because then
if there's a crisis and there will be it
won't be such a bloody crisis because
there'll be someone there that can deal
with it you know so when I went and
talked to these people that if you know
whom I envisioned that I thought okay
well this is something you have to
contend with if you're going to be alive
an adult you have to contend with death
and suffering and you have to be ready
for it and you have to be there for the
person because that's all they're gonna
have and so there's a goal man and in
this time of nihilism you know it's
what's the point of life people ask and
and they're taught that at universities
what's the point of life everything's
interpretation humanity's a cancer on
the planet you know well how about no
how about not that how about that
there's something to us
[Applause]
and I will establish my covenant between
me and thee and thy seed after thee in
their generations for an everlasting
covenant to be a god unto thee and to
thy seed after thee and I will give unto
the into thy seed after thee the land
wherein thou art a stranger all of the
land of Canaan because of course Abraham
went out into the land of strangers
right but it says that he'll master if
he if he keeps his covenant he'll master
the land of strangers that's a wonderful
thing to know and I think a true thing
you know because if you're dealing with
strangers I've dealt with lots of
strange people in my life if I'm a
clinical psychologist and that isn't to
say that everyone that I've dealt with
was strange because that's not the case
but I have encountered some very strange
people and you know the way to deal with
strange people is to you never lie to a
strange person that's the thing
especially if they're paranoid you never
lie to someone who's paranoid it will
come back to bite you and if you're in
an extreme situation with someone who's
very unpredictable
the only thing you have that works is
the truth that works I'll tell you a
little story this is in my book so I had
this landlord in Montreal he lived next
door to me and he was an exhales angels
biker he'd spent a lot of time in prison
and his wife had borderline personality
disorder and she committed suicide when
I lived there and here's a rough guy and
he was a québécois he spoke ul which I
could hardly understand and he didn't
really know what to make of me and I
didn't really know what to make of him
but we got along you know I was very
careful talking to him as you might
imagine but but I was it was very anyway
we went over and my wife and I went over
there and we had the spaghetti dinner
one night and we sort of communicated
and I bought a poster from him because
he made these wooden posters that had
neon on them and that's how he made a
living he'd kind of train
self to be a bit of an electronics guy
and so he made these things and he was
trying to quit drinking and we talked
about that he was a lot older than me he
was like 20 years older than me I was
about 25 at this point and we got along
pretty well but every now and then he'd
go out and get and drink and he could
really drink you know like he was one of
these guys who could drink like 60 beer
and you think well no one can drink that
much and you're wrong
I studied alcohol for like 10 years some
of my subjects fathers drank 40 ounces
of vodka a day and had been doing it for
20 years so you can drink a lot and he
could drink a lot and what would happen
he was trying to not drink but he'd go
out and go on a binge and then he'd be
gone for like three days and he'd drink
up all his money and then we'd hear him
out in the backyard howling at the moon
with this little little ugly dog he had
you know and he'd howling the dog would
howl and he'd howl and the dog would
howl and and it was rather unsettling
and made my wife nervous and and but
worse you know now and then he'd come to
the door at like 3:00 in the morning eh
and he'd knock on the door and he'd be
standing there and I don't know how much
experience you've had with rough guys
who are alcoholic and who were drunk but
it's they can be upright and unconscious
at the same time and so that was the
state that he was in you know he'd be
just swaying and he'd asked me if I
would like to buy his toaster or his
microwave because he needed some money
to keep drinking and you know I didn't
really want to buy his toaster or his
microwave but when the exhales angel Jew
all speaking 60 beer drunk okay but
while biker shows up at your door at
3:00 in the morning and offers you to
sell offers to sell you his microwave
huh the easiest thing is to say I really
need a microwave so so you know I bought
the microwave and the toaster and some
other things but then but then my wife
talked to me and she liked my landlord
you know even though she was afraid of
him she liked him and and she said you
can't buy any more any more appliances
because it's not good for him and I
thought huh that's an interesting
problem you know so what the hell am I
gonna do about this because no I don't
want to buy your microwave just doesn't
seem to be the right answer at 3:00 in
the morning
so so one time he took me out on his 750
Honda and he put me on the back of it he
wanted to show me his lair I guess his
hangouts and I got his wife's helmet on
but it didn't fit it just sit on the top
of my head and he said I got on the bike
and he said if the cops chase us were
not stopping and the way we went and we
went to these like these bars downtown
on sound the road they were very rough
places he got into like four fights that
night because he was a rough guy you
know and he's kind of punk guys would
come up to him and sort of challenge him
and act stupidly around him and he was
very skeptical and if you were acting
stupidly around him for any length of
time he just hit you because he felt
that that's what you deserved and
perhaps he was right you know so so I
had first-hand opportunity to observe
him so anyways he sure enough about a
week or two after we had this
conversation he showed up at the door
gnarrk gnarrk gnarrk
you know I open the door and they were
standing there you know with his eyes
kind of half closed and he was swaying
and he had I don't remember what the
appliance was this time but he wanted to
sell it to me and I said I know what all
I can buy this I'm not gonna buy this
because I know you're trying to quit
drinking and if I give you this money
then you're gonna go and drink it up and
it's not going to be good for you and
what else did I tell him I think I told
him as well that this whole thing of him
coming to my house at like
in the morning was scaring my wife who
he liked and that it had to stop and
believe me man I was thinking about what
I was saying because he was watching me
like a rough guy watches you and a rough
guy watches you like this he thinks if
you say one thing that indicates
contempt
you're gonna bloody well pay for it and
so I was finding my words like you know
I was crossing a swamp and trying to
look for the for the rocks underneath
the surface and I said what I had to
save Harry very carefully and he looked
at me for about 15 seconds and that's a
long time to be looked at at 3:00 in the
morning and he left and he never came
back to sell me anything again and we
got along fine but that's a good
illustration of this issue with regards
to truth and success in the strange land
because I was in the strange land when I
was talking to my neighbor my landlord
then and I managed to say what was true
carefully enough so despite the fact
that he was a very violent person and
that he was a very intoxicated person
and that he had every reason to be
suspicious of me and we couldn't
communicate very well and I didn't do
what he wanted that he took it and he
left and there was no problem and life
went on just fine after that and so we
don't want to underestimate the utility
of establishing this bounded
relationship with the ideal and
attempting to live with some nobility in
truth while aiming at the highest ideal
there's nothing about that that's
anything but strengthening and positive
and it's exactly what you need to set
against the catastrophe and uncertainty
of life and as far as I can tell that's
what these Abrahamic stories are
attempting to
communicate so we'll stop there thank
you
[Applause]
I have to make an announcement I'm going
to do a talk August 22nd I think not
sure of the date but all I'll find out
with GAD sod from Concordia and so and
with a with the next social worker named
Serena Singh and with faith Goldie I
think faith is going to be there as well
so the tickets for that will go on sale
I'm not hosting this someone else is
dealing with it but the tickets for that
will go on sale within approximately a
week and I'll post that on my I'll
probably make an announcement on youtube
but I'll twist Twitter it Twitter it and
all of that so and I think I mentioned
to you guys last week that I would like
to continue this series but I think I'll
do it once a month and I'll try to do it
in this theater but I haven't got word
from the people who run the theater
that's the University whether or not
it'll be accessible but I'll figure
something out and so oh hi Serena Serena
is the person who's going to be hosting
this it's August 22nd 7 to 10 p.m. at
Ryerson ok tickets go on sale Monday all
right
and then and then oh there's a special
freedom of speech edition of the
Hemmingway's restaurant Jordan Peterson
discussion group tonight so that's at 10
p.m. so you're all welcome to attend
that so that's 142 Cumberland Street ok
so that's it for announcements I guess
and then let's say for questions yes I
was going to let you ask the first
question last time wasn't I ok so I will
do that and so let's make sure again
everybody to speak into the mic clearly
so that the YouTube people can hear and
you know the ghostly YouTube people and
so go ahead shouldn't I was quite
impressed with your presentation last
week and I wasn't quite sure where it
was going at one point and what neither
neither was knowing and that's ok
because at one point I
I thought what you basically were
talking about this is what I saw you're
embodying mind body and spirit and
bringing it all together as one and you
touch on it a bit tonight when you when
you talk about truth this is where we
need to go right and I know you see be
positive and all that and yeah that's
right I agree
it's scary what's going on right now
however we have the power to stay in the
positive what you talked about last week
you talked about using our intuition
which I consider our higher self using
consciousness and you made reference I
can't remember exactly what you what you
said but you held your hand and you
talked about emotions and bringing
intellect on top and when you said
emotions everything just lit up for me
because I'm thinking that's our heart
chakra that's what combines our lower
self our physical being the material
stuff all the all the stuff that doesn't
really motivate us with our higher self
I mean you talked about emotion I want
to talk about the emotion of love and I
find so many people are terrified it's a
four-letter word I know but it doesn't
have to be bad okay so I remember why
when I talked to you last week I wanted
you to ask this question so okay so I've
talked a lot in this lecture series
about truth and know I think there's a
battle in the biblical stories all the
way through between love and truth and
in terms of their primacy and so and
I've concentrated a lot on truth in my
own thinking but I stay and it's hard to
talk about love because it's a word that
people have mouths to death you know as
soon as you start talking about love
then people should just go into a
different room and and not listen to you
you know because it gets it can get
sappy and new-agey just like that and
and I don't like that at all but but it
still has something that has to be
contended with and I think so I've been
trying to conceptualize let's say what
this covenant might might constitute and
I think the love part so here's this so
you know there's this book by Goethe
called Faust and it's in two volumes
first one and falls to logically enough
one was written much later than the
other and Faust basically sells the soul
to the devil for foreknowledge and the
devil in Faust is mephistopheles and
mephistopheles is quite a well-developed
character and Bertha has Memphis dollies
say what he's about which is really
quite cool so it's like the adversary of
the world evil itself gets a chance to
speak and make its case and Goethe
thought this was so important that he
actually had Memphis Tov Lee's announced
himself once in Faust one and then using
the same words you know phrase
differently again in in part two it
really struck me it really struck me and
so what Memphis dolefully says is that
the world is such a charter house of
suffering and destruction that it would
be better if it never existed and so
that what he's working to is to bring
existence to an end because it is not
justified by its suffering that's
like--that's it's an argument very
similar to the argument that is made by
Ivan camera camera radsolv
thank you thank and say you can't
pronounce them or live with them you can
but he basically he's an atheist and
does a very good job of detailing out
the Atheist argument or it may be an
anti theist argument and he's arguing
with his his brother Alyosha who's a
monastic novitiate who was a very good
guy but not an intellect Ivan's own
intellect and a very powerful one and he
basically tells le osha that the all of
the cosmos isn't worth the suffering of
one child he tells this story about this
and this Dostoyevsky took this from a
newspaper about this parents that locked
their four-year-old daughter in an
outhouse overnight and she screamed
about it until she froze to death and so
Dostoyevsky used that argument he tied
that into Ivan's anti-theist argument
against le OSHA it's very very powerful
argument The Brothers Karamazov is an
absolutely mind-boggling amazing book I
would highly recommend it and so that's
a Memphis awfully in perspective mr.
Feeley in perspective perspective is
that being itself is so corrupt that it
shouldn't exist so then you think okay
well that fair enough that's a decent
argument it's understandable but the
problem comes when you try to implement
that and what happens when you implement
it as far as I can tell you adopt out
Memphis to aphelion attitude of
bitterness and
and destruction is that you make all the
suffering that you're complaining about
far worse I think that's what happened
at the base of things in the 20th
century is that there was a powerful
movement among human humanity to bring
being itself to a halt
you know what culminated in the
development of the hydrogen bomb and and
the high probability for many of many
periods of time that we were going to do
something permanent and fatal which
seems like a bad idea it seems like a
bad idea well so what's the opposite of
the missed aphelion attitude and I think
the opposite of that is what's presented
in the biblical stories in the guise of
love and that is the wish that things
would be good it's something like that
that's what love is I think is that it's
the attempt to orient yourself towards
making things better and it's predicated
on something like a deep appreciation
for being despite its suffering and
deficiencies and and maybe a decision
that you're going to act to bring about
things to move things towards the good
and I think that's the thing that sets
the parameters of that of them it's it's
the opposite of the Memphis to fillion
attitude it's like to work towards the
betterment of being because you've
decided that you're going to open your
heart to existence something like that
and it's within that framework that
truth takes place I think his truth has
to serve something it had controls can
serve truth but it has to be bounded
inside something and I think that that's
what it's bounded inside so what I was
going to refer to with that was David
Hawkins real power versus force and he
put it on a quantifiable scale all
different emotions he called it
consciousness and he put love at 528
Hertz he put shame at 20 I'm not sure if
I've got these 100% right guilt I think
at 30 fear at 50 and it shows you how
far the people who were really knocked
down have to get to love and I'm
thinking if we could quantified love on
a term it means different things to
everybody and rightly so but can we get
to that frequency and if you look at the
sofas you know what you know the musical
notes I'm afraid of I'm gonna I'm gonna
ask you to stop if you would because I
should I should go to another question
thank you very much okay let's
[Applause]
so you've been an educator through the
rise of the smartphone and my question
basically relates to procrastination and
tastily needless tastily specifically
and given the unprecedented level of
distraction that we have in today's
world I just wanted to get your
perspective from a psychological
standpoint on other than cleaning your
damn room what would you suggest to a
student who's looking to overcome these
things well I think with any let's call
it addictive process
I mean email is powerfully addictive
right hardly it's it's a slot machine
and I mean that technically so when you
pull it's that's a variable ratio
reinforcement schedule if I remember
correctly and it's very addictive
because if you pull on the slot machine
arm enough you will win and you never
know which poll will reward you and so
not only is that addictive it's very
hard to extinguish that and so emails
like that because there's always
something beckoning and now and then
it's a jackpot and social medias like
that because you know people are posting
interesting things and so well how do
you overcome an addictive process and
partly you do it by replacing it with
something better right so when people
study drug and alcohol use they they
often make an elementary mistake which
is to try to figure out why people use
drugs and alcohol that's that's not a
smart thing to wonder we know why people
use cocaine cocaine directly stimulates
these systems that produce positive
emotion it's like so there's no mystery
there the mystery with cocaine is very
very simple why don't people take
cocaine all the time until they die
that's the mystery really because you
can get isolated rats to do that so and
and for some people alcohol has the same
kind of effect except it's mediated by
opiates but more often what people have
to do to get themselves out of an
addictive process is to find something
better to do to replace it and so I
would say the problem with the gadgets
and I mean they're amazing things is
that they interfere with they
proximately interfere with medium to
long-term goals I would say and so I
think the first thing you have to do to
bring them under control is figure out
what it is that their use is interfering
with it has to be something important so
you think well I want to do something
important what is that
it could be personal maybe you want to
have a relationship you want to get
married you you want to have kids you
want to have a career that's meaningful
you know you wanna have a life you you
want to have an Abrahamic adventure and
be the father of Nations let's say we
can't be ratting away on your cell phone
in doing that and so I think I think
part of it is to set your sights high
and make a plan and figure out who you
could be and see if obsessive
utilization of smartphone fits into that
vision of nobility and it will partly
because they're they're unbelievably
powerful communication devices but so so
often it's it's for lack of something
better to do and it also interferes so
that's about the best I can do with that
[Applause]
hello dr. Peterson so you've been you've
been talking with some of the
conservative candidates for leadership
this year any you talked with most all
of them right not all of them but a
number of them yes you talked with
Andrew though right yes I did
yes so so something very interesting
popped up in my Facebook feed so it was
a ad for the Conservative Party and it
was suggesting that we thought you cut
funding to public universities that
don't support free speech and yeah that
was probably my fault yeah see precisely
because because this is something you
say in some of your Wilder moments you
suggest that we should cut the
university's funding by 25% and let them
battle it out for the remains and he's
taken that you know his his platform but
now what you're doing is well you're
well one of the things you're doing is
you've created this website that
identifies the postmodern lexicon and
helps people distinguish between
postmodern courses and not and so people
don't take them or take them if they
want yeah yeah so that's it's it's it
would be interesting to know like what
sort of malevolent postmodernist just
study you meticulously and try to use
all your knowledge of it anyway
so but but what you've said though you
said that what we need to do is starve
it out from the yeah look so yeah I do I
know where you're going so about two
weeks ago three weeks ago I went up to
northern Saskatchewan and my parents
have a cottage up there it's way the
hell out in the middle of nowhere and
there's no cellphone although we do have
internet now which is you know probably
bad and good but anyways I got to take a
bit of a break which was good because I
haven't really been able to think
because you know more broadly about will
say what I'm doing cuz who they held I
don't know what the hell I'm doing
exactly this is a this is all very
strange and but but one thing I thought
about I was out on the lake I was
canoeing around and I thought I had
thought about war you know because I was
very irritated I'm very irritated about
what's happened to the universities and
there's a hint of malevolence about it
and I I'm not a fan of ideological
possession and I've been set back up on
my heels a lot over the last eight
months by the the onslaught of what
emerged when I said that there was words
I wouldn't say and so it's put me into a
defensive posture let's say and I had
been thinking in terms of war metaphors
you know like this is a battleground and
that there's a war going on an
ideological war and I do believe that
that's true but then I was reading and I
did this partly for this course I was
reading the Sermon on the Mount and one
of the things that says is resist not
evil
and I don't know what to make of that
line and so I was talking to a bunch of
people about it and reading about it a
lot and trying to figure out what it
meant and partly what it means is don't
waste time right because when you
fighting against something then there's
something else you're not doing and then
I thought also when I was out there on
the lake I thought well do I really want
to be in a war because of war that's not
that's not that's not that's not heaven
that's for sure
it's really stressful and people get
hurt and so I thought well maybe that's
just the wrong way of thinking about it
even though there's a battleground issue
here and I thought well wait a second
maybe maybe the right thing to do in a
situation like this and this is maybe
something that those on the alt-right
might consider is that the right thing
to do maybe is to outline a better way
rather than go up directly on the attack
now that might be seem somewhat at odds
with my idea of the website and perhaps
it is somewhat a towards without I'm I'm
not sure about that but what I'm trying
to do instead of conducting this like a
war let's say is to conduct it like a
movement towards something better and
and that would be better now with
regards to cutting the universities
funding I thought about that too and I
thought wait a second that's not going
to work out
because it's inviting political
interference into higher education
now the political interference might be
of the counterbalancing kind because the
evidence that the humanities in
particular have tilted almost a hundred
percent to the left is overwhelming and
so maybe some counterbalance from the
right would set things more towards the
middle but the problem is is when you
open up the door to political
interference with higher education
content you can't close the door again
and so on reflection I thought that it
probably was a suboptimal idea and that
would be better instead was to and what
of this is what I want to do when I
launch the website I want to ask
students the students who will be using
it's like what do you want from
university because here's here's your
options you can you can come out
ideologically possessed right you can
buy this doctrine this pathological
doctrine and you can become bitter and
resentful and you won't learn to
communicate properly and you won't read
the great works of civilization and you
won't learn to think and write you won't
become Noble in body and spirit is that
what you want or do you want the
opposite do you want a real education
and then I want to explain what that
means like I did tonight to some degree
you know that there's absolute value in
learning how to put yourself together
and to communicate and to familiarize
yourself with with with the classic
works of civilization and I want to
offer that I want to do what I can to
offer that as the proper alternative
instead of staying in sconce tin this
notion of a battle which is just I just
don't think it's the right metaphor so
either in dr. Peterson I just want to
say that I think what you're doing is
absolutely miraculous it helps change my
life and I'm sure at least raise your
hand if dr. Peterson has helped change
your life so for the better or for the
worse ask him to look at it well it's
about it's about 40 people maybe and
that's miraculous you know and I think
and and you're thinking is gonna be it's
gonna be it's gonna be all over the
place in the Canadian election in two
years and I think that God that's a
horrible thing to go
you better watch out for it buddy and
uni and and and there's there's gonna be
a lot of talk about how how how andrew
shears political message is gonna stem
from yours and i think it's really
important that he he doesn't censor
himself like other conservative
politicians are doing and because i
don't know we need to and unite under a
valid thoughtful articulate conservative
voice and what do we have now we have we
have trump that's what's you know we
don't have any we don't have any strong
articulate male voices in our in our in
our political discourse right now that's
what it's definitely time for you to
develop one so looks like you're on the
right path yes great belt it out man
okay so i'll try to be succinct I have
two comments and one question okay first
comment as you mentioned how you were
prevented from uploading your YouTube
video from last week yeah I actually
turned that lecture and I make pretty
detailed notes okay I've got it
it's my accounts reinstalled restored
rien stored hahaha restored yeah and so
it's okay it's okay it's it's
straightened out and I'm going to upload
all the videos to a bunch of other sites
and so this isn't going to happen again
so but I appreciate that some lectures
and I do one okay yeah my second comment
is about sort of kind of going into the
commentaries of christian theologist
over the centuries like you've done
yourself i just would like to encourage
everybody to also look at not just
Western Christianity but also Eastern
Christianity like the Orthodox writings
there's a big difference between the two
and that the Western sort of theology
comes out of the Roman Roman law Roman
justice so there's a lot more of an
emphasis on cannot justice and Christ
came he died on the cross bar
so there's that look kind of like legal
payback mmm right whereas the Eastern
the Eastern theology is a lot more it
focuses a lot more in love and on sort
of the the positive aspects and if you
do read like the first four centuries of
Christianity where there was no schism
there's very little mention of like a
sort of legalistic framework it's a lot
more I don't know a per se or a more
heartfelt I guess so I think it's
important that we also in the West look
at the Eastern counterparts had the
center of this malevolence that you
mentioned so like you know this whole
thing about demonizing the opposition
saying that they're they're heartless
they haven't all of this and that I
perceive that as a lot of fake love and
I think that we have to keep in mind
what true love is sometimes it looks
ugly like in dealing with psychiatric
patients maybe like other countries are
not as liberal as Canada but the gate
results are a lot more often you know
psychiatric patients on on the road for
example in Greece where I'm from so yeah
that's kind of my comment that we need
to focus a lot more on what real love is
I think and not just the the kind of
love that he can put on a scale because
I don't need to keep put love on a scale
so I've been talking and some of you
know to this guy Jonathan pazzo who's a
an orthodox Carver and he started a
YouTube channel and he's talking a lot
about Orthodox issues and I'm pretty
ignorant when it comes to Orthodox
Christianity but from what I understand
of it so far there's plenty to be
learned
so yeah I'm Orthodox myself I just
recently came back to my faith two years
ago basically that was the original
Christianity then there was the Schism
of 1054 between East and West because of
the the conflicts that these new
shamanic Christians have with the Pope
and then after that you also had the
schism internally within the West
between Catholicism and and the
Protestants so that's kind of like the
big difference said that Christianity
actually came from the East so I think
that's why it's important that we look
at the most ancient types because those
were the ones that were closest to the
original message so not my question
it's about atheism back
you might hear a lot of times people
criticizing anybody that has any sort of
belief in a deity or God that you're
just somebody that has an imaginary
friend yeah you know like the the
Heavenly Father that you have to adhere
to that you have no well of your own you
know then there's also like wouldn't the
contrary argument be that okay so if I
have a good relationship with my father
and that's why I'm more likely to accept
a higher deity and I could I be that you
as an atheist maybe you have conflict
with your father and that's why you're
adverse to kind of submitting to a
higher being that mechanically is your
life well you're you're you're
attempting a psychoanalysis of atheism
you know and and there's many factors
that go into atheism I would say that
you could make that case in some
situations but not in all I do think
though and I think this is perhaps where
your question is stemming from is that
it's no fluke that at the same time that
one of the consequences of the death of
God that Nietzsche announced back in the
late 18-hundreds is the all-out assault
on masculinity that's occurring in our
culture now and those things are
associated and I do think that does have
to do with a lack of faith in the
masculine spirit and that's a very bad
thing because that's a bad thing for
everyone obviously because women have a
partially masculine spirit and they have
to put up with men and so to demolish
that or to fail to nurture it which is
certainly what's occurring is just a
pathway to absolute disaster so yeah
Peterson so this is the type of question
that you hate because it's in the
category of white why you believe what
you believe and it's a type of question
that makes you say if I have it right
from the last time quote what the hell
makes you think it's any of your
business song right okay try to frame it
properly okay and I'm asking this at
lecture 10 of 12 and after having
listened to quite a few hours of you
here and elsewhere okay and in so in
your second interview with transluminal
media you lay out a few things I have
some quotes here I'll skip them for
brevity you get to the point where
you're discussing the embodiment of the
logos by christ as a historical figure
and then you say quote is this
resurrection real did his body resurrect
I don't know in today's lecture you've
alluded to the fact that there are
states of consciousness that perhaps we
don't know how to access anymore and
let's say that I'm with you there let's
say I'm with the idea that they're
unknown there are unknown ways to get
intimations of the divine that the
embodiment of the logos is associated
with physiological transformations the
upper limits of which are unknown and
that we might currently classify as
paranormal but to dumb it right back
down to my level I'm asking about the
guy commonly depicted with long hair
nailed to a cross until that is a
doorknob and all of this goes to the
heart of the question of literalism and
religious interpretation it goes to the
heart of kind of you know what we're
doing here at this lecture series are we
examining the psychological significance
of these stories or are we entertaining
the possibility of these fantastical
events I might be struggling with the
concept but I haven't been able to
square away and reconcile those
statements by you so the question is on
the on the question of the resurrection
of Christ why is your answer to your own
question
I don't know instead of at the very
least probably not
well you're definitely right about me
hating that question well I called this
series to psychological significance of
the biblical stories for a reason you
know and the reason was that I'm
partially qualified to talk about such
things when I step outside of that then
I'm not where I should be I don't think
that see I don't think that this is I'm
not gonna get this right I can't get the
words exactly right this isn't about
what I believe personally it's partly
because I don't know what I believe I
don't know what I believe the world's a
very strange place I've had some very
strange experiences in it I don't think
it's helpful for me to step outside my
my jurisdiction and speculate precisely
the easiest thing would be to say I
think I said what I had to say today I
don't think that we know what the upper
limits of human possibility are I don't
know what that means metaphysically what
I do understand from the Gospels is that
even the accounts of Christ's
resurrection are complex and difficult
to understand I think from reading you
in large part that you can make a very
strong case for the symbolic meaning of
the death and resurrection I think it
does stand for the capacity of the human
logos to die and resurrect continually
as it strives upward I'm not willing to
say that that's all it means because I
don't know what everything means and I
don't know about the fundamental
metaphysics of being like I do believe
that it's accurate to construe being as
a battleground between good and evil
I believe that I believe that is the
most accurate way of representing being
it's not the most accurate way of
representing the object
world that's not the same thing being is
that set of experiences which we inhabit
and that's only partly objective and
it's not obviously reducible to the
material not in any straightforward way
because we don't understand the material
substrate of being at all you know it's
it's and when we do attempt to
understand it say at the quantum level
we run into mysteries that that baffle
the most the most intelligent of us and
aware so I'm going to have to leave the
question hanging but partly because
partly because I don't know what I think
but partly because there has to be a
line between what I believe and what
what I can communicate you know what you
believe is beyond your capacity to
articulate if you the most the deepest
levels of belief and I can only share
with you what I have actually come to
understand and there's things that I
don't understand and that's definitely
one of them I don't know how to draw a
line between the symbolic significance
of the biblical events say the symbolic
and psychological significance of the
biblical events and the metaphysics
that's underneath them and I think you
see the same thing in Jung because when
Jung writes technically and formally he
never talks about God he always talks
about the image of God which is not the
same thing the image of God would be
your subjective experience of God it
says nothing about the objective reality
of God because your subjective
experience can't say much about
objective reality but even in Jung you
get this mix you know sometimes it's
psychological but then he he makes a
metaphysical move and I think that
reflected also his the limits of his
knowledge because Jung had profound
revelatory experiences it was a very
strange person you know and I I think so
I think what's best for me is to stay on
the ground that I am competent on and to
say what I can say about the psychology
and to reach beyond that briefly when
it's necessary but other than that to
leave it to hell alone till I understand
it better assuming that I ever do so
[Applause]
because of these lectures I've been
reading the Bible and I'm obviously not
finished but I'm fairly familiar with
with how it goes and I've been thinking
about two parts of it in specific which
is the story of Isaac and the
crucifixion of Christ and particularly
one of the things like that Christ says
on the cross which is my God my God why
have you forsaken me
and I've been trying to understand that
because that's one hell of a thing for
the Son of God to say and you think that
would have been edited out yeah no
seriously it's like why isn't that gone
you know it it it's it's very
inconvenient
yeah and in well we haven't you haven't
touched on the story of Isaac yet but
there's this thing the cult typology
which I'm sure you're aware of but
basically the idea that what's going on
in the Old Testament is sort of the
laying out of types for Christ and that
Isaac is essentially a type of Christ
because they have all these similarities
and so I've been thinking about it in
that context and thinking about the
parallels between them in between Isaac
and Christ and one of the things I also
struck me was mostly the differences
between Isaac and Christ in the main
difference it seems to me is sort of a
difference in direction of sacrifice so
the sacrifices of Abraham Abraham
sacrificing his son to God and then the
sacrifice of Jesus is God sacrificing
his son to mankind and I've been trying
to understand basically how that works
and in relation to the new and Western
civilization for 2,000 years yeah well
there is these transformations of
sacrifice right that can so the next
thing that happens in these stories is
that the circumcision circumcision
starts to come in as a sacrifice and it
seems to be something like the
beginnings of replacement for sacrifice
of animals it's you know there's this
the psychologize ation of sacrifice so
first it's pure external and acted out
and then it becomes something that's
more conceptual like it becomes embodied
in the form of the circumcision and then
it becomes more conceptual and that
conceptual transformation keeps
occurring and and it seems to well it
culminates to some degree in this idea
of the sacrifice of Christ who's who's
God
his son to mankind but the sacrifice is
much more complex than that right it's
also Christ sacrificing himself to God
and and I think that the the issue there
is something like well let's say you're
supposed to offer up the best that you
have to God that's the sacrifice that's
what happens with the high quality
animals that that Abel sacrifices okay
but there's something better than the
best that you own well what's that well
part of it might be well the
relationships you have with people are
you willing to sacrifice them to pursue
the highest good well then are you
willing to sacrifice yourself or your
son like your son might be that's a
tough one I can understand the idea of
sacrificing yourself better I'm still
wrestling with this story of Isaiah
obviously because that's such a
complicated story and I do think it's
reasonable to think about it as a form
of foreshadowing
at least the way the Bible is set up of
course people who aren't Christian would
agree with that but that that's fine um
the idea that you would offer yourself
as a sacrifice to God that seems to me
to follow quite logically because well
obviously you have nothing greater to
give than the best of yourself right so
you sacrifice yourself to the highest
good and that's part of the man that's
part of the way in which humanity is
redeemed that makes sense to me that
just seems like for me that's that's a
pretty straightforward psychological
truth the son issue that's that's a lot
tougher thing to wrestle with because
one of the things I was thinking with
the with what Jesus says on the cross is
that one of the interpretations of that
is basically that Jesus in that moment
is human basically it's not this not
right it's just Jesus the human right
but that always kind of felt a little
bit like avoiding the question to me
because you can't just pause it
something like the Trinity and then say
oh but in this moment that doesn't go
right that doesn't count so but if we
think about it in that way of like the
difference in the direction of sacrifice
and it seems to me that in the sacrifice
whoever is making the sacrifice serve
aims toward something so Abraham is
so reaching for the divine when he
sacrifices when he's going to sacrifice
his son and so though I mean maybe God
is reaching toward the human and so that
would make some sense of that
interpretation that Christ is only human
in that moment right that that it's the
sacrifice is accomplished and the
reaching down is accomplished but I'm
still after a question what do I make of
that because that's one
I mean it's useful to have a problem
like that because it gives you something
to think about right and something to
study further and it's it's it's a it's
a major it's a major problem I mean the
whole issue of well we could say well
what's the relationship between the
divine and the human which is obviously
brought to the forefront and the idea of
Christ right but it's a personal issue
because part of the issue is what's the
relationship between you as a finite
entity and the transcendent infinity
that surrounds you well there's some
relationship because here you are and
the transcendent infinity around you
exists so there's a relationship the
question is what is the relationship and
and we don't know that and and and it's
dramatized in that story and so I mean
partly the the reason that there's so
much conflict and confusion in that
stories because it's trying to bring
opposing things together right how can
something be God and man at the same
time it's just like the genie which is
the root word of genius by the way the
genie is this incredibly powerful force
that can grant wishes right but it's
constrained in this tiny little space
there's an intimation there that for
something to be real it has to straddle
the divide between the finite and the
infinite and that's what human beings do
I think to some degree and that's
dramatized in that story but it doesn't
mean that we understand it I mean you
know that sometimes you're going to feel
that way when you're called upon to make
a sacrifice you're going to feel that
you've been betrayed by everything I
mean the story set up that way right
Christ is betrayed by tyranny he's
betrayed by his best friends he's
betrayed by his mortality like it's an
archetypal story because and he's
innocent so the story can't be any worse
that's why it's archetypal
and I mean the story says to some degree
that under such conditions even God
himself would have dealt it's something
like that
and that's a real that's a powerful idea
it's a very powerful idea so that's the
best I can make out of that for now we
have to stop so will so convene again in
a week thank you very much
[Applause]