Based Camp - Simone's First Thoughts on Jordan Peterson's The 12 Rules for Life

00:00:00.000 I think that's kind of what it is with Jordan Peterson that, okay, the tendency isn't exactly

00:00:04.040 to be like this paternalistic disciplined ideal, this ordered ideal.

00:00:07.620 But I think many readers would love a vision in which masculine equals order, in which

00:00:13.700 masculine is this like calm, paternalistic, ordered force that makes everything okay.

00:00:20.220 I mean, again, it brings me back to the daddy concept.

00:00:22.420 Investigated masculinity.

00:00:24.300 Yeah.

00:00:24.700 It's created almost a feminine lens through which masculinity can be translated. 1.00

00:00:29.420 I wouldn't say, no, I wouldn't say it's feminine and I wouldn't, and he would find this an 0.99

00:00:33.620 affront because he really hates infantilism, but I think it's an infantilized version of

00:00:37.920 masculinity.

00:00:38.780 Would you like to know more?

00:00:40.080 So Malcolm, you gave me a little bit of a homework assignment this week, didn't you?

00:00:44.700 Well, so we were going to do a video on some of Jordan Peterson's ideas and, and sort of

00:00:50.780 where our ideas contrast was his and where our ideas align with his.

00:00:55.440 And Simone was like, no, no, no.

00:00:56.620 We have to, yeah, I have to at least read one of his books before we do that.

00:00:59.720 Cause that's the way we read books.

00:01:00.680 Simone reads them.

00:01:01.320 She writes like a book report.

00:01:02.380 She sends it to me and then I review it.

00:01:04.120 And, and that's how we think on knowledge.

00:01:05.920 And then we'll have a conversation every day about it.

00:01:07.960 And recently she started reading her or our first Jordan Peterson book to actually, you

00:01:13.920 know, go through cover to cover.

00:01:15.460 And what's it, what's it called?

00:01:17.560 Maps of Meaning.

00:01:18.520 No, just kidding.

00:01:19.160 That's like a deep cut.

00:01:20.600 12 rules for life.

00:01:22.800 His, his big, hers, his first big for public consumption book.

00:01:26.500 And so you're about a chapter into it or?

00:01:28.880 I'm probably on chapter four or so.

00:01:31.180 You're on chapter four.

00:01:31.980 Okay.

00:01:32.180 So what we're going to talk about is your first thoughts on reading it.

00:01:36.260 What, what, what resonates with you?

00:01:38.840 What do you think he's actually communicating?

00:01:40.640 Yeah.

00:01:41.200 Or really what seems to differentiate what more specifically, what seems to differentiate

00:01:46.420 us from Jordan Peterson in his philosophy, because there's a lot that I think we hold

00:01:53.320 in common.

00:01:53.840 And then there's a lot that we really, really don't.

00:01:56.600 And it's really interesting to me.

00:01:58.060 Like I, I read a lot of what he says and I'm like, yeah, no, absolutely.

00:02:01.540 And then he'll say something else and it'd be like, oh, oh my gosh.

00:02:04.480 And nails on a chalkboard.

00:02:05.460 What are you doing?

00:02:06.680 And it's, it's unusual, I think, to come across an author, especially in the

00:02:10.620 someone discussing psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, et cetera, self-help

00:02:18.080 broadly that we sometimes really agree with.

00:02:21.680 And sometimes don't usually it's, we're 100% on board.

00:02:24.140 We're like, yeah, you're one of us.

00:02:25.640 Or we, we, this is, I can't even listen to this without having an aneurysm, even though

00:02:31.480 we will listen anyway.

00:02:32.320 So let's talk about, I mean, so the first thing that I think really, when you were talking

00:02:36.060 to me, you're like this, because this is another area that we've been digging into

00:02:39.740 recently, it seems really influenced by Jungian psychology.

00:02:44.880 Yeah.

00:02:45.480 Yeah.

00:02:45.700 I think really what he's done is he's, he's dressed up Jungian psychology to make it much

00:02:50.900 more palatable to a modern, broadly millennial, a little bit Gen Z audience by adding a ton

00:02:59.200 of evolutionary biology and neuroscience and like discussion of social science studies and

00:03:05.480 things like that to this.

00:03:06.980 So he'll mention, for example, go ahead, Malcolm.

00:03:10.100 I was going to say, you were saying yesterday when you told me about this, but not to the

00:03:13.660 core of his points.

00:03:14.860 The core of his point is typically Jungian psychology.

00:03:17.960 And then he'll add a bunch of anecdotes that might not be directly connected to it that

00:03:21.880 are like about evolutionary psychology or something.

00:03:25.520 Not necessarily.

00:03:26.360 I mean, I think it's, it's hard, it's hard for me to articulate really well, but my understanding

00:03:31.340 of a big thesis that Jordan Peterson holds is, and this is so close to what we, you specifically

00:03:38.540 have argued in the pragmatist guide to religion, but differently.

00:03:41.420 So in the pragmatist guide to religion, you point out that humans have evolved in concert

00:03:48.140 with culture and religion, that we, our biology is designed to work with culture and religion.

00:03:53.960 And when you strip that away, things fall apart, but then you proceed in, in all of our books

00:03:58.600 to make very logical arguments and appeals to people about relationships, about sexuality,

00:04:05.320 about life philosophy, about all sorts of things, right?

00:04:08.580 Like it is all, and you know, the people who, who like our books also like that we are robotic

00:04:14.340 and sociopathic and like very autistic.

00:04:17.020 And then the criticisms that we get.

00:04:18.640 Sorry, Simone, you know, the new word is hautistic.

00:04:21.840 Hautistic. 0.84

00:04:22.320 For hot autistic women, hautistic. 1.00

00:04:25.240 Hautistic. 0.85

00:04:26.400 So then the criticisms that we commonly get are, oh, you're missing the soul.

00:04:33.140 What about love?

00:04:34.360 Like there's, there's this much more like touchy feely thing.

00:04:37.160 And every time we get these criticisms, I, I think I literally lack the element or processing

00:04:43.140 or software that is required to understand what they're talking about.

00:04:45.680 Now, Jordan Peterson starts with the same argument.

00:04:48.760 He essentially says that, you know, humans have evolved with stories and religion.

00:04:53.720 This is our bread and butter.

00:04:54.800 This is how we function.

00:04:55.880 It is the software on which our hardware is meant to work.

00:04:59.320 But his conclusion is very different.

00:05:01.400 It is that, you know, science, the scientific method and rationality, these were only introduced

00:05:08.000 very recently.

00:05:09.820 Which I think is a sort of dubious claim because I mean, I think that there's a lot of logic and

00:05:14.160 like very ancient Greek thought.

00:05:15.420 But whatever, we're going to throw that aside for a second, but my, my, my very strong impression

00:05:19.980 and what I'm surprised no one's really discussing is he's basically saying, no, no, no.

00:05:25.180 Humans can't understand logical reasoning.

00:05:29.660 Humans must understand or fix themselves, fix their psychology, make decisions through

00:05:35.260 interactions with religion, through interactions with narratives.

00:05:38.760 And so that's the way he does it.

00:05:40.480 And this reminds me a lot of a podcast that Spencer Greenberg did with some kind of psychologist

00:05:45.120 and where Spencer, you can tell he's a very rational person like us.

00:05:49.620 I think he's much more like on the autist end of the spectrum. 0.97

00:05:52.120 And he, he keeps asking this person that he's interviewing, well, but is this evidence-based?

00:05:58.720 Is this psychological intervention evidence-based?

00:06:00.980 You know, what, what is it robustly proven to work?

00:06:03.740 And the, the guy he was interviewing kept saying things like, you know, it doesn't really matter

00:06:09.180 if it works for someone that it works. 1.00

00:06:10.640 Like it could be like the stupidest, like Freudian, you know, nonsense. 1.00

00:06:14.940 It could be, you know, a witch doctor. 1.00

00:06:17.040 It could be like anything that's not replicable scientifically, but if it works for a person,

00:06:21.320 then it works and that's what you should do.

00:06:22.780 And, and Spencer's just, but it doesn't work.

00:06:24.900 I don't know.

00:06:25.380 Like it's not proven or logical or rational.

00:06:27.740 And I think that this, there's this really interesting, like Jordan Peterson is helping

00:06:31.240 me to understand this like parallel universe of people who really do only see the world

00:06:39.420 in these like emotions and stories and narratives and like religious stories.

00:06:46.040 Like Jordan Peterson, for example, frequently throughout the book so far will refer to biblical

00:06:50.620 stories.

00:06:51.400 He'll refer to Dostoyevsky.

00:06:53.680 He'll refer to all sorts of fairy tales.

00:06:56.200 And I, I think it's this presumption that humans need those to, to reason.

00:07:03.580 So, so my, my secondhand read on, on hearing some of the analysis of this.

00:07:09.340 And so first let's talk about when I see something is Jungian psychology.

00:07:13.160 Cause I actually think when somebody says Jungian psychology, they're actually using a euphemism.

00:07:18.440 Jungian psychology is just Freudian psychology, but everyone knows Freud was like had some wacky 0.98

00:07:25.700 ideas and was a bit of a dumb ass at times. 0.91

00:07:28.200 And so they, instead of saying, I am a Freudian psychologist, they'll say I'm a Jungian psychologist. 0.99

00:07:33.860 Well, and I think that's broadly because like most people have heard Freud's theories and

00:07:37.800 they've also heard Freud's theories like roundly.

00:07:41.380 In a derisive context.

00:07:42.440 Yeah.

00:07:42.860 Yeah.

00:07:43.120 But then no one, not that many people have been taught about Jung.

00:07:45.960 So it's, it's a lot harder to say. 0.96

00:07:47.880 Well, and Jung didn't say as much, obviously stupid stuff, but they both, both of their 0.80

00:07:53.280 psychological frameworks are broadly about narratives, but in a different way.

00:07:59.560 So our psychological framework, you've heard from our episodes, we very much believe in

00:08:04.100 a narrative driven psychological framework, right?

00:08:06.860 But we see the narratives as really instrumental tools to dominance over your mind.

00:08:14.860 Yeah, well, yeah, so the problem, it's, it's like you agree with Jordan Peterson, but at

00:08:18.920 the same time, rather than you still assume that the human is rational, you're like, instead

00:08:22.840 of using a narrative to like dumb it down for the human.

00:08:25.400 I assume that humans can hijack these systems that they have.

00:08:28.980 I still think at the end of the day, everything in our brains is mechanical and broadly understandable,

00:08:34.620 but the way, the tool you use for engaging them can be intentionally constructed narratives.

00:08:41.460 However, a, to a Jungian psychologist, the way that they actually structure their logic

00:08:48.520 when thinking about the human mind is in terms of narrative.

00:08:52.020 So Jungian and Freudian psychology is, is it the, the core difference between it in our

00:08:59.460 psychology, right?

00:09:00.740 Is our system says, yes, narratives are important to restructuring the mind.

00:09:06.220 But when you are engaged with the logical thought and trying to figure out how the world should

00:09:11.340 work, you can ignore narratives, have these logical, these brief moments of actual logical

00:09:17.800 thought, and then use that logical thought to build the narrative tools to begin hacking

00:09:22.880 the rest of the system.

00:09:24.000 Okay.

00:09:24.740 Whereas for Freud, when he's trying to investigate the mind, when he's trying to determine how the

00:09:31.500 world actually works, and this is the chemistry for Jungian psychology, they work, they lean

00:09:35.840 really heavily into narratives, into analogies and into stories in a different way of structuring

00:09:45.100 their own mental processes.

00:09:47.360 So a good example I can give of this is somebody is asking me, like, how do you structure your

00:09:52.680 mind?

00:09:53.020 And I think this is actually a really interesting question because there's a few ways that a

00:09:57.160 person can structure your mind.

00:09:58.160 So I think the way that the average, like, progressive, woke, urban, monocultural person

00:10:02.900 structure to their mind is they try to make their mind a democracy of all the various impulses

00:10:08.580 and voices in their mind, you know, whether that's their experiences from childhood, their impulses to,

00:10:16.240 I want to go have sex, their, all of the various parts of their mind, they all get a vote, and you are

00:10:21.920 mentally healthy when you have satisfied utilitarianly the maximum number of these 0.98

00:10:28.060 voices that make up who you are, you know.

00:10:31.060 We do not structure our brain that way.

00:10:32.740 We structure our brain as a complete dictatorship.

00:10:37.660 Logic is the only thing that matters.

00:10:39.960 It owns all other parts of the brain and is whipping them and telling them, you do this, you do this.

00:10:44.960 I don't care what emotional output.

00:10:47.140 I don't care what happened to you in the past.

00:10:49.040 I don't care what narratives you say.

00:10:51.520 And if you can't get out of something without another narrative, then fine, I'll make one for

00:10:56.040 you, but you'll eat it.

00:10:57.340 Oh, you need food?

00:10:58.460 Then I will make you the worst food possible, and you're forced to eat this food.

00:11:02.480 Not exactly.

00:11:03.180 I mean, we try to, you know, create good narratives for ourselves.

00:11:05.520 But at the end of the day, our brains are structured as a dictatorship.

00:11:08.780 In Jungian psychology, Freudian psychology, and Jordan Peterson mindsets, like the way that

00:11:15.340 he's approaching things, the brain is also structured as a dictatorship, but the person

00:11:21.060 in charge is the internal storyteller and not exactly the internal cold logic person.

00:11:29.540 So we have a lot in common in that we understand the importance of the storyteller, but the storyteller

00:11:35.860 is more like, for us in like a communist government, the head of PR that's still working under

00:11:41.720 the dictator and still is only putting out PR pieces that the dictator tells them to.

00:11:46.260 Whereas in Jungian psychology, the storyteller is sort of in a co-partnership with the dictator

00:11:52.300 or the dictator themselves.

00:11:53.800 Now, I'm not sure because in one part of the book I've read so far, Jordan Peterson encourages

00:12:01.220 the reader to have a conversation with oneself, like to admit one's weakness, but then be

00:12:08.040 a kinder, like a lot of his book is sort of written with, here's how to become a paternalistic

00:12:13.560 dominant, like father figure in everything, like to your children, to your friends, but

00:12:19.660 also to yourself.

00:12:20.780 And so he describes this scenario in which you notice that you are dragging your feet on

00:12:26.620 washing the dishes so you like internally promise yourself like, oh, well, what if I took you

00:12:31.140 out for an espresso if I wash the dishes?

00:12:33.180 And then he like warns the reader to, well, you'd really better take yourself out for the

00:12:36.440 espresso if you wash the dishes.

00:12:37.680 And then you'll discover that this pays dividends over time because you've learned how to incentivize

00:12:43.420 yourself.

00:12:44.260 So I don't know what that is, but I'm just saying that's not necessarily-

00:12:47.440 So listen to what he's doing there, right?

00:12:50.060 He is negotiating with the various parts of his brain through like-

00:12:56.280 He's encouraging negotiation.

00:12:57.640 Yeah.

00:12:57.920 Like in the same way that I talked about, you know, to a progressive, you want this pure

00:13:01.620 democracy among all the voices in your head.

00:13:04.420 And with us, you want a pure dictatorship while also understanding, I mean, you look at us,

00:13:10.020 right?

00:13:10.280 Like one of the core aspects of our philosophy is all humans are wretched and fallen and that

00:13:16.840 you should not be surprised that you sin, but you should never glorify the sin.

00:13:21.460 You should never say my sin is actually a virtue.

00:13:23.940 He would say the same way, but the way that he relates to these different voices in his

00:13:29.880 brain is much more appeasing instead of as a dictator who's like, I guess if I don't give

00:13:34.920 this population what they want, there's probably going to be a revolt.

00:13:37.680 It's more, okay, let's negotiate.

00:13:40.360 All right.

00:13:40.700 You want to get coffee later?

00:13:42.200 Let's do that.

00:13:43.060 You'll see that I'm trustworthy.

00:13:44.400 The, uh, it's a different way of managing the fractured self.

00:13:50.080 Hmm.

00:13:52.240 Yeah.

00:13:53.040 Um, would you say that that's accurate or like, I guess, yeah, I think what's different

00:13:58.700 about the way that Jordan Peterson presents it is he, he, he like does it in stories and

00:14:03.520 in scenarios and examples.

00:14:04.820 And we're more like, here's how it works.

00:14:07.460 So just figure it out yourself.

00:14:09.200 Like, here's the system.

00:14:10.460 We expect you to do it yourself.

00:14:12.120 Well, I mean, it's a much kinder system.

00:14:13.780 If you, if you look at him talking and everything like that, he's much more sympathetic towards

00:14:18.860 other people than we are.

00:14:20.260 Yeah.

00:14:20.580 You can tell he's, he's, he's a person who's deeply affected by sympathy.

00:14:24.180 You know, like the, him crying what a woman called men incels.

00:14:27.160 And he's like, how could you just dehumanize this huge portion of the human population?

00:14:31.520 And then, you know, somebody's like incels around us.

00:14:34.080 And I'm like, well, they're not breeding, so they don't terribly matter.

00:14:36.680 I mean, I realized they might make up a voting block for us, but long-term they're being

00:14:41.700 removed from the gene pool and they probably should be.

00:14:44.300 It's a completely different mindset.

00:14:46.280 It's a sociopathic, ruthless mindset versus this, this kind mindset that, that, that genuinely

00:14:53.360 cares about other people.

00:14:55.820 So I'd love it if you could talk about the things that he has said, where you are like,

00:15:01.480 this is nails on a chalkboard to me.

00:15:04.780 Huh?

00:15:05.760 Yeah.

00:15:06.300 A lot of it has to do with insisting, like drawing connections that I don't think are there.

00:15:13.160 He has a chapter on why it's really important to take care of yourself and how humans are

00:15:19.240 really bad.

00:15:19.880 For example, at taking medication, even if, for example, they get a kidney transplant and

00:15:23.940 having the medication to stop your kidney from getting rejected is so important.

00:15:27.840 People are even not that conscientious on that front.

00:15:30.240 And yet it appears, according to him, that the rates of successful drug administration

00:15:34.840 to pets is incredibly high, much higher than it is for humans who really, really, really

00:15:39.420 need to be taking their own meds.

00:15:41.040 So that is evidence that humans know how to administer medications and yet they don't take

00:15:44.920 care of themselves.

00:15:45.620 And then he goes into this whole, like, basically humans don't do it because original sin.

00:15:53.140 And, you know, in some ways his take is so similar to ours. 0.93

00:15:56.260 Well, humans are wretched, you know, like we're flawed, we're messed up. 1.00

00:15:59.040 He keeps saying that, you know, you are, you know, like a pathetic person and you can barely 1.00

00:16:03.060 do anything. 0.99

00:16:03.720 And he admits like he definitely is on the humans are wretched camp, but then he'll like, I think 0.94

00:16:09.420 because of his whole thesis around humans have to understand everything through stories

00:16:13.420 and religion is super strong, he'll argue things like, oh, well, we hate ourselves because

00:16:20.020 of original sin.

00:16:21.220 And he'll go into like the whole story of the Guardian.

00:16:23.740 You saw me cringe when you said that.

00:16:25.840 Yeah.

00:16:25.980 And it's just, this isn't helping me and I don't see how this is effective and I don't

00:16:31.840 even see how this is accurate.

00:16:33.060 And he, and then some other part that I just read this morning, he, he, he pointed out how,

00:16:41.320 you know, an atheist might say, well, but I'm not religious.

00:16:43.980 And so this doesn't apply to me.

00:16:45.440 And he's, you're not an atheist.

00:16:47.300 Like you should read crime and punishment.

00:16:50.040 You'll understand.

00:16:51.040 And I'm like, what, what are you even saying?

00:16:53.980 I mean, like I read crime and punishment and sure it's, it's, it's not really a story

00:16:58.360 about atheism. 1.00

00:16:59.780 It's a story about stupidity and poverty and, and like gross people with yellow teeth. 1.00

00:17:05.460 I don't know what to say. 1.00

00:17:06.820 So a lot of, a lot of it is, I guess what, what's rubbing me the wrong way is I feel like

00:17:11.160 there's a certain amount of intellectual gatekeeping taking place.

00:17:15.440 And maybe what works a lot about Jungian psychology and all this narrative-based arguing, and maybe

00:17:20.080 this happens a lot within religious communities is people to sort of start using these stories

00:17:24.680 and these analogies and like our mind is trained to get like lulled into a sort of sense of

00:17:30.180 calmness and you're kind of following the story and yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:17:33.380 And you sort of like lose yourself in it and everything sort of becomes yes, Andy.

00:17:38.740 And then you just assume that, oh yeah, it's right.

00:17:40.760 Of course.

00:17:41.260 Correct.

00:17:41.720 You sort of stop thinking critically because you're following the story.

00:17:46.280 But I think that's a way to trick people into thinking that you're right without arguing

00:17:50.820 anything substantive.

00:17:52.040 Maybe that's what's rubbing me the wrong way.

00:17:53.500 I agree exactly is what you're saying.

00:17:56.340 It's, it's, it's the, the flute player to the, to the snake, right?

00:18:01.080 Like Jungian psychology can soothe parts of your, your mind, you know, it can, but it's

00:18:08.240 very similar to mystical thinking in a religious context.

00:18:11.960 And people should know how antagonistic we are to mysticism and mystical thinking.

00:18:16.380 I mean, I think it just intrinsically comes off in like the way that we engage things.

00:18:20.200 Jungianism can almost be thought of as the secular version of mystical thinking.

00:18:25.760 And I, I agree with what you're saying there.

00:18:29.200 And it reminds me, you know, when you talk about him in religion, something you said to

00:18:34.060 me on a walk one day, when you were comparing me to Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate in our

00:18:40.520 engagement with religious ideals, where you're like, Malcolm, you've got God.

00:18:45.560 Like you, by that, what you mean is I 100% both believe in a God and I'm like really,

00:18:54.660 really, really dedicated to that.

00:18:56.440 And it changes like sort of, I guess you could say the passion was which I pursue life and

00:19:02.880 the look behind my eyes to an extent.

00:19:05.060 And you're like, Jordan Peterson is someone who sees the value in getting God, but that

00:19:10.200 doesn't have God and, and it sees no path for him to get it.

00:19:14.760 And, and because of that, you feel a deep sadness from everything he's doing.

00:19:18.880 Well, I don't know.

00:19:19.520 I don't know if he doesn't have God.

00:19:20.940 I mean, I do.

00:19:21.800 There is a lot of, there's definitely a preachery feel from his book and there, there is a different

00:19:31.100 type of religious zeal.

00:19:32.780 I think maybe you're just differentiating like, what did you mean when you said this

00:19:37.300 on the walk or have you changed your mind when I, what, when I said what, that I just

00:19:42.840 didn't feel like you didn't feel that this was your, your analysis on the walk was he

00:19:48.800 was somebody who understood the value of having it, but wasn't able to get himself to really

00:19:53.940 believe it.

00:19:54.600 And so he was preaching it without like really engaging himself.

00:19:58.420 And then you contrast it with Andrew Tate, which is somebody who both understood the

00:20:02.540 value in it and was trying as hard as he could to believe it, but really didn't fully like

00:20:09.020 it hadn't clicked for him yet or something.

00:20:11.060 And, and so you could see a bit more passion behind what he was doing, but there was an

00:20:16.460 underlying discomfort.

00:20:17.700 I think the difference between faith and Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate is more, I don't think

00:20:24.080 that they necessarily have differing levels of faith.

00:20:26.380 They have differing flavors of faith.

00:20:28.080 So I think Jordan Peterson is someone who extremely logically chose to have faith.

00:20:36.460 I don't get the impression that he's felt faith really strongly.

00:20:41.040 Like he's not been like moved.

00:20:42.980 He doesn't act like someone who's been like moved by Jesus or anything.

00:20:46.400 And he sounds like someone who has studied very deeply the Bible and sort of decided for

00:20:52.200 himself that, that Western Christianity, broadly speaking is sort of the correct way and the

00:20:59.820 way to be.

00:21:00.540 Whereas my impression is that with religion, Andrew Tate takes a much more charismatic and

00:21:07.300 intuitive and like gut sense impression with religion.

00:21:12.060 Like he's less like getting into the weeds with the literature and more, here's what resonates

00:21:16.800 with me.

00:21:18.420 Here's what I'm going to personally run with.

00:21:20.640 But I don't think that they necessarily have varying levels of faith.

00:21:23.800 I mean, I think to say like being moved in a very like spiritual or emotional way doesn't

00:21:29.240 necessarily mean that you're more faithful than someone who just engages in a less, like

00:21:33.140 a slightly more dispassionate, but still intellectually very passionate way with a religion.

00:21:37.260 That makes a lot of sense.

00:21:39.660 Yeah.

00:21:39.780 And I do, I do agree that it's the, it's the, the charismatic aspects that are appealing

00:21:44.220 to Andrew Tate, the, the self narrative modifying aspects as well.

00:21:49.240 Whereas it was Jordan Peterson.

00:21:50.740 I do think that he is very ordered in his thought maybe or more ordered.

00:21:56.700 He's just uses a different hierarchy for how he orders his thought than we use.

00:22:02.800 Now, something else you had mentioned to me was the way he regarded women in the book.

00:22:06.140 You found off-putting or.

00:22:07.880 Right.

00:22:08.140 Yeah.

00:22:08.400 A really recurrent theme in the book so far, at least.

00:22:11.080 And it's, I'm, I'm only assuming it's going to be repeated ad nauseum for the rest of the

00:22:15.400 book.

00:22:15.500 You said everything's repeated ad nauseum.

00:22:17.500 No, no, no.

00:22:17.820 Well, no, no.

00:22:19.200 Specifically this, which is the concept of order and chaos.

00:22:22.960 And it's, it's even kind of a little bit, it'll take you away as a reader because he'll

00:22:27.800 refer to in every chapter, even including the like forward or introduction, the difference

00:22:33.380 between order and chaos with order being symbolized by the feminine and chaos being masculine.

00:22:38.460 Sorry.

00:22:39.080 Sorry.

00:22:39.540 I mixed that up because to me, they're so interchangeable with, with chaos being represented by the

00:22:44.740 feminine and, and order being represented by the masculine.

00:22:47.940 And chaos is the child who's sick in the night.

00:22:50.220 And order is that the day that is structured and productive and like all these sorts of things.

00:22:54.360 Like he'll give, he'll give the example and he'll talk about like the Taoist, yin and yang.

00:22:58.520 And then he'll talk about various examples of order and chaos.

00:23:02.520 And it just, it's interesting to me.

00:23:04.480 And I'm getting this throughout the book that there's this very, it's, it definitely comes

00:23:08.200 across as extremely patriarchal.

00:23:10.180 And I don't say this in any sort of feminist sense, but like he just wants, he's, he's definitely

00:23:14.720 creating this ideal of a, a dominant masculine daddy figure.

00:23:19.960 Like the, all like the jokes about him being like the internet's daddy are so spot on because

00:23:24.360 that's sort of, he's like the stern father patriarch.

00:23:26.940 And he's trying to teach the reader how to be a patriarch to themselves and a patriarch

00:23:31.300 to everyone else.

00:23:31.980 But then this, this concept, and it does annoy me of, well, chaos is feminine and order is 0.59

00:23:38.960 masculine because it's very easy to switch that in the other direction.

00:23:42.200 You know, well, chaos is, is men and violence and war and order is like oppressive female 1.00

00:23:48.800 bureaucracy and politicking.

00:23:51.400 It's funny that you say that because the moment you said that, if I was going to assign a gender

00:23:55.120 to chaos versus order, males would be chaos and females order, but in, in, in, in, in

00:24:00.820 potentially even a negative way, like you say, the order of bureaucracy is intrinsically

00:24:04.820 feminine.

00:24:05.560 And we've talked about this.

00:24:06.760 I mean, think like Mars versus Athena, you know, I just, well, and this is the way that

00:24:10.780 we've also structured gender within our relationship.

00:24:13.000 You know, you, I'm the order and you are the chaos.

00:24:16.540 That's why I mentioned shield hero and shovel night.

00:24:19.200 If we, if we go to the games, I actually prefer plague night and Mona.

00:24:22.140 I think that's my, my OTP in that game, but the idea of a wife and we'll eventually get 1.00

00:24:28.160 some art commission like this.

00:24:29.160 Cause I actually really liked the idea of husbands and wives taking on roles and you

00:24:33.820 can choose which role you take on.

00:24:35.540 I don't know if it's an intrinsically feminine or masculine one, but I think that the way that 0.96

00:24:39.600 our family structures, it is, is you, the woman are holding the shield. 1.00

00:24:43.740 You make sure that we have financial stability, that our, our kids are basically handled, that

00:24:49.040 our stuff is basically handled, that our taxes are basically handled, everything like that.

00:24:52.420 And whenever we're doing like a risky thrust at the enemy, whenever we are potentially moving

00:24:58.940 ahead, whether it's press outreach or a new company before it like becomes a stable source

00:25:03.920 of income or a like new investment strategy, that's where all that stuff goes to me.

00:25:08.440 And so our relationship is based on, you are the backbone.

00:25:12.140 You are the stability that, that takes all of life's hits for us.

00:25:17.580 And I am the person who's in charge of moving us forwards and, and reaching out and, and,

00:25:23.920 and stabbing.

00:25:24.900 And so I often see us in the relationship is you are the shield bearer and I am the, the

00:25:31.820 sword wielder or the shovel wielder, the, the, the spear wielder, depending on how we want

00:25:37.420 to structure this partnership.

00:25:38.700 And that's the opposite of ordering chaos.

00:25:40.880 Well, beyond that, biologically men and women, like to me, I think are the opposite. 1.00

00:25:45.000 Like biologically women are, are like bell curve wise, right? 1.00

00:25:47.780 Like they're more likely to be closer to the center of the bell curve.

00:25:50.600 They're outliers.

00:25:51.540 Like they're, they're far more likely to be mediocre.

00:25:53.980 They have to be more conservative in their mating strategy. 1.00

00:25:57.000 Whereas like men are more likely to be all over the place on the bell curve.

00:26:01.560 Only a few historically have gotten to reproduce.

00:26:04.060 So it's kind of go big or go home.

00:26:05.260 You have to be chaotic, you have to be innovative, you have to be different and aggressive and

00:26:08.800 crazy.

00:26:09.280 And so like, where is this coming from? 0.66

00:26:11.520 And women historically, even in a traditional history context, they are the managers of the 1.00

00:26:15.820 home.

00:26:16.240 They are the rock of the family.

00:26:18.840 You know, the, the, the man is the one who is out fighting the wars and taking the risks.

00:26:25.460 And even if I look at a traditional masculine and feminine role, if people went into our house,

00:26:30.300 they went into your room, it would be perfectly clean and pristine.

00:26:32.700 If they went into my room, it would be a complete mess and they wouldn't be surprised of this.

00:26:37.900 You know, this is typical masculine and feminine sort of mindsets into how they order their 0.99

00:26:42.220 rooms and stuff like that.

00:26:43.560 If you went into a house and one room was a complete mess in one room was totally pristine,

00:26:47.640 you'd probably assume the pristine room was the woman's and the mess room was the man's. 0.95

00:26:51.560 But I think what we're getting with Jordan Peterson and what's again, interesting about

00:26:55.380 his work and the figure he has presented in culture is that he's, he is to masculinity, 0.59

00:27:04.300 what Martha Stewart is slash was to homemaking. 1.00

00:27:08.620 So Martha Stewart never presented a realistic picture of homemaking. 0.68

00:27:13.100 You know, it was never like how to get things done fast and kind of make, get the house clean

00:27:16.660 for the kids and make a dinner without them realizing it only took you 15 minutes.

00:27:20.380 You know, it was always like, I'm going to have my chickens lay these eggs and then I'm

00:27:24.200 going to hand harvest the wheat from my farm.

00:27:28.120 And then, you know, she would do something totally insane, but it was, we watched it.

00:27:31.760 We loved this show.

00:27:32.960 I loved the show.

00:27:33.780 I was kind of obsessed with Martha Stewart living because of the ideal it represented.

00:27:37.780 And I wanted a world in which I had a household like that.

00:27:40.940 And I had the chickens and I, and I did the stuff perfectly in my house was spotless and

00:27:44.760 I handmade everything.

00:27:45.700 And I think that's kind of what it is with Jordan Peterson that, okay, the tendency isn't

00:27:50.160 exactly to be like this paternalistic disciplined ideal, this ordered ideal, but I think many

00:27:55.620 readers would love a vision in which masculine equals order in which masculine is this like

00:28:01.480 calm, paternalistic ordered force that makes everything.

00:28:05.880 Okay.

00:28:06.680 I mean, again, it brings me back to the daddy.

00:28:08.600 The domesticated masculinity.

00:28:10.880 Yeah.

00:28:11.240 It's creating a, almost a feminine lens through which masculinity can be translated. 0.99

00:28:15.980 I wouldn't say, no, I wouldn't say it's, it's feminine.

00:28:18.600 And I wouldn't, and he would find this an affront because he really hates infantilism, but I think

00:28:23.060 it's an infantilized version of masculinity where, where again, like all of the jokes about

00:28:28.440 him being a daddy figure are so spot on because what he's really appealing to is a bunch of

00:28:34.600 breeders who just want like every, they just want daddy to fix it.

00:28:38.860 They just want daddy to give me a hug and tell me it's all going to be okay and fix everything.

00:28:43.980 And I wake up the next morning and it's, it's all fine and I'm protected and I'm safe, except

00:28:48.280 he's, Oh, no, don't worry.

00:28:49.660 The daddy's within you and you can be the daddy for everyone.

00:28:54.100 And I think that's, what's going on is, is that he's catering to a really infantilized

00:28:58.520 audience.

00:28:58.740 Believe in the means that believes in you.

00:29:01.160 Yes.

00:29:01.560 Sorry, that's one of my favorite character lines that I really model our relationship

00:29:06.380 after.

00:29:06.740 And we'll probably do a different one after that.

00:29:09.000 If our relationship is similar to any, any character pairing in media, it's, it's definitely

00:29:13.780 the Simone and Kamina pairing where, where I see my role as being Kamina and your role

00:29:19.740 as being Simone, which is actually a male male pairing in the show.

00:29:24.340 They are like brothers to each other, but I actually think that that's probably a better

00:29:27.460 way of structuring a married relationship than the modern way that society does it.

00:29:31.920 But yeah, believe in the me that believes in you, but you are the diligent worker.

00:29:35.200 You are the sense of stability and, and I just provide the external inspiration, but it

00:29:42.700 means nothing without your rock and, and, and without your shield protecting all of the 0.98

00:29:48.200 crazy, stupid, risky things I do. 0.92

00:29:51.380 But anyway, I really love that you have engaged with his work. 0.98

00:29:56.300 We're going to do more episodes on it for sure, because I find it really fascinating.

00:30:00.660 And I want to be clear that in this episode, what we're focusing on where we are different

00:30:04.860 from him in ideology, that's just because that's what we have the most to talk about

00:30:08.980 on.

00:30:09.340 There's less to talk about if we're like, oh, this is all the areas we agree with him.

00:30:12.300 So obviously we agree with him on a lot of things and, and yeah, we're, we're not like

00:30:17.860 antagonistic towards his work or anything like that.

00:30:21.160 We just have more to talk about in the areas we differ.

00:30:24.480 Yeah.

00:30:24.900 I think we have a lot more in common than otherwise.

00:30:27.480 So it's interesting.

00:30:29.680 It's fun.

00:30:30.080 I'm glad you gave me, I'm glad you gave me this homework.

00:30:33.220 Is that the way it worked?

00:30:34.280 Did I gave it to you as a task item?

00:30:35.840 Yeah.

00:30:36.000 You're like, Simone, I need you.

00:30:37.220 Well, because we, we have friends who keep, and we have friends, people on the internet

00:30:42.540 who constantly refer to Jordan Peterson's work, to his philosophy.

00:30:47.840 And I don't think we can engage with their arguments and with their interpretations of

00:30:54.120 it, which I'm finding now a lot of people's interpretations of what his advice is are like

00:30:58.860 really bad.

00:31:00.760 They're not getting it.

00:31:01.940 They're not remembering it right.

00:31:03.200 They're, they're getting the totally wrong message from it.

00:31:05.160 But yeah, we, we can't really have meaningful debates with people about his philosophy

00:31:09.760 if we haven't actually read the fricking book.

00:31:12.640 So good.

00:31:15.820 I love you, Simone.

00:31:16.900 And I'm so glad you do this for me that I have the type of idea where I'm like, okay,

00:31:19.640 I'm interested in this topic, read it, summarize it.

00:31:22.620 Let's talk about it.

00:31:24.160 This is, this discounts how much you do.

00:31:26.180 You've probably watched many more hours of Jordan Peterson speaking than I have read

00:31:31.920 Jordan Peterson, you know, talking through his book.

00:31:34.700 So I'm the one who went through all the Andrew Tate content before we did like a series

00:31:39.940 on him and stuff like that.

00:31:41.140 Really interesting.

00:31:42.100 He's, he's smarter than people give him credit for, but I'm more pessimistic on other people

00:31:48.440 than you are.

00:31:50.640 We'll see.

00:31:52.680 Love you.

00:31:53.860 I love you too.

00:31:54.560 Yeah.

00:31:54.640 Yeah.

00:31:54.660 Yeah.

00:31:54.720 Yeah.

00:31:54.740 Yeah.

00:31:54.780 Yeah.

00:31:54.800 Yeah.

00:31:54.820 Yeah.

00:31:54.840 Yeah.

00:31:54.880 Yeah.

00:31:54.940 Yeah.

00:31:54.980 Yeah.

00:31:55.020 Yeah.

00:31:56.880 Yeah.

00:31:56.940 Yeah.

00:31:56.980 Yeah.

00:31:57.020 Yeah.

00:31:57.040 Yeah.

00:31:57.080 Yeah.

00:31:57.100 Yeah.

00:31:57.120 Yeah.

00:31:57.140 Yeah.

00:31:57.200 Yeah.

00:31:59.140 Yeah.

00:31:59.160 Yeah.

Based Camp - September 11, 2023

Simone's First Thoughts on Jordan Peterson's The 12 Rules for Life

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