With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way. In his new series, he provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn t easy, it s absolutely possible to find your way forward. If you re suffering, please know you are not alone. There s hope and there s a path to feeling better. Go to Dailywire Plus now and start watching Dr. Peterson s new series on Depression and Anxiety. Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve. Dr. B. has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety. We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling, and offer a moment of support to anyone listening who might be struggling with these conditions. We ve all been there before, and it s not too late to make a difference. Today s episode is a must-listen for anyone who s struggling with depression or anxiety, or is struggling to find the help they need. Let s make it through this episode a resource that can be a beacon of hope, encouragement, and encouragement. You re not alone in this dark time. Thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing it with others who are struggling. Peace, love, and gratitude, and support, and keep on keeping on keep on fighting, and keeping on fighting! - Eternally grateful, Eternally Grateful. - Caitlin Durante - Dr. Michelle . . . Dr. . - J. Peterson , J. , J. B., J. R. Peterson, J. M. & J. P. ( ) ( and J. C. ( ) . ( . . Thank You, Caitlyn, J . . J. E. ( ) (J. M., J.) ( ) (J.) (A. (J) ( ), J. S. (S. (C. ) (Caitlyn (J). (R.) (A) & P. (P. (A.) ) . . D. (D. (K. J. L. (M. (E.) ) ? (C) ( ) )
00:00:00.960Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
00:00:06.480Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.
00:00:12.740We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.
00:00:20.100With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.
00:00:27.420He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.
00:00:35.360If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.
00:00:41.800Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.
00:00:47.460Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.
00:00:57.420I told you at the beginning of the class that I started working on this material,
00:01:17.660partly because I was interested in why people were so inclined to go to any lengths to protect their belief systems.
00:01:33.820I wanted to understand, and I knew that those were systems of value, right?
00:01:38.140That a belief system is something that enables you to ascribe value to things so that you can act in the world towards things and away from things, roughly speaking.
00:01:51.020And I've already made a case to you that belief systems regulate people's emotions,
00:01:59.340but not as a consequence of decreasing their death anxiety or anything like that,
00:02:07.260or even directly decreasing their threat sensitivity or uncertainty,
00:02:13.480but more specifically by helping them orient themselves in the world
00:02:18.760so that what they do matches what they want in the social environment.
00:02:23.700And it's an important set of distinctions because the emotional control that belief systems allow is mediated by success in the social environment.
01:44:30.420in the enume elish the deep is personified as the goddess taimat the enemy of marduk
01:44:36.040here it is the formless body of primeval water surrounding the habitable world
01:44:40.360okay so but we know taom and tiamat are the same word or at least taom was derived from taimat so the idea that's presented at the beginning of genesis is the same it's an abstracted and psychologized representation of the story that the mesopotamians put forward so yahwah is marduk roughly speaking going out and conquering the dragon of chaos and making order out of it and then there are these allusions later say in job and in the psalms of him doing exactly that
01:45:09.420what conquering a primordial monster and making the world out of its pieces well so what does that mean exactly well it means that the highest ordering principle is the spirit that goes out into the darkness or the deep that encounters the dragon of chaos because obviously leviathan is a dragon and defeats it and feeds the people as a consequence well we are hunting creatures after all and in order to establish our place in the world we had to go out there and conquer the dragons of the wilderness you might
01:45:39.300wonder why does a dragon breathe fire well there's a bunch of reasons as far as i can tell fire is awe inspiring so fire and a terrible predator are the same thing because they both inspire awe fire is transforming but predate like what's a good metaphor for being bitten by a poisonous snake well have you ever seen the wounds that a poisonous snake produces if you're bitten by them it's like someone took your arm and incinerated it and so
01:46:07.440the idea that a snake has fiery breath is well let's call it close enough from a metaphorical perspective right now god is claiming to job that he's the spirit that clear that clears the wilderness and then builds order out of chaos and because because because he's the embodiment of that spirit in some sense job has no reason to ever question his moral decisions it's something like that in the story of job but the point that that point will
01:46:37.300leave aside because it's a more complicated issue the point is that the writers of the bible are trying to dream up a representation of the spirit of civilization that's the right way to think about it you can think of yahwah as the spirit of civilization and what is that well it's the thing that encounters the wilderness and makes habitable order but then it's also the spirit of the order itself and that's i think why in christianity there's a representation of god the father because he's a representation of
01:47:05.420the culture that the the culture that's the the chaos is the curse of the스�こと that the justice of the generation of superheroes and orders the spirit of the world and Uhm you have the spirit of the order and the spirit of the order
01:47:20.280there's a dynamic relationship between the culture and the spirit that generates the culture and then you might also ask should the culture be superordinate to
01:47:33.340And the answer seems to be, the emergent answer seems to be that the spirit that generates the culture should be superordinate to the spirit of the culture. It's something like that. And that's also why I think that one of the brilliant discoveries, let's say, of Western individualistic civilization is that the group is there to serve the individual because the individual is the thing that revivifies the group.
01:47:59.380So each depend on the other integrally. But if you subordinate the individual to the group, then the group stagnates and dies. And so that's a very bad long-term strategy, even though the group and belonging to the group is clearly necessary. You need to uphold the values of the group, but the values of the group should be subordinated to producing the individual who gives the group vision.
01:48:19.800And the Mesopotamians figured that out. The Egyptians figured that out. We figured it out. We just don't know that we figured it out. And it's not a mere arbitrary supposition.
01:48:28.800All right. So I should show you because this is actually interesting, I think, perhaps.
01:50:22.280God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air and over the cattle and all of the earth.
01:50:30.040And over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
01:52:20.320You know, because people often complain about the patriarchal structure of the Bible.
01:52:23.880It's based on a misapprehension of anthropology that was popularized by someone named Gimbutas at UCLA.
01:52:30.100Which is, for her perspective, there's not a shred of historical evidence.
01:52:34.700Although there's some psychological truth in it.
01:52:37.240In Genesis, both men and women are created in the image of God.
01:52:41.480And that's quite a remarkable thing, I think.
01:52:43.620It's a remarkable part of the document.
01:52:45.780Because it's not what you'd expect from a patriarchal, you know, from a document that was designed to do nothing but extend the dominion of the patriarch.
01:52:53.560It's like you would have left women with the damn cattle.
01:52:55.700That would have made things a lot easier.
01:53:02.120Well, that's the image of the thing that can order chaos.
01:53:04.380And so it's necessary to treat you as if you have intrinsic value.
01:53:10.400Because the fact that you can partake in the process of mediating between order and chaos means that you're basically the salvation of society.
01:54:51.040Is it true that habitable order is dependent on the spirit that moves into the unknown and takes the Leviathan and chops it into pieces and distributes it?
01:54:59.800And the answer to that is, yes, that's true.
01:55:23.980You know, we're not exactly necessarily going out to conquer an embodied monster, although we do that if we hunt, for example.
01:55:31.980But, you know, most of us don't do that anymore.
01:55:34.180But to the degree that you're an explorer in the intellectual realm, you're still going out into the unknown and conquering what's out there looming, like maybe it's the cure for a disease.
01:55:44.600You're looking that right in the face.
01:55:46.440You're trying to decompose it and break it into its parts.
01:56:40.780You see that idea represented in the Christian conception of the relationship between Christ and God, because there's an idea that God had to empty himself out in order to fit into the body of Christ.
01:56:53.500It seems to be the idea that you're a low, it's like you're a low resolution representation of the ultimate spirit that encounters the unknown.
01:57:08.100And you could say maybe that's what human beings have in common, is that we're each an embodiment of that spirit, for lack of a better word.
01:57:16.020So, okay, so then God makes human beings, male and female, makes them in his own image, and is happy about them, and says, well, you're going to dominate the world.
01:57:27.660Which, you know, people like David Suzuki read that to say, you should go out and dominate the world, because they read that kind of patriarchal oppression into the text.
01:57:37.420But this is more a description of how things are going to be, than whether or not they should be that way.
01:57:57.560There's two creation stories in Genesis, and they actually don't match completely in their structure.
01:58:03.460And what happened was someone they call the redactor, maybe it was a bunch of people we don't know, took creation story one and creation story two from different places, and thought, well, these are sort of the same.
01:58:13.480And they're sort of different, and people are going to be unhappy if we dispense with this one, and they're going to be unhappy if we dispense this one, but they don't make sense together.
01:58:21.100So let's see if we can put them in some kind of order that makes approximate sense.
01:58:25.560And they took the newer one and put it second, and took the, sorry, they took the older one and put it second, and took the newer one and put it first.
01:58:33.620So Adam and Eve is an older story than the story that I just told you.
01:58:37.520So, but it's a different story, it's written in a different style, but it's been more or less brought into narrative coherence with the first story.
01:58:46.080So, and you could say at the level of the sentence, there is paradoxes, but at the level of the chapter, let's say the stories make sense.
01:59:54.320It's not going to be out in the middle of the damn desert.
01:59:55.920You want to be in a garden that's watered, and then you could say you also be in a walled garden that's protected, and that's what paradise means.
02:01:46.080And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air,
02:01:50.180and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
02:01:52.680And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
02:01:56.100So, that's an echo of the idea of the power of the word, right?
02:01:59.300So, even though these stories are from different traditions, they're separate traditions, you see at the beginning that God uses his word to bring order out of chaos.
02:02:07.540And then he allows Adam, in some sense, to do the same thing.
02:02:10.660It's that there's this unarticulated plethora of being, and the man comes along and says, that's that, that's that, that's that.
02:02:18.920And that brings them into a higher order form of being.
02:02:21.720So, it's a, it's a replication of the creation in a, in a shrunken form.
02:02:27.100And Adam gave names to all the cattle.
02:02:29.200Cattle are just anything that has four legs, roughly speaking, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.
02:02:35.040But for Adam, there was not found a helpmeet for him.
02:02:38.300And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof.
02:02:45.360And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man.
02:02:49.800And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
02:02:53.180She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.
02:06:33.820It's in the domain of hidden things than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
02:06:38.660And the serpent said unto the woman, hey, hasn't God said you shouldn't eat of every tree of the garden?
02:06:45.240And the woman said, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, the central fruit.
02:06:52.180God has said, you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
02:06:56.760And the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die.
02:07:00.680For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.
02:07:07.200All right, so there's another implication there.
02:07:11.380We already saw that there's the implication that Adam and Eve are not self-conscious.
02:07:17.460And now there's the implication that their eyes aren't open, or at least that they're not open fully in some sense.
02:07:22.500They're not open, for example, to the knowledge of good and evil.
02:07:25.680And that seems to be associated somehow with death in some strange way.
02:07:29.740Okay, so, and it's the serpent talking to the woman.
02:07:33.780So, the serpent is the tempter of the woman.
02:07:36.780So, the question is, why in the world would that be?
02:07:40.180I showed you those representations of Mary, right?
02:07:43.220Holding the infant up in the air with her foot on the snake.
02:07:46.020So, you think, well, who's more self-conscious?
02:09:16.340But the fact of threat itself, and the fact of mortality itself, and the fact of finitude itself.
02:09:22.680And maybe women learned that because they become painfully aware of the mortal limitations of their infants first, right?
02:09:29.780This small thing could die, could end.
02:09:34.660And certainly as an object of predation.
02:09:37.140And you can imagine, God only knows how many infants human beings lost to predators.
02:09:42.300I mean, I told you at one point, I believe that there was a cat that was found that had a skull and jaws that were specialized for biting the skulls of proto-humans.
02:09:57.120So one long tooth at the back that would drive right through the back of the skull so the cat could put its teeth here and drive the tooth right into the back of the skull.
02:10:05.740So, you know, that's a good enough dragon for our intents and purposes, I would say.
02:10:13.180Anyways, the snake comes along and opens the woman's eyes.
02:10:15.920When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree did to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.
02:10:28.940And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
02:10:34.900Well, there's a lot happening in those few lines.
02:10:37.840Now, there's a fruit thing going on there.
02:10:41.540Okay, so we know from Lynn Isbell, hypothetically, that the reason that primates like us developed our intense vision is because we co-evolved with snakes.
02:11:21.000Well, you also bring about a moral obligation when you're sharing food, right?
02:11:25.600There's an invitation to reciprocity there.
02:11:27.780And so the fact that women were sharing, let's say, ripe fruit with men also brings them into their, what would you call, builds up the basis for the potential of a reciprocal moral obligation.
02:11:40.520And the problem, again, for men with being allied with women and infants is that it also heightens their self-consciousness because you're a lot tougher and more indomitable, say, if there's just you.
02:11:51.440But as soon as you have a wife, say, and then you also have an infant, well, all the burden of their self-consciousness and their vulnerability is placed upon you.
02:12:15.660It's a lot more calming to remain asleep with no knowledge of the sort of burden of mortality that you would bear if you became self-conscious.
02:14:56.720Because what you do is, what you're doing essentially is you're taking all the potential suffering of the future and putting it into the present.
02:18:22.000Well, I see that in resentful men all the time.
02:18:25.020They're very antipathetic towards women.
02:18:28.100And they blame their misery and resentment on the fact that women won't have anything to do with them.
02:18:33.260While the women are making them self-conscious for not being all they should be.
02:18:36.400Because the women think, why should I bother with you if you're not the embodiment of the spirit that will move into the unknown and face the Leviathan?
02:18:43.540Which is exactly what she should be saying.
02:18:45.360And you're thinking, well, I don't want to have anything to do with that.
02:18:47.840But I'd like women to like me anyways.
02:19:15.000Well, it's like, actually, I'm a little more sympathetic to her than to Adam, all things considered.
02:19:19.420Because after all, she was trying to deal with the damn snake, right?
02:19:22.800And we find out that the snake is not only the thing that preys upon her infants, but as the tradition developed, it's identified with Satan himself.
02:19:30.920So, and that's the snake in every soul.
02:19:33.500That's the right way of thinking about that.
02:19:35.180So, she had her reasons, but it doesn't matter.
02:19:38.980You pay whether you have your reasons or not.
02:19:41.820And so God says to the serpent, because you've done this, you're cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field.
02:19:48.540Upon the bellies shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
02:19:52.780So, first of all, the serpent seems to have legs, right?
02:19:58.300And that's actually how it worked, by the way, because snakes had legs and they lost them.
02:20:02.720Now, you know, I'm not trying to say that this story necessarily represents that, but it's an interesting parallel.
02:20:09.060And he tells the snake, I'll put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.
02:20:17.180Well, yes, well, that's the snake striking, right?
02:20:19.320And the fact that when human beings see snakes, they want to, just like the Simpsons, whacking day, right?
02:20:25.600And that's why the many great saints are those who drive the snakes from the land, like St. Patrick or St. George and the Dragon.
02:20:32.040And it's the same representation of the hero moving out into the wilderness and confronting the predatory potential, is the right way of thinking about it.
02:21:20.780The price we paid for the rapid expansion of our brain, which is also something that gave us this self-consciousness and vision, meant that there's an evolutionary arms race between the pelvic width of women and the hole in the center of the pelvis and the infant's head.
02:21:36.700So what happens is, the infant is born far too young for a mammal of our size, because if it was any older, the head would be too big, the pelvis would have to be too wide, its structural stability would be compromised, and then women couldn't run.
02:21:50.500So right now, women are at the maximum for hip width in terms of their ability to run.
02:21:55.000So what's happened is that infants have had to be born younger with a compressible head.
02:22:00.440So, you know, the bones of an infant's skull aren't joined together, and sometimes after babies are born, their head is actually almost cone-shaped, because of the tremendous pressure that was exerted on their head during the birthing process.
02:22:13.180And, of course, that's killed innumerable women, right?
02:22:16.660I mean, women's life expectancy before, what, the latter half of the 20th century was way below men, because they died in childbirth all the time.
02:22:27.260Well, it's a very, what do you call that?
02:22:32.720It's a, it's a, it's a very narrow gateway.
02:22:37.960And the price that women pay for it is very high risk of death, very high risk of sorrow, because of, of death of children in, in childbirth, and also extraordinarily, extraordinary pain in giving birth.
02:22:49.880So that's the price women pay for having vision and being self-conscious.
02:22:54.740Well, that's, and then worse, they, they desire their husband and he'll rule over them.
02:22:59.580Well, whether or not that's good or bad, it doesn't matter.
02:23:03.200God's statement is that's how it's going to be.
02:23:05.140Well, partly that's because, as far as I can tell, there isn't really women, roughly speaking.
02:23:13.780And a woman with an infant is compromised in terms of her, what, independent individuality to a remarkable degree.
02:23:21.940Because the infant is dependent, absolutely dependent, absolutely dependent for a year.
02:23:27.140And then unbelievably dependent for like eight years after that.
02:23:31.060And then still pretty dependent for another five.
02:23:33.900So once you have an infant, it's no longer you.
02:23:37.100And I've talked to lots of women for whom that was a great relief, by the way, because it actually is somewhat of a relief to now not be the center of everything.
02:23:45.360You know, if you go visit your in-laws, for example, and you have a baby, it's like they pay attention to the baby.
02:23:51.620It's kind of nice to have that happen.
02:23:53.140But it's still an absolute catastrophe for you as an independent being.
02:23:58.600And you're not going to go out in the forest and hunt down dragons when you have an infant.
02:24:02.220So even if you could do it, you're not going to do it.
02:24:05.220And so that's basically what that statement outlines.
02:24:07.680And then to Adam, he says, because you listened to your wife and ate of that tree, which I said, you know, maybe that's not such a good idea.
02:38:12.180And the attendant answered, that's a man like other men who was born whole, but who became ill and sick, unable to cope, a burden to himself and others, suffering and incurable.
02:38:24.380Like other men, you say, inquired the prince, this could happen to me.
02:38:28.020And the attendant answers, no man is exempt from the ravages of disease.
02:38:33.180Once again, the world collapsed and Gautama returned to his home.
02:38:36.340But the delights of his previous life were ashes in his mouth and he ventured forth a third time.
02:38:44.260The gods in their mercy sent him a dead man in funeral procession.
02:38:47.800This creature, he asked his attendant, laying so still, appearing so fearsome, surrounded by grief and by sorrow, lost and forlorn.
02:38:56.480And the attendant answered, that is a man like other men, born of woman, beloved and hated, who was once you, who once was you and now is the earth.
02:39:05.760Like other men, you say, inquired the prince, then this could happen to me.
02:39:10.760This is your end, said the attendant, and the end of all men.
02:39:14.660Well, that's the end of childhood, right?
02:39:35.960That's how you replace your emergent self-consciousness with the old blissful unconsciousness.
02:39:41.460And that's exactly what suicidal people wish.
02:39:44.900They're going to destroy their painful self-consciousness and make it all go away.
02:39:51.520The world collapsed to final time and Gautama asked to be returned home.
02:39:55.860But the attendant had orders from the prince's father and took him instead to a festival of women occurring nearby in a grove in the woods.
02:40:03.540The prince was met by a beautiful assemblage who offered themselves freely to him without restraint in song, dance, and play in the spirit of sensual love.
02:40:12.060But Gautama could think only of death and the inevitable decomposition of beauty and took no pleasure in the display.
02:40:18.520Well, so, you see the parallels between one story and the other.
02:40:25.700They're the same, they have the same underlying structure.