The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 225. The Spiritual Void and the West ｜ Rav Arora

00:00:01.000 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:51.000 Welcome to Season 4, Episode 82 of the JBP Podcast. I'm Mikayla Peterson.

00:01:00.000 For this special release, Dad was interviewed by the very young and very impressive Rav Arora.

00:01:05.000 So the episode is mostly Dad, rather than him interviewing someone else.

00:01:09.000 Rav is an independent writer and blogger who examines the news, media, and pop culture from a critical, unfiltered perspective.

00:01:16.000 He's been featured on The Hill, The Ben Shapiro Show, and on my podcast a while back.

00:01:21.000 He's also a regular contributor to the New York Post, Quillette, and other journals.

00:01:25.000 Rav had great questions about spirituality, race, media misinformation, ideology, and a lot of other topics.

00:01:32.000 Remember, if you want an ad-free experience for this podcast, check out show notes or go to jordanbpeterson.supercast.com.

00:01:41.000 You can sign up for $10 a month.

00:01:43.000 That'll change the JBP Podcast you press on in Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to episodes to the ad-free version automatically.

00:01:51.000 I hope you enjoy this interview.

00:01:53.000 Hi, everyone.

00:01:54.000 This is Rav Arora, independent journalist based in Vancouver, Canada, most frequently contributing to the New York Post and the Globe and Mail.

00:02:03.000 And I am most known for writing about crime, policing, racial identity politics, and vaccine mandates.

00:02:12.000 The following wide-ranging conversation with Jordan Peterson and I centers on the absence or decline of spiritual experience in Western secular culture.

00:02:24.000 We specifically talked about how ideological worship and political activism often unknowingly replaces real spiritual practices and contemplative traditions.

00:02:35.000 Unbeknownst to me at the time of this recording several months ago, this whole conversation gradually inspired my new journalistic adventures in psychedelics, mystical experience, and new interesting mental health treatments.

00:02:52.000 Over the past few months, I've been exploring the possibilities of human consciousness and inner healing grounded in science and reason.

00:03:02.000 And my new Substack newsletter titled Noble Truths with Rav Arora documents my experiences with psilocybin mushrooms, mindfulness meditation, and talking to Sam Harris about learning how to live in the present moment and breaking down the mechanics of mental suffering.

00:03:22.000 And my new essay published today, February 10th documents my incredibly profound and transformational experience with MDMA therapy in which I journeyed into the depths of my subconscious mind and gleaned new insights and lessons to apply to my daily life.

00:03:43.000 And as I write in this essay on MDMA therapy, this whole process mirrors the hero's journey in which the hero has a call to adventure and then eventually the hero, a part of him or herself dies and then a new transformed self emerges as Jordan Peterson has talked about before several times with respect to psychedelics in particular.

00:04:09.000 So this whole conversation inspired my new work and inspired my new work and inspired my new newsletter on Substack dedicated to psychedelics and spiritual experience.

00:04:20.000 So I hope you enjoy this conversation and I hope it similarly sparks a call to adventure for inner transformation in your life.

00:04:29.000 Way we go. Nice to see you.

00:04:34.000 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you devote a whole chapter in the book about abandoning ideology and political dogmas.

00:04:43.920 Now, you know, we as humans were primed for meta narratives, right?

00:04:47.900 Like we have spiritual impulses that need to be satisfied.

00:04:51.440 And so one of the struggles right now is that religion is on the decline and it has been for a number of decades.

00:04:58.460 And you refer to Nietzsche in the book about God being dead and his observation about the rise of totalitarian ideologies coming with the decline in religion and the various problems that come with that.

00:05:11.820 And right now, particularly among young people and older people and older people as well, we're seeing politics replace religion.

00:05:22.300 We're seeing people now replace spiritual meta narratives with ideological meta narratives.

00:05:29.800 So so how do we how do we figure that out?

00:05:33.800 How do we perhaps we're seeing that, you know, that's one hypothesis and it's one I favor.

00:05:40.780 I did see polling data at one point, for example, from the Gallup Corporation.

00:05:48.120 Indicating that lapsed Catholics were something some multiple of times more likely to be separatists during the heyday of the Quebec separatist movement.

00:05:58.220 And I lived in Quebec during that period, some of that period.

00:06:03.040 And it did appear to me that nationalism was functioning as a replacement for for lapsed Catholicism.

00:06:13.040 I mean, Quebec was an intensely Catholic country until the 1950s, late 1950s.

00:06:18.920 So in some sense, they underwent their transformation to a secular society somewhat later than most other European nations, let's say.

00:06:27.920 And I thought that was reflected in the tremendous attractiveness of nationalism as a spiritual movement.

00:06:34.400 And one of the things I learned from studying the psychoanalysts, both Freud and Jung in particular, was that Jung, I suppose, had to do with separating ultimate moral authority from the figure of the father.

00:06:51.480 So you might say that as you mature, it's useful to replace your to realize that your particular father, your specific individual father, isn't omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

00:07:05.120 He's another person.

00:07:06.300 And you have to realize that to some degree to become a mature adult.

00:07:10.860 And so you don't want to confuse your father with the ultimate moral authority.

00:07:15.520 And in the same sense, it's psychologically dangerous to confuse political explanations and ideologies with religious and spiritual ideologies and and movements.

00:07:29.660 You don't want the political to carry the weight of the spiritual.

00:07:33.320 I don't think.

00:07:34.200 I think it's dangerous.

00:07:35.240 I also believe that ideologies essentially function as crippled religions.

00:07:41.060 So they have the motive force of religious belief and and the attractiveness of religious belief, which I think is actually a necessity for human beings because we're religious by nature.

00:07:54.260 But they're they don't have the symbolic complexity that a religion has a well-established religion with its mystical elements and its dogmatic elements.

00:08:08.840 So now you say, too, that religious belief is on the decline.

00:08:14.580 Certainly, organized church attendance.

00:08:17.920 In some countries is radically declining.

00:08:21.480 Christianity is growing at an unbelievable rate in China, for example.

00:08:26.240 So it's not necessarily a global phenomenon, but.

00:08:30.580 I and with regards to abandoning ideology, there's danger in confusing your political beliefs and your religious beliefs,

00:08:37.660 not noting that there's a difference between them.

00:08:41.220 There's one of the associated dangers there, I think, in especially in totalitarian utopian systems,

00:08:46.580 is the proclivity to raise the leader, whoever that might be, to the status of a demigod.

00:08:52.720 That certainly happened in the Soviet Union and in Maoist China.

00:08:56.800 Maybe will happen again in modern China. 0.99

00:09:00.860 Who knows, as as the Chinese premier centralizes his authority, which he appears to be doing.

00:09:08.920 You know, you're supposed to render unto Caesars that which is Caesar and render unto God that which is God.

00:09:14.200 That's the fundamental ethos that underlies the idea of separation of church and state.

00:09:20.800 And I think it's a good psychological truth as well.

00:09:24.420 Right.

00:09:25.000 So it's almost like you can't replace religion with politics.

00:09:30.180 Like if you try, you'll only get, let's say, 60 percent of the way there.

00:09:34.480 Like you'll get the community, you'll get the group discussions, you'll get people who are like minded,

00:09:39.460 who want to make change, want to enact change.

00:09:43.700 But you don't get that spiritual fulfillment at all.

00:09:46.800 Right.

00:09:47.000 You just get the community part of it primarily.

00:09:48.800 Right.

00:09:50.180 Well, it doesn't seem to me to be the right place to look for that spiritual fulfillment.

00:09:54.400 Yeah.

00:09:54.940 I also think in the chapter from Beyond Order.

00:09:58.060 So this is the book that we're discussing, Beyond Order.

00:10:02.300 The problem with ideologies, as far as I'm concerned, is that they're not useful as practical problem solving guides.

00:10:11.760 Most of the problems that beset us are very, very complex and they need to be decomposed in a sophisticated way into their constituent elements until they're differentiated enough so that partial solutions for some of the problem can arise as a consequence of practical endeavors. 0.99

00:10:30.740 And that requires the willingness to do that kind of detailed thinking and it requires the development of specialized expertise and ideology can blind you to your own stupidity. 0.99

00:10:43.020 And that's actually dangerous. 0.99

00:10:46.780 So we could take the case of poverty, for example, and I think we could all agree that poverty as such is undesirable.

00:10:54.820 So that's the starting point and the motivation.

00:11:00.580 Then you might say, well, what is poverty?

00:11:03.700 And you could conclude that it's lack of money.

00:11:06.020 And from that, you could conclude, because there's an unequal distribution of resources, that if the rich would only loosen their grip on wealth, then there wouldn't be poverty.

00:11:17.300 And then it's not much of a leap from that to the rich are, by definition, causing poverty and morally culpable for it.

00:11:26.140 And even though there is some truth to that some of the time in some situations, that doesn't mean that it's always true and it's the only reason all the time.

00:11:35.340 And then there's an additional danger, which is that you now have a solution.

00:11:40.360 And so you're smart.

00:11:42.140 You're not the problem so that you're moral.

00:11:44.780 You have a convenient enemy.

00:11:46.280 So your dark, unexamined motives have a valid target, which you've already defined as immoral.

00:11:52.160 And that means that you're more likely to give reign to violent impulses, let's say, that you should otherwise keep in control.

00:12:01.620 And that's all very dangerous.

00:12:03.360 It's not sophisticated.

00:12:04.280 It's emotionally and motivationally dangerous.

00:12:07.080 It interferes with proper problem solving.

00:12:10.060 It confuses you as to the limits and depth of your own knowledge.

00:12:17.080 You end up thinking you actually understand how the world works and you don't understand it at all.

00:12:21.720 You don't even understand the problems.

00:12:23.300 Like, think about poverty.

00:12:25.040 Okay, so what do you mean by poverty?

00:12:29.560 Do you mean alcoholism, drug abuse, mental illness, physical illness, lack of education, lack of intelligence, lack of conscientiousness, anti-social behavior?

00:12:45.960 Relative poverty?

00:12:49.420 Absolute poverty?

00:12:51.560 Do you mean a corrosive worldview?

00:12:57.960 Do you mean lack of ability to plan for the future?

00:13:02.960 Do you mean absolute privation of material goods?

00:13:07.340 That's all poverty.

00:13:08.800 And that's just the beginning of a decomposition.

00:13:11.880 And all of those problems are markedly different.

00:13:14.660 And it isn't obvious that there's one solution that will address.

00:13:18.440 It's not obvious at all.

00:13:19.580 In fact, it seems highly improbable that one solution is going to address all of them.

00:13:23.660 And then there's the complex problem that you have a theory that identifies a problem and explains its existence and offers a solution.

00:13:35.140 And so now you're going to assume that if you could only put that solution in place, that you would do that competently and it would produce the result that's intended.

00:13:44.940 That's wrong.

00:13:46.680 It's unlikely that you would do it competently because it's very, very difficult to solve a problem.

00:13:51.200 And even if you did, it's also unlikely that your intervention would produce only the positive result that you intend and nothing else.

00:14:01.500 Well, that's a lot of problems.

00:14:04.400 Yeah, right.

00:14:05.220 And then ideology, I suppose it's the enticement to pride that ideology also produces.

00:14:12.640 Well, now I have an explanation for how the economic system works.

00:14:17.440 No, you don't.

00:14:18.720 You don't know the first thing about it. 0.89

00:14:21.680 You're like a monkey looking at a military helicopter.

00:14:26.280 Right. 0.91

00:14:26.980 You don't have a clue and you don't even know it.

00:14:29.860 Okay.

00:14:30.100 Yeah.

00:14:30.280 So let me just contextualize this topic here.

00:14:34.340 So among young people here in the West, here in Canada, certainly, and in the United States, members of Gen Z particularly, there's this growing sort of political culture right now where young people are out protesting the patriarchy, protesting against white supremacy.

00:14:54.420 And they've turned that into a religion, they're fighting against this evil, satanic force of sorts, which is white supremacy, or it's toxic masculinity, or it's transphobia, Islamophobia.

00:15:06.420 Like these are the things that they are fighting against primarily opposed to fighting sort of the monster within.

00:15:12.980 So there's kind of like an external locus of control here, right?

00:15:16.060 It's fighting against the external opposed to the internal. 0.52

00:15:19.660 Well, this is why, and I outlined this to some degree in Beyond Order and also in my first book, Maps of Meaning, there are, there are, the world is characterized by ignorance and malevolence and danger.

00:15:40.620 Always, always, always, always, always, it's an existential truth.

00:15:46.660 And then you might ask yourself, well, if that's the case, how might you best conceptualize that?

00:15:54.140 Now, you can find malevolence and ignorance at the level of the individual.

00:15:59.800 And so we would say that's the malevolence and ignorance that characterizes you and other individuals.

00:16:07.540 And it's a, it's a viciously powerful and terrifying force.

00:16:12.840 And then there's the malevolence and ignorance that characterizes social institutions.

00:16:17.860 That's the great father, that the tyranny, that's the negative aspect of the great father in my terminology.

00:16:23.440 And that's derived to some degree from union theory, especially through a man named Eric Neumann, who is a brilliant student of, of, of Jung.

00:16:34.080 You're always a victim of the evil tyrant.

00:16:37.540 And the reason for that is that human beings have a lengthy period of intense socialization.

00:16:42.960 And that fosters and develops your individuality in some ways, but crushes and maims and distorts and destroys it in all sorts of other ways.

00:16:53.420 And so it's a universal tendency to feel oppressed by the evil tyrant.

00:16:59.740 And it's so powerful symbolically, it's such a powerful symbolic tendency that people don't even notice that it's a symbolic tendency.

00:17:08.280 So I've been taken to task, for example, for insisting that we use gendered metaphors to portray the two fundamental attributes of experienced reality.

00:17:23.660 Chaos and order, chaos and order, order is patriarchal. 0.92

00:17:28.540 That's the symbol.

00:17:29.920 Well, people accept that at face value and don't even notice that they're trapped in a symbolic world.

00:17:36.060 The very feminists who will criticize me for pointing out that femininity is associated with chaos symbolically, accept the idea that masculinity is the proper representation for social order without question. 0.81

00:17:51.080 And are irritated beyond belief, if you point out that things are not so simple, they're caught in a myth, a religious myth, and they don't even realize it.

00:18:02.340 And so if you accept that the patriarchy is masculine, well, then what's feminine?

00:18:09.420 Well, the opposite of patriarchy and order.

00:18:12.740 And that's creative chaos.

00:18:15.360 And that's not my theory.

00:18:16.620 That's the Taoist theory of being, for example.

00:18:21.300 It's the ancient Greek chaos and cosmos theory of being.

00:18:26.000 It's the ideational structure that underlies the first chapters of Genesis, where God makes order out of a patriarchal God makes order out of tohu vabohu, which is the primordial chaos.

00:18:40.620 So now young people find themselves motivated to stand up against the evil tyrant.

00:18:48.000 And of course they should, because it's at that point when you're differentiating yourself that you want to take a look at the group that you're going to pledge allegiance to and note its shortcomings.

00:19:02.380 But you don't want to be blind while doing that and fail to notice that, well, the social world is full of pathology and danger, malevolence and ignorance, let's say.

00:19:14.120 But the natural world, which you will automatically tend to romanticize if you only believe the patriarchy is evil, the natural world is doing everything it can to kill you every second.

00:19:27.520 And the only reason you're not dead is because the evil tyrant has a benevolent aspect that protects you in ways that are so deep and profound that you don't begin to understand them.

00:19:40.520 I mean, you are shielded, as am I, by a nuclear umbrella, for example.

00:19:46.680 None of which you have to attend to.

00:19:48.540 And then the other loss, of course, is that, yes, there's evil in the patriarchy.

00:19:54.960 That's always how things are.

00:19:56.680 And sometimes it's much worse than other times.

00:19:59.600 Not right now, by the way.

00:20:02.120 Not by historical standards.

00:20:03.740 But it also blinds you to the fact that you're culpable, too, deeply. 0.98

00:20:09.100 You have more ignorance and malevolence in your soul than you'll ever get on top of in your entire life. 0.83

00:20:16.400 And that should be part, that should, the knowledge of that stops you from being carelessly judgmental. 0.99

00:20:23.360 Carelessly.

00:20:24.260 You should be judgmental.

00:20:26.360 You have to differentiate and discriminate between things.

00:20:30.060 But you shouldn't do it carelessly.

00:20:32.180 And you certainly shouldn't assume that all the fault lies outside, which is the point that you made.

00:20:37.680 And so ideology is extremely dangerous if it convinces young people that the moral stance is that all malevolence and ignorance lies outside of them.

00:20:49.940 Right.

00:20:50.820 Yeah.

00:20:51.280 What do you think is motivating this kind of hallucinatory interpretation of our society being uniquely racist, sexist, homophobic?

00:21:02.140 Like, there's this kind of self-delusion going on here where—

00:21:06.140 Well, some of it's ignorance.

00:21:07.620 Right.

00:21:07.880 And I mentioned this in one of my Colette essays about our society being one of the most free, liberal, open-minded, inclusive societies that has ever existed, right?

00:21:19.400 It is the most.

00:21:20.480 The most for ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, transgender folks, all of that.

00:21:24.820 But yet, there's this narrative that, you know, me as a brown person, as an immigrant from India, like, somehow I'm more of a victim than you are, that I live under this.

00:21:36.040 On average, you might be somewhat.

00:21:40.260 Because it's probably harder to be a minority in any culture than it is to be the majority.

00:21:47.360 But it isn't accounting for—it isn't the fundamental determinant of the outcome of your life.

00:21:53.760 It's one element.

00:21:55.040 And it's an important element.

00:21:57.140 It's not good for anyone if prejudice doesn't allow us to use all available human capital, right?

00:22:06.460 Even from a purely selfish perspective.

00:22:09.040 Yeah. 0.99

00:22:09.360 It's foolish. 0.98

00:22:11.100 So—and why do we think that? 0.99

00:22:12.580 A lot of it's ignorance.

00:22:13.480 You know, people don't know, for example, that up until 1880, 95% of the Western world lived below today's UN-established poverty line.

00:22:25.040 Yeah.

00:22:25.240 We have no idea how much dramatic improvement has been made in the last 150 years and how absolutely god-awful things were before that.

00:22:35.920 And we don't know that because we've never been hungry, for example.

00:22:40.040 Not for one day.

00:22:41.300 Right.

00:22:43.020 Okay.

00:22:43.320 So now that we've laid out that, yes, we are living in the most free, open-minded, inclusive societies on Earth, then what's driving this—

00:22:52.740 Well, ignorance is part of it, right?

00:22:55.060 We just don't know.

00:22:56.080 And you look around and you see, well, things could be better, so they're bad.

00:22:59.880 It's like, true, things could be better.

00:23:02.140 And that is bad.

00:23:03.780 Well, bad compared to what?

00:23:05.080 Well, certainly bad compared to a hypothetical ideal, but not bad compared to all extant historical comparisons.

00:23:15.120 So what you need—but that requires differentiated knowledge.

00:23:18.240 And once you have the ideology, you don't need the differentiated knowledge because you already have the explanation.

00:23:23.360 Plus, it's convenient.

00:23:24.940 You don't have to look at yourself, and you have an enemy.

00:23:27.840 And that's the part that scares me the most, you see.

00:23:30.140 I mean, you don't have to look at yourself.

00:23:31.920 Yeah, that's bad.

00:23:32.880 But now you have an enemy, and that enemy is the cause of everything you hate, and now you have all moral justification to go after them, to hurt them, to stop them because they're evil, and to elevate yourself morally as a consequence.

00:23:47.060 So you have this unearned pathway to moral superiority that's actually dependent on your willingness to unfairly persecute based on your ignorance.

00:23:57.240 It's terrible, and universities promote this.

00:24:01.680 Well, you should be an activist.

00:24:03.600 That's essentially what every 19-year-old is taught.

00:24:07.920 It's like, no, you shouldn't be an activist.

00:24:10.120 You should get your own house in order.

00:24:13.160 And then you should cautiously proceed to more difficult things if you dare.

00:24:19.520 Right, yeah.

00:24:20.260 And you can be an activist when injustice happens, which it does.

00:24:23.740 Just the problem that I'm finding right now among young people is the complete fabrication, or at least a total exaggeration, of injustice happening.

00:24:34.660 Like, yes, something bad happens.

00:24:36.720 Yes, if there is an act of racism or sexism, let's fight it.

00:24:40.560 But this whole idea of our society being governed by these supernatural kind of forces of white supremacy and patriarchy,

00:24:50.240 it's almost like I'm listening to these people, I'm talking to young people.

00:24:54.680 No, they are supernatural forces in some sense.

00:24:57.400 Yeah. 0.98

00:24:57.580 I mean, symbolically speaking, white supremacy is satanic. 0.88

00:25:02.820 Yeah. 0.99

00:25:03.280 And the patriarchy is the evil king, and it's got a satanic element too.

00:25:07.900 And that's the transcendental symbolic locale of malevolence and evil.

00:25:12.820 And those things have to be contended with, but you have to do that in a sophisticated way.

00:25:18.240 Or it's better if you do it in a sophisticated way.

00:25:21.240 You know, there's other technical issues here as well that we have to attend to.

00:25:27.240 We're so connected that any instance of racial injustice is immediately broadcast across our experiential landscape.

00:25:36.260 And so if you ask people, the social psychologists have established this, if you ask individuals how much prejudice has interfered with their movement forward,

00:25:46.760 they generally claim that they've been relatively unscathed.

00:25:51.760 They've emerged relatively unscathed.

00:25:53.680 But if you ask them to what degree their group has suffered or is still facing impediments,

00:26:00.020 they rate the group victimization as much higher than their own personal victimization.

00:26:06.420 Well, you hear about all the group victimization.

00:26:09.100 Plus, now, you add to that the fact that we have a bias towards negative information.

00:26:14.520 We find it more informative in some sense.

00:26:18.420 And that's perhaps because we should be alert to areas of danger.

00:26:22.060 You don't see headlines of racial about peaceful, non-eventful racial harmony, which is what exists almost all the time. 0.76

00:26:31.540 It's not news that, you know, I can walk by you.

00:26:35.060 Your skin is slightly differently colored than mine.

00:26:37.800 And we can walk by each other on the street without hacking each other to death with machetes.

00:26:43.020 That's not news.

00:26:44.300 Thank God.

00:26:45.240 But how do you make peaceful, you know, infinite instances of peaceful coexistence newsworthy?

00:26:53.840 Yeah, you can't.

00:26:54.560 You can't.

00:26:55.100 You can do it with historical comparison.

00:26:57.700 Yeah.

00:26:58.600 So that's a big problem.

00:27:01.200 And some of this is probably a positive feedback loop gone astray.

00:27:05.200 We paid more attention to issues of racial prejudice, and perhaps that was good in many ways. 0.99

00:27:12.160 But because we're doing that, more attention is being paid attention to it, and it becomes more and more salient.

00:27:19.120 And you can see that that can ease, especially given all the new communication technologies and the rate at which outrageous occurrences can be distributed, and our intense difficulty at separating, at establishing base rate.

00:27:33.100 It's like, well, who knows how many racial incidents of hate there are per day in a given city?

00:27:41.540 Is that going up or down?

00:27:43.480 Well, we, as individuals, we don't know that.

00:27:47.620 The historical answer is it's obviously going down, way down, really fast.

00:27:52.360 Sure, yeah.

00:27:53.060 And one indication, in my view, of just how rare and marginalized racial prejudice is right now is when people are fabricating claims about racial prejudice or exaggerating them significantly.

00:28:06.820 So, there was a recent shooting in Atlanta that happened, which was horrible.

00:28:12.040 The Atlanta shooter, he went to three different massage parlors, and he killed a number of people.

00:28:17.320 And out of the eight deceased victims, six were Asian women.

00:28:21.280 And if you look at all of the available evidence right now, and if you read what the actual shooter said about his motivation, he said that it was due to his sexual addiction.

00:28:35.780 And he was addicted to pornography, and he also seemed to be kind of a religious fundamentalist type of person who felt guilty, and he felt very ashamed about his sex addiction.

00:28:49.400 And he would go to these massage parlors to get these other illegal sexual services there. 1.00

00:28:55.520 And he felt bad about doing it every time, but he kept on doing it.

00:28:59.640 And so, there was this circular kind of battle that he was facing.

00:29:03.680 And so, then one day, he thought, this temptation is bad.

00:29:06.120 I know it's bad, but I can't stop myself from doing it. 1.00

00:29:09.560 So, why don't I go and just physically murder these people? 0.99

00:29:13.400 Well, that's a really good idea of demonization, exactly what I was talking about before. 0.99

00:29:18.340 It's like, his problem was within.

00:29:21.200 There's a societal element to that.

00:29:23.420 Perhaps the transformation of our society so that pornography is so rapidly accessible, but we can leave that aside for the time being.

00:29:33.380 He had an internal moral struggle, and instead of dealing with that at the individual level, he demonized the handy enemy, those women who are tempting me in a satanic manner, essentially.

00:29:47.380 Right, opposed to my own uncontrolled sexual impulses that I need to get in order, right?

00:29:53.060 Yes, right, right, precisely.

00:29:55.520 But so, the point that I wanted to make here was about the media response.

00:29:58.960 Okay, so we just discussed, basically, in a nutshell, what the current motivation seems to be here.

00:30:05.040 But the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, The Guardian, all these big outlets, they all jumped on racism in their headlines.

00:30:13.760 You know, a racist shooting, America's story of sexualized racism.

00:30:19.200 And so, this other important part.

00:30:20.520 Now, some of it's a baseline problem, right?

00:30:23.340 You said six out of the eight were Asian.

00:30:25.480 Okay, well, six out of eight of the normal population, the general population, aren't Asian.

00:30:30.220 And so, it looks like a preponderance of Asians.

00:30:32.720 But then you have to take the local environment into account, while most of the sex workers in that area were Asian.

00:30:38.240 So, then the question is, well, did it deviate from baseline?

00:30:42.080 But that requires sophisticated thinking to ask that question and willingness to dig in.

00:30:47.900 And the newspapers, you know, they're becoming, in some sense, desperate.

00:30:53.500 Yeah.

00:30:53.800 They're not doing well.

00:30:55.160 They don't have the resources they once had.

00:30:57.380 And they're very likely to jump on something salient and salacious.

00:31:00.700 And then, of course, also, the most effectively salacious article tends to rise to the top.

00:31:09.860 So, that's another feedback loop that we are caught in and don't know how to regulate.

00:31:15.920 Right.

00:31:16.220 Yeah.

00:31:16.380 And obviously, you know, six out of eight victims being Asian women, you know, people make this mistake all the time of confusing disparities with discrimination.

00:31:24.960 Well, they make that mistake because sometimes disparities are a consequence of discrimination.

00:31:31.600 Right.

00:31:32.040 Sometimes.

00:31:33.160 Well, and often enough so that it's a reasonable hypothesis, right?

00:31:37.860 Yeah.

00:31:38.020 But often, I mean, look, it's definitely the case that in the United States in particular,

00:31:46.380 native-born Black Americans are underrepresented in positions of authority, power, and economic dominance.

00:31:53.900 Right?

00:31:54.440 Okay.

00:31:55.100 And so, you might say, well, that's a consequence of systemic racism.

00:31:58.440 And there's no doubt an element of systemic racism.

00:32:02.040 The question is, how much of the outcome is that accounting for?

00:32:05.740 Okay.

00:32:06.020 So, and you might say, well, we could use that as the default hypothesis given the history of slavery,

00:32:10.980 which is clearly unacceptable in every possible way morally, although pretty much par for the course for most human societies throughout history.

00:32:22.900 Right.

00:32:23.260 And Jim Crow and other discriminatory policies afterwards.

00:32:27.700 Right.

00:32:28.000 So, you say, well, systemic racism.

00:32:30.020 And fair enough.

00:32:31.120 That's a reasonable hypothesis.

00:32:32.400 Well, except that there's a disproportionate number of other minorities who are overrepresented in pinnacle positions.

00:32:42.160 And, in fact, that is compared to the native-born Caucasian group.

00:32:49.240 Indian Americans, for example, their family income now is almost twice that of the typical median Caucasian family.

00:32:57.040 Twice.

00:32:57.440 And the top six or seven are all Southeast Asian.

00:33:02.480 So, again, you say, well, if it's systemic racism, what about, you know, maybe you could write off the Indians and the Muslims because they're more or less Caucasian.

00:33:13.540 And I don't mean that positively or negatively.

00:33:16.400 But then the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, they're more visually different than Caucasians. 0.98

00:33:25.540 But they're doing just fine, too.

00:33:28.360 And then if you assume systemic racism, it also blinds you to all sorts of other factors, as we already discussed, that might be contributing.

00:33:35.540 So, I know, for example, and I looked into this 20 years ago, that it looks like it's the familial structure and ethos of Southeast Asian first-generation immigrant families that are producing overperformance in their children. 1.00

00:33:49.900 That disappears by the third generation as assimilation completes itself. 0.51

00:33:54.520 So, among Southeast Asians, the emphasis on conscientiousness, essentially, perhaps with an additional, what would you call it, positive aspect of higher likelihood of intact family, two-parent family.

00:34:12.080 There's this emphasis on conscientiousness, and conscientiousness is essentially hard work.

00:34:17.680 Southeast Asian students, that's children of first-generation Southeast Asian immigrants, do homework, spend many more hours on homework.

00:34:25.820 Well, conscientious striving actually does predict success.

00:34:28.940 And the data that I reviewed, this was two decades ago, indicated that the typical Southeast Asian child gains competitive advantage from the conditions of their upbringing that's equivalent to 15 IQ points.

00:34:45.960 Yeah.

00:34:46.160 And that's a huge difference.

00:34:47.680 It's the difference between someone who's normal and someone who's borderline impaired, mentally handicapped. 0.99

00:34:54.680 It's the difference between the typical high school student and the typical college student.

00:35:00.020 It's a walloping difference.

00:35:02.200 Well, now, if you're blinded by the fact of racism to everything else, because racism exists, then you're not going to be able to decompose the problem and say,

00:35:13.160 well, look, those Southeast Asians, they're outperforming Southeast Asians who are third generation in the U.S., also Caucasians.

00:35:22.980 Why?

00:35:24.980 Well, it looks like there's familial structure issues and an emphasis on work.

00:35:29.420 Well, you don't want to miss that, man.

00:35:30.940 It's actually important.

00:35:32.440 Yeah.

00:35:32.560 And also the attitudes on life.

00:35:34.180 Like in my Colette essay, The Peculiar Racist Patriarchy, I looked into different attitudes towards life, towards education.

00:35:43.340 And one interesting finding that I came across was that if you look at various polls, Asian Americans are most likely to believe in the idea of self-made success.

00:35:55.140 They're most likely to believe that if you work hard, you can achieve what you want in your life compared to black Americans. 1.00

00:36:01.240 Right. A white supremacist, racist trope that's now, what would you say?

00:36:06.380 Under attack.

00:36:07.380 Well, it's a form of microaggression that's frowned upon, whose utterance is frowned upon in many universities, formally.

00:36:15.100 Right.

00:36:15.240 You can't say that, that hard work puts you ahead.

00:36:17.460 It's like, it's, it's a microaggression and you can see why.

00:36:21.260 Look, here's the reason.

00:36:22.460 It's like, well, there are lots of people who are poor, who are poor and dispossessed, despite the fact that they've worked hard.

00:36:32.600 Right.

00:36:33.240 They're, they're ill, let's say, or they're, they're impaired in their intelligence or they haven't managed an education or there's all sorts of reasons that, that hard work isn't going to work.

00:36:44.980 But that doesn't, even bad luck, even bad luck, various tragedies that happen in your life.

00:36:49.480 Yeah.

00:36:49.860 Yeah.

00:36:50.120 You get hit by a bus because you're standing in the wrong place.

00:36:54.000 That's why you need enough sophistication to look at a multifactorial explanation.

00:37:00.680 Right.

00:37:01.140 And even, you know, you can control for economic status and still find some of these racial disparities.

00:37:06.340 So low-income Asian Americans have higher upward mobility compared to low-income Black Americans and White Americans and Hispanic Americans.

00:37:16.360 And it's probably native-born Black Americans because Nigerians seem to do pretty well.

00:37:20.940 And generally speaking, Black immigrants to the United States outperform, just as, just as, let's say, people from the Indian subcontinent outperform native-born Caucasians in the U.S., the immigrant Black population outperforms the native-born Black population in the U.S. by a substantial margin.

00:37:40.660 Yeah, even if you look in the same city.

00:37:43.080 So Thomas Sowell has done some great research on this.

00:37:45.300 In the city of Boston, you have the native-born Black Americans and you have the immigrant Black American group.

00:37:51.260 And the immigrant Black American group, their performance is much higher.

00:37:56.140 Their education rates, their high school completion, their earnings, they're much higher.

00:38:01.260 But so in that same city, right, whatever force of systemic racism that exists, it's constant, right?

00:38:08.280 Because you can't distinguish between somebody from Nigeria versus somebody who's Black. 0.69

00:38:12.900 Well, you might think that it's actually worse for the immigrants because they have an accent and, you know, there are other features that mark them out as strange, different. 1.00

00:38:22.820 Right, they're unacculturated to the various norms in society, lower rates of English-speaking proficiency, all those things matter.

00:38:30.900 But there seems to be this kind of disinclination towards behavioral explanations for success.

00:38:38.420 There only seems to be sort of external prejudice-based explanations.

00:38:43.120 Well, part of it is that people are loathe to blame the dispossessed.

00:38:48.380 Yeah.

00:38:48.680 And fair enough.

00:38:49.480 But fair enough.

00:38:51.940 It's reasonable to check yourself against doing that because you can pass the homeless person on the street and say, 0.99

00:38:58.200 if you weren't so goddamn useless, you'd get a job. 0.99

00:39:01.420 It's like, well, you know, maybe, but maybe not. 0.99

00:39:07.200 And there but for the grace of God go I, which is something always useful to keep in mind.

00:39:12.920 But the problem with not assuming that individual planning and diligent effort and moral evaluation and ambition matter is that you take away the very tools.

00:39:29.980 You deny the validity of the very tools that could be most effectively used by most individuals who are dispossessed.

00:39:37.740 And that's a terrible thing to do.

00:39:39.720 I mean, the reason I emphasize individual responsibility, there's two reasons.

00:39:43.320 One is, well, you can start right now, right where you are, no matter what you're doing.

00:39:48.260 So you have that at hand.

00:39:51.480 Second, if you become more responsible, you probably won't hurt anyone by doing it.

00:39:59.480 Right. It removes the convenience of the enemy.

00:40:02.680 And that's given how terrible it is for us to generate, say, class-based explanations of enmity or racial-based explanations of enmity.

00:40:13.380 That's something we really have to step carefully around.

00:40:16.520 I mean, the worst crimes the human race has ever committed have been generated by class-based hypotheses of malevolence, class- or ethnicity-based hypotheses of malevolence.

00:40:28.680 It's terrible.

00:40:30.540 And we need to avoid that.

00:40:32.160 And I don't see that adopting more individual responsibility, even though it's not a cure-all, it doesn't – that's one danger it doesn't pose, in my estimation.

00:40:42.940 Right. Yeah.

00:40:43.780 And just to go back for a second to the white supremacy discussion and the different racial groups, you know, that whole narrative seems to be on life support right now.

00:40:53.080 The idea of white supremacy being the governing force of Western society, whether it's the U.S. or Canada.

00:40:59.480 So one thing that I mentioned in the Quillette essay, the main finding that I was exploring there was the fact that last year, for the first time in history, Asian women had higher earnings than white men did for earnings in 2020.

00:41:18.020 And this was controlling –

00:41:18.740 Where was that?

00:41:19.980 In the U.S.?

00:41:20.960 In the U.S.

00:41:21.560 And this was controlling for full-time working Asian women. 1.00

00:41:25.080 So that was the variable that was controlled.

00:41:27.200 Full-time.

00:41:27.640 Full-time, yeah.

00:41:28.340 But that's a staggering finding.

00:41:29.840 And the difference was very – it was marginal, but still, for – you know, there are various gender differences at play here. 0.98

00:41:35.800 But that finding is completely – it shatters the whole narrative of race and gender, for that matter, and the whole intersectional claim of race plus gender, you know, giving you –

00:41:49.160 Well, it certainly complicates it.

00:41:50.800 Giving you various disadvantages.

00:41:52.400 And so I looked into this.

00:41:54.280 I said – you know, I went on this – about two months, I looked into the data, and I wanted to answer that question of why are Asian women making more than white men?

00:42:04.980 What are the explanations?

00:42:06.740 And a few of the things that I found was that Asian women are least likely to have kids out of wedlock compared to women of other racial groups.

00:42:18.320 They have less kids on average compared to other groups.

00:42:22.980 And they tend to have kids later.

00:42:25.460 So the median age for having kids is about five to ten years later compared to white women, black women, Hispanic women.

00:42:32.100 And they tend to have more family support in raising their kids.

00:42:37.880 They tend to have more support from their parents, grandparents, in helping raise their kids.

00:42:41.900 Another advantage to an intact family structure.

00:42:44.920 Another advantage.

00:42:45.960 Now, you know, moral judgment is irrelevant here, right?

00:42:48.840 You know, I'm not saying that, you know, you should have less kids or you should have more kids.

00:42:52.500 No, but you can make a limited moral judgment.

00:42:54.860 You can say, if you want to be hyper-competitive in the male-dominated capitalist environment, here's the sacrifices that are useful.

00:43:05.960 It's a bounded moral claim, right?

00:43:07.700 Because you don't have to say, well, that's how you should be.

00:43:09.940 Who knows how long you should put off having children?

00:43:12.700 But if you want to compete economically, that might be a strategy.

00:43:16.060 That doesn't mean it's an advisable strategy.

00:43:19.420 No, no.

00:43:19.720 And that's not the only way to be happy in life too, right?

00:43:22.220 Like, if it's maybe not even the most effective way.

00:43:25.080 Sure.

00:43:25.280 Yeah.

00:43:25.500 If a woman doesn't want to work so many hours and have less kids and devote so much time towards education, career, right? 1.00

00:43:32.500 That's her choice, right?

00:43:34.220 But these explanations, these factors that I just laid out for you, this explains.

00:43:39.760 So having more stable families, more financial security, and more time devoted to pursuing a career.

00:43:46.000 These are the results of having kids later, having less likely to have kids out of wedlock, right?

00:43:53.540 These are some of the consequences of these decisions.

00:43:56.480 But these behavioral explanations just seem sort of taboo in a way because the implication there would be that if you make these decisions, if you take responsibility, you can actually achieve success.

00:44:10.500 It doesn't matter if you're Asian or if you're a woman. 0.74

00:44:13.440 And of course, there is sexism.

00:44:14.660 Of course, there is anti-Asian bigotry, which seems to be on the rise, by the way, in Canada and the U.S. over the past year since COVID started, right?

00:44:22.580 All those things exist, but they're not a barrier to success, right?

00:44:26.880 They don't stop you from getting ahead in life.

00:44:29.380 But the narrative seems to be that it is, which just seems totally perverse and counterproductive to me.

00:44:36.320 Well, it has perverse and counterproductive effects.

00:44:41.140 There's no doubt about that, and those can get very badly out of hand.

00:44:45.740 Any political movements that are motivated by resentment, any actions that are motivated by resentment are to be viewed with extreme skepticism.

00:44:54.940 It's a very, very, very dangerous state of mind, resentment.

00:45:00.320 Right, yeah.

00:45:01.700 Now, going back to the earlier discussion we were having here about spirituality and young people.

00:45:07.220 So, observing that young people are becoming sort of increasingly politically active, they're engaging in this protest culture, this fight against these various forces that they've identified, and it's being incentivized by the university, by mainstream media, by Hollywood celebrities, you know, people posting about racism all the time.

00:45:27.520 And so, there's this exaggerated sense of this problem existing.

00:45:31.180 So, all of that being true, you know, how do young people get out of that position?

00:45:38.160 How do they find, and this is a question that I really want to ask you here, is how do young people find a value system to adhere to, given that religion is on the decline, given that religion doesn't seem cool, or just for whatever reason, it's not resonating, right?

00:45:54.440 Ideologies resonating, not religion, but how do we replace that with something spiritual that fulfills our inner, innate desires to strive for, you know, God, the infinite being, the divine, whatever name you want to use for that?

00:46:11.520 Well, we could take that apart.

00:46:13.720 I mean, you might say, well, what might you replace an ideology with?

00:46:17.860 And I would say, well, a differentiated view of and strategy for life.

00:46:25.340 And so, when I work with my clients, I never start with high-order problems to begin with, like, how do I orient myself spiritually?

00:46:33.340 So, let's just leave that aside for a second, okay?

00:46:35.840 We'll return to it.

00:46:37.560 So, what do you need to get straight in your life?

00:46:42.780 Well, you need a job or a career.

00:46:48.440 Career, preferably, perhaps.

00:46:50.780 The advantage to a job is that you do it for eight hours, let's say, and you're done, right?

00:46:56.420 With a career, you're in it all the time.

00:46:59.480 Now, you'll make more money.

00:47:01.020 You'll advance up the economic hierarchy.

00:47:04.700 But you're never done with work if you have a career.

00:47:08.340 And maybe that's what you want.

00:47:09.480 But in any case, you have to have a job or a career.

00:47:12.080 Why?

00:47:13.140 Well, you don't want to starve.

00:47:16.160 You want to take care of yourself and the people that are dependent on you.

00:47:19.640 There are practical, obvious practical reasons.

00:47:22.060 But there are psychological reasons, too.

00:47:24.660 I mean, a job gives you something to do every day, just as your career does.

00:47:28.800 And it also addresses the deep human need to be of value and service to other people.

00:47:36.560 And so, that needs to be attended to.

00:47:39.580 So, if you're a young person, it's like, okay, have a plan.

00:47:43.220 You need a job and a career.

00:47:45.120 It would be good if it was something that you could be competent at.

00:47:49.380 So, the smarter you are, pure IQ, the more complex job you can manage.

00:47:54.360 And then, if you add the development of discipline to that, so that's the development of conscientiousness, that can further you.

00:48:03.300 So, you need conscientiousness and intelligence to be competent.

00:48:06.700 And the more hardworking you are, and the more intelligent, the more complex the job you can manage.

00:48:12.640 So, if you're of average intelligence, which you've probably figured out by the time you're 18 or so,

00:48:18.460 it's going to be very, very difficult for you to be a high-end corporate lawyer unless you work insanely hard.

00:48:25.780 So, your better bet is to pick up profession that isn't so cognitively demanding that's still useful.

00:48:33.920 And trades are great, as far as I'm concerned.

00:48:38.060 It's not like tradespeople aren't skilled.

00:48:40.100 And it's not like trades don't require intelligence.

00:48:43.600 I am not saying that.

00:48:45.420 But it doesn't require as much abstraction, generally speaking.

00:48:50.240 Like, if you want to be a lawyer, you have to be hyper-literate, and like 90th percentile literate, fundamentally.

00:48:57.540 And you have to be able to formulate verbal arguments, or you're going to get crushed by someone who can do it.

00:49:02.340 Okay, so, job and career, you need a plan.

00:49:05.700 Okay.

00:49:06.800 Education.

00:49:07.420 You should be as educated as you are intelligent.

00:49:09.980 You should have a plan for that.

00:49:11.620 Yeah.

00:49:12.200 Okay.

00:49:12.600 And it should continue, because things change quick, and you better keep up.

00:49:15.860 Okay, so you should have a vision of that.

00:49:17.740 People don't seem to do well without an intimate relationship.

00:49:25.020 It'd be good if you could have a family and bring peace to the family that you have, because family is important.

00:49:31.680 Extraordinarily important.

00:49:33.280 Those connections, so intimate relationship and family, whether that's your parents, your siblings, or the family that you start.

00:49:39.280 You need a plan for that, and a vision of that.

00:49:42.100 You have to take care of your physical and mental health.

00:49:44.380 You have to regulate your drug and alcohol intake.

00:49:46.900 You have to figure out how to make productive and meaningful use of the time that's allotted to you outside of your obligations.

00:49:55.060 That's extraordinarily useful.

00:49:56.560 And you have to address your philosophical or spiritual slash aesthetic yearnings such as they might be.

00:50:04.080 Well, so that's better than an ideology, a plan.

00:50:09.220 Sure.

00:50:10.140 Right.

00:50:10.660 Now, you know, and as you climb up your career, as you expand your competence and power, well, then you can get involved in larger scale transformations if that's where your interest takes you.

00:50:21.640 And so with job and career, you should be competent and interested in it.

00:50:25.400 That's a good pathway to success.

00:50:28.460 All right.

00:50:28.680 So that's the right place to focus, as far as I'm concerned.

00:50:34.960 If you're a young person, it's like, well, have a plan.

00:50:37.160 Have a plan.

00:50:38.340 Right.

00:50:38.620 Make a plan.

00:50:39.500 And then educate yourself.

00:50:42.480 Because you're much more powerful and competent if you're educated.

00:50:46.840 Right.

00:50:47.120 So why not do it?

00:50:48.960 Yeah.

00:50:49.120 But the thing is, if you have a plan, that's great.

00:50:51.780 And young people should have a plan and they should stick to it and they should have a vision for themselves of what they want to do and they should persevere towards that vision.

00:51:00.320 But the problem is finding meaning.

00:51:03.040 It's like, what?

00:51:04.360 Oh, look.

00:51:04.920 You worry about that afterwards.

00:51:06.500 Look, we outline domains of meaning.

00:51:08.780 Look, family is meaningful.

00:51:11.020 Right.

00:51:11.680 Career is meaningful.

00:51:12.560 You can mentor people.

00:51:13.980 Helping other people develop, that's extremely meaningful.

00:51:17.740 A lot of the high-end people that I've seen who are extraordinarily successful in the socioeconomic domain derive a tremendous amount of their meaning from fostering that development among young people.

00:51:29.260 And so there's micro meanings to be found in all of those domains.

00:51:33.040 Now, you still might be searching for something transcendent.

00:51:36.240 Right.

00:51:36.760 Whether you know it or not, even.

00:51:38.000 Well, and it's something you need as a kind of something you need as like the analogy would be like a crutch, right?

00:51:44.100 When you're striving towards your vision and things don't go your way, tragedy happens, malevolence happens, as you say, and you're suffering in your life, you need some kind of base meta narrative.

00:51:54.980 Something, you know, whether it's prayer or meditation or reading various types of scriptures.

00:51:59.760 There's something to give you meaning, to give you hope, faith, and trust in something else, and just let you know that you're not in this alone, that you can get to where you want.

00:52:11.000 You need that kind of emotional, spiritual crutch in your life.

00:52:15.020 And this is what I wanted to ask you about, is that young people, they seem to have that less and less.

00:52:19.220 So how do we find that spiritual crutch is the question.

00:52:21.800 Well, I wouldn't say it's a crutch.

00:52:23.220 I don't think that's reasonable, because any genuine spiritual practice places a tremendous moral burden on its practitioner.

00:52:33.020 So let's say foundation, a spiritual foundation is what I mean.

00:52:36.260 Well, and some people need that more than others.

00:52:38.700 Like if you're the sort of person who are, and I would say that that's likely associated with high trait openness.

00:52:44.300 That's the creativity dimension.

00:52:47.260 And so if you find yourself yearning, well, how do you address that?

00:52:52.760 Literature, art, that's the domain.

00:52:56.840 And then in that domain, there's the mystical religious domain and the philosophical domain.

00:53:01.380 Well, reading is your best way into that.

00:53:04.120 And you also describe the ritual practices, and they can be very useful to people.

00:53:08.520 My wife found repetitive prayer of aid when she was undergoing interminable repeated scans for the presence of cancer.

00:53:17.840 It's like, well, what do you do in a situation like that?

00:53:20.040 Well, one thing you can do is turn to a ritual.

00:53:23.480 And you might say, well, that's a crutch.

00:53:25.120 It's like, well, no, it's a practice.

00:53:28.320 It's a meditative practice that helps regulate your physiological reactions under extreme duress.

00:53:33.880 People who think that religious belief is a crutch, first of all, they're guilty of something I think is an unbelievable impediment to reasonable progress, which is casual contempt.

00:53:48.520 Are you sure you know enough about that to be contemptuous of it?

00:53:52.240 Religious belief has a history that's tens of thousands of years old.

00:53:57.600 The capacity for religious experience, and perhaps even the need for it, is coded in us biologically.

00:54:03.880 It's an unbelievably complicated problem and solution.

00:54:07.420 You don't want to casually dismiss it.

00:54:10.200 You can read philosophers and great writers and great religious thinkers and great psychoanalysts.

00:54:18.840 Joseph Campbell, for example, is a great entry place for anyone who wants to take religious thinking seriously.

00:54:27.240 Right.

00:54:27.360 And so this is where I'm getting at here.

00:54:28.980 So you're saying spiritual experience is encoded in our genes.

00:54:32.420 And I agree with that, whether, you know, even people who say they're atheists or they don't believe, you know, I think this is universal for everyone.

00:54:40.920 But for people who don't have religion, who just have ideology.

00:54:44.420 Well, the atheists don't even watch Star Wars. 0.96

00:54:46.880 Right.

00:54:47.480 Yeah.

00:54:47.660 You know, the atheist materialist types, the engineers, skeptical and unlikely to personalize the world.

00:54:53.340 They get their mythology through science fiction.

00:54:55.340 Sure.

00:54:55.540 And they don't even notice it.

00:54:56.540 But people who don't have that spiritual practice, don't have that religion, who are watching Star Wars, participating in protests against white supremacy.

00:55:04.180 How do they how do they how do they find that spiritual experience?

00:55:08.080 How do they achieve that state?

00:55:09.760 That's kind of the fundamental thing that I'm wrestling with as our society becomes more and more secular and saturated with technology and and political polarization.

00:55:19.380 All these other forces that seem to be distracting us from our inner it's primal need for for spiritual experience.

00:55:26.720 I would say to some degree, that's the fundamental unanswered question of our age.

00:55:32.560 No, I'm reading this book right now.

00:55:35.120 Oh, is it the religion with no name?

00:55:40.420 It's about the Eleusinian mysteries.

00:55:42.900 I should get that right.

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00:58:41.700 The Immortality Key, the secret history of the religion with no name.

00:58:49.500 So the Greeks, Greek society was grounded in a spiritual experience and practice that's centered on Eleusis.

00:58:59.900 I hope I have that pronounced properly.

00:59:02.560 The initiates were inducted into the Eleusinian Mysteries.

00:59:07.620 And this book is one of a long line of books, a relatively long line of books,

00:59:14.460 really started in the 1960s, suggesting that shamanic experiences,

00:59:20.900 which are tens of thousands of years old, perhaps older,

00:59:23.680 and religious practices in more sophisticated societies that

00:59:29.240 were profoundly influenced and affected by hallucinogenic substances.

00:59:36.880 It seems highly probable to me.

00:59:39.140 In fact, I think the evidence is incontrovertible.

00:59:41.880 We have no idea what to do with that fact.

00:59:45.380 Now, the hallucinogens, the psychedelic experience adds an experiential element

00:59:51.680 to religious belief, religious thinking.

00:59:57.340 But we don't know what to make of that.

01:00:00.880 We don't know what to make of the fact that Apollonian Greece,

01:00:04.740 this shining beacon of rationality,

01:00:09.060 was embedded inside a mystical, psychedelic experience.

01:00:15.240 Right.

01:00:16.360 Right.

01:00:16.880 Well, and so our modern religions,

01:00:20.060 they're experientially dead in a very unfortunate way.

01:00:25.240 And I mean that, really mean that it's unfortunate.

01:00:27.560 But even the materialism suffers from the same problem.

01:00:31.180 So what do you mean by that?

01:00:33.020 That they're dead.

01:00:35.080 What do you mean exactly?

01:00:39.140 Well, if you go to a rave,

01:00:41.880 even if you don't take any substances,

01:00:45.260 the music and the dance can produce an experience

01:00:48.380 that lifts you outside of yourself.

01:00:50.940 Yeah.

01:00:51.380 An intense aesthetic experience can do that.

01:00:55.480 And we have our religious structures in the West

01:00:58.940 are divorced from that to a degree that I think is

01:01:02.840 is untenable over the long term.

01:01:08.060 And we insist upon faith.

01:01:11.660 We insist upon a faith that the rational atheist types

01:01:16.140 find contemptible and have very powerful arguments

01:01:19.560 at their fingertips to drive home.

01:01:23.220 Dawkins and Sam Harris and Hitchens,

01:01:26.940 those people are formidable intellectually.

01:01:29.140 And they take apart,

01:01:32.320 at least from their perspective,

01:01:34.460 these preposterous supernatural claims

01:01:37.340 and leave everything in ashes on the ground.

01:01:39.680 What to do about that?

01:01:46.500 I don't know.

01:01:47.640 I mean,

01:01:48.000 I would say that's something I think about all the time.

01:01:51.800 I mean,

01:01:52.120 I've been talking as well to people like

01:01:54.020 Bjorn Lomborg and Matt Ridley,

01:01:57.400 who are these rational optimists

01:02:01.640 who note that human material progress is progressing.

01:02:07.940 Michael Shermer would be in that camp as well.

01:02:11.420 Human material well-being is progressing

01:02:14.380 at a staggering rate.

01:02:16.220 And we're going to solve a lot of the problems

01:02:18.560 of absolute material deprivation in the next 30 years.

01:02:21.760 And that data is there and it's available,

01:02:24.700 but it has almost no compelling nature.

01:02:28.020 It's the same problem we discussed earlier

01:02:29.700 that there's not a story there.

01:02:32.220 Like when you take your ideologue,

01:02:35.600 your 18-year-old highly committed ideologue

01:02:37.420 out of the crowd and you say,

01:02:38.600 look,

01:02:39.640 we're going to incrementally improve

01:02:42.640 our way out of absolute privation

01:02:44.700 over the next 15 years.

01:02:46.180 So just calm down,

01:02:47.960 do something productive and wait.

01:02:50.280 And they say, 1.00

01:02:52.280 to hell with you, 0.99

01:02:53.660 what I'm doing is way more exciting, 0.99

01:02:56.460 which is true.

01:02:58.100 And so we have a real problem.

01:03:01.280 We don't know how to marry

01:03:02.760 either formalized religious belief,

01:03:08.620 let's say,

01:03:09.160 or even utopian materialism

01:03:12.420 in the Enlightenment manner.

01:03:14.180 We don't know how to marry that

01:03:15.580 to the Dionysian.

01:03:18.140 And that's a big...

01:03:19.540 Now, the thing about an ideology

01:03:20.780 is that that gives you the Dionysian, man.

01:03:23.700 You can go, you know,

01:03:25.100 so you're part of Black Lives Matter.

01:03:27.020 You're part of Antifa.

01:03:28.020 And so what do you do?

01:03:28.840 Instead of being like 7-Eleven clerk

01:03:31.340 and relatively unattractive romantically,

01:03:35.160 by the way,

01:03:35.700 because of that,

01:03:36.420 particularly if you're male,

01:03:37.840 you put on a mask

01:03:39.240 and you take your club

01:03:40.820 and you go out to fight evil.

01:03:42.540 And, you know,

01:03:43.260 there's fire

01:03:44.040 and there's noise

01:03:45.940 and there's the terrible,

01:03:47.620 tyrannical police.

01:03:48.880 And like,

01:03:49.320 you get to be a hero

01:03:50.260 and that's real.

01:03:52.200 Now, you can say,

01:03:53.380 well, that heroism is misguided.

01:03:54.940 And I would say

01:03:56.080 it is ultimately considered.

01:03:58.360 But it's not obvious to me

01:04:00.040 that the desire for adventure

01:04:01.640 that possesses the 7-Eleven clerk

01:04:04.540 who's dissatisfied

01:04:05.720 with his, you know,

01:04:07.860 comfortable satiety,

01:04:10.060 the call to adventure is real.

01:04:13.260 Well, it's incumbent upon the culture

01:04:16.160 to satisfy the call to adventure.

01:04:19.680 Right.

01:04:20.280 Well, we don't know how to do that.

01:04:22.040 We don't know how to do that.

01:04:23.320 And so the whole Black Lives Matter thing 0.58

01:04:25.320 or fighting against even,

01:04:27.420 you know, climate change,

01:04:28.680 white supremacy, the patriarchy,

01:04:30.820 that then becomes the spiritual mission. 0.60

01:04:33.040 Then that becomes the goal.

01:04:34.420 That becomes the vision

01:04:35.560 opposed to something truly spiritual

01:04:38.140 and religious, right?

01:04:39.420 But so one thing

01:04:41.060 that I wanted to question,

01:04:43.120 one thing I wanted to pose to you here was,

01:04:45.060 so you're saying that

01:04:46.280 in Western religious traditions,

01:04:49.100 so you're saying that

01:04:50.400 they are divorced

01:04:51.100 from spiritual experience?

01:04:52.540 Is that what you're saying?

01:04:54.960 Yeah, they're divorced

01:04:56.040 from practical mysticism.

01:04:58.640 You know, you can...

01:04:59.740 But that's more of an Eastern

01:05:01.220 type of thing, right?

01:05:02.120 So like meditation,

01:05:03.240 contemplative practice,

01:05:04.480 that's something that...

01:05:05.820 Well, there are contemplative practices

01:05:07.420 in the West,

01:05:07.980 but very few people,

01:05:09.480 very few people,

01:05:10.700 they're certainly not popular

01:05:12.100 like yoga.

01:05:12.980 No.

01:05:13.620 And there is mystical tradition

01:05:15.440 in the West,

01:05:16.320 but there's...

01:05:20.440 In the mass celebration,

01:05:22.480 for example,

01:05:23.120 which is eating the flesh of God,

01:05:25.760 essentially,

01:05:26.900 a very, very, very,

01:05:28.220 very old idea,

01:05:30.000 incredibly powerful idea

01:05:31.700 to incorporate the divine.

01:05:34.960 There's a spiritual transformation

01:05:36.820 that's attendant upon that,

01:05:38.400 but it's...

01:05:39.160 It isn't delivering

01:05:41.160 what it promises.

01:05:43.100 Not in any self-evident manner.

01:05:47.540 And I think that's probably

01:05:48.940 because

01:05:49.380 we've lost the technology.

01:05:54.040 That's my guess.

01:05:55.840 Strange as that is.

01:05:57.200 Right, yeah.

01:05:59.140 You know,

01:05:59.680 Mircea Eliad,

01:06:00.640 who's a great historian of religion,

01:06:02.700 wrote about shamanism

01:06:03.780 and the typical shamanic experience,

01:06:06.740 which, by the way,

01:06:07.340 is replicated experientially

01:06:08.840 all over the world

01:06:09.760 from the deepest reaches

01:06:12.020 of Northern Asia

01:06:13.180 into the Amazonian jungles.

01:06:14.920 The experience is very similar

01:06:16.260 that the shaman report,

01:06:18.240 remarkably similar,

01:06:19.800 but we have the same biology.

01:06:21.640 And Eliad believed that

01:06:24.520 the shamanic practitioners

01:06:27.640 who relied on hallucinogens

01:06:29.340 were practicing

01:06:30.460 a debased form

01:06:31.940 of the religious practice.

01:06:34.600 I think...

01:06:35.340 I have great respect for Eliad.

01:06:37.340 I learned a lot.

01:06:38.440 That's another person

01:06:39.360 people can read

01:06:40.060 is Mircea Eliad

01:06:41.080 if you're interested

01:06:41.780 in spirituality.

01:06:42.940 He's an absolute genius.

01:06:44.620 Right.

01:06:44.960 But I think he was wrong.

01:06:46.760 I think the shamanic tradition

01:06:48.120 was clearly embedded

01:06:49.180 in tens of thousands of years

01:06:51.240 of powerful psychedelic use.

01:06:53.300 I think the data on that

01:06:54.340 are pretty much clear.

01:06:56.640 Right.

01:06:57.200 Yeah.

01:06:57.540 And, you know,

01:06:58.360 I've been to church

01:07:00.900 many times before

01:07:01.660 and I've been to temples.

01:07:03.660 And so, you know,

01:07:04.500 I come from an Indian background

01:07:05.740 and my parents were raised

01:07:07.220 with Hindu and Sikh religion

01:07:09.560 in India.

01:07:10.300 And so I was raised

01:07:11.120 with Sikhism, Hinduism.

01:07:12.860 I never really resonated with it.

01:07:14.520 And I always sort of rebelled

01:07:16.100 against organized religion.

01:07:18.460 And then came high school

01:07:21.200 and sort of,

01:07:22.780 I was developing my identity

01:07:25.540 and I had these larger questions

01:07:27.140 about existence

01:07:27.860 and about the world.

01:07:29.740 And to some extent,

01:07:31.680 religion did help with that.

01:07:33.560 And I did go to church

01:07:35.100 for this short period of time.

01:07:36.740 And that was very interesting.

01:07:38.160 And I learned a lot of things,

01:07:39.640 even if I didn't,

01:07:41.620 you know,

01:07:41.900 let's say commit

01:07:42.520 to being a Christian,

01:07:43.320 it was still learning

01:07:44.500 the lessons about forgiveness,

01:07:46.860 about mercy,

01:07:48.040 about...

01:07:49.580 Right, right, right.

01:07:50.680 Well, some spiritual practice

01:07:52.080 might be better than none.

01:07:53.600 Sure.

01:07:54.080 But still going to church

01:07:56.060 and I guess, you know,

01:07:58.720 I don't want to sound like

01:08:00.500 I was fully immersed

01:08:01.480 in that environment

01:08:02.140 because I certainly wasn't.

01:08:03.680 I wasn't practicing

01:08:04.760 as a Christian.

01:08:05.620 And obviously people

01:08:06.760 who are practicing Christians,

01:08:08.140 they get something

01:08:08.760 that I've never experienced, right?

01:08:10.600 So I can't speak to that.

01:08:12.220 But for my limited time

01:08:13.600 going to church

01:08:14.280 and also going to various

01:08:15.620 Sikh and Hindu temples as well,

01:08:17.740 primarily Sikh temples,

01:08:19.680 which are all over Canada,

01:08:21.680 going there,

01:08:23.200 I still didn't feel like

01:08:24.760 I was having

01:08:25.520 that spiritual experience

01:08:26.680 that I wanted to have.

01:08:27.940 I still felt like

01:08:28.960 there was something lacking.

01:08:31.100 And so I was very confused

01:08:32.680 for a long period of time.

01:08:34.580 And then...

01:08:34.840 I talked to Bishop Barron

01:08:35.980 about that sort of thing recently.

01:08:37.400 I'm going to release

01:08:38.100 that podcast relatively soon.

01:08:40.280 You know,

01:08:40.540 I think one of the problems

01:08:42.020 that the modern Christian church has,

01:08:44.700 and I'm speaking broadly

01:08:47.040 and out of my place here

01:08:48.600 to some degree,

01:08:49.420 is that part of the reason

01:08:51.620 that young people

01:08:52.720 aren't adhering to the religion

01:08:54.240 is actually because

01:08:55.060 it demands too little.

01:08:57.260 You know,

01:08:57.460 if you present,

01:08:58.240 and I've seen this

01:08:58.940 with my own undergraduates,

01:09:00.360 the ones that I've taught,

01:09:01.520 because my course,

01:09:02.820 especially Maps of Meaning,

01:09:04.000 which was a primary course

01:09:05.220 I taught for decades,

01:09:06.620 had a very large impact

01:09:08.320 on the people

01:09:09.120 that I was teaching.

01:09:10.080 And it's full of religious ideas.

01:09:15.280 It's a psychology

01:09:15.940 of religion course,

01:09:16.860 essentially.

01:09:17.540 And it was...

01:09:20.480 I mean,

01:09:20.820 what I strove to transmit

01:09:26.100 to my students

01:09:27.080 was a religious idea,

01:09:29.140 which is,

01:09:29.960 look,

01:09:30.700 you're way more than you think

01:09:32.700 for good and for evil.

01:09:34.760 And actually,

01:09:35.460 the easiest way

01:09:36.220 to discover that

01:09:37.040 is to take a look

01:09:37.780 at the evil.

01:09:38.340 You can become convinced

01:09:40.640 of your own evil

01:09:41.440 and terrified of that

01:09:42.640 in a way that's easier

01:09:43.780 than to become convinced

01:09:44.960 of your own good.

01:09:46.200 In any case,

01:09:46.920 there's more to you

01:09:47.680 than meets the eye,

01:09:48.560 a lot more.

01:09:49.800 And you're much more dangerous

01:09:51.560 and promising

01:09:53.200 than you think.

01:09:54.720 And what that means

01:09:55.680 is that you have

01:09:56.400 an ethical requirement

01:09:57.780 to discipline yourself

01:10:00.500 and turn yourself

01:10:01.960 into something.

01:10:03.360 Because the world

01:10:04.560 depends on it.

01:10:05.620 and

01:10:07.840 the churches,

01:10:10.920 they don't

01:10:12.340 say that.

01:10:15.060 And that's what you have

01:10:16.240 to say to young people.

01:10:18.360 It's like,

01:10:19.200 get yourself together.

01:10:21.760 Everything depends on you.

01:10:24.240 Your decisions are important.

01:10:26.500 And you asked

01:10:27.180 why people turn to ideology

01:10:28.460 or maybe even to atheism

01:10:29.820 or nihilism.

01:10:30.580 It's like,

01:10:30.900 it's no trivial matter

01:10:33.400 to take yourself seriously.

01:10:35.480 Yeah.

01:10:36.160 Especially when you start to,

01:10:38.560 you know,

01:10:38.880 I tried to learn

01:10:39.800 the lesson of the Holocaust, 0.71

01:10:41.680 which is what

01:10:42.520 everyone who

01:10:44.560 attempts to derive

01:10:46.480 moral lessons

01:10:47.240 from the Holocaust 0.93

01:10:47.980 insists is the right response. 0.85

01:10:50.820 What's the moral lesson? 0.99

01:10:53.240 You're a Nazi. 0.98

01:10:56.680 You better get control 1.00

01:10:58.100 of yourself.

01:10:59.580 Right.

01:11:00.320 You could delight

01:11:01.360 in the torture

01:11:02.100 of other people.

01:11:04.160 It's very frightening

01:11:05.280 to realize that.

01:11:06.620 Yeah.

01:11:07.220 You know,

01:11:07.700 and the church,

01:11:08.340 of course,

01:11:08.880 the Christian church

01:11:09.780 has a very well-developed 0.56

01:11:12.280 model of evil.

01:11:13.960 It's very sophisticated.

01:11:15.260 Christianity

01:11:15.600 is very sophisticated

01:11:16.760 in its representation

01:11:18.380 of evil.

01:11:19.240 Unbelievably sophisticated.

01:11:21.080 And that's

01:11:22.520 extraordinarily

01:11:23.340 useful

01:11:24.360 and necessary.

01:11:25.840 And I think

01:11:26.340 the church,

01:11:27.060 I don't think

01:11:27.800 the church demands

01:11:28.740 enough of its

01:11:29.460 young practitioners.

01:11:30.900 It doesn't offer

01:11:31.600 them enough

01:11:32.080 and it doesn't

01:11:32.640 scare them enough.

01:11:34.420 Right.

01:11:34.820 So I wanted to finish

01:11:36.140 my thought from earlier.

01:11:37.100 So what I was saying

01:11:37.700 was that

01:11:38.140 participating in

01:11:39.180 organized religion

01:11:40.140 sort of

01:11:41.460 ironically

01:11:42.000 didn't seem

01:11:43.420 enough to fulfill

01:11:44.320 my spiritual impulses.

01:11:46.260 And I could be speaking,

01:11:47.640 you know,

01:11:48.460 maybe not sort of

01:11:49.200 in a representative way.

01:11:50.300 Maybe if I did

01:11:51.280 fully immerse

01:11:52.080 in the religious

01:11:52.760 lifestyle,

01:11:53.680 maybe I could have

01:11:54.560 achieved that state.

01:11:55.360 But for me,

01:11:56.180 it just seems

01:11:56.760 sort of

01:11:57.140 I don't want

01:11:58.640 to use superficial.

01:11:59.280 I don't want

01:11:59.760 to use pejorative

01:12:00.900 terms here,

01:12:01.620 but there was

01:12:02.720 something more

01:12:03.220 that I needed.

01:12:04.540 And so then

01:12:05.960 I sort of veered

01:12:06.660 down this path

01:12:07.460 of mindfulness

01:12:08.520 meditation

01:12:09.240 and contemplative

01:12:10.440 practice,

01:12:11.260 which did then

01:12:12.920 start to fulfill

01:12:14.200 my spiritual impulses

01:12:15.460 of, you know,

01:12:16.120 meditating 10 to 20

01:12:17.140 minutes a day,

01:12:18.080 focusing on

01:12:19.760 all the

01:12:21.040 flurry of thoughts

01:12:23.200 that are appearing

01:12:23.980 in consciousness

01:12:24.680 and how we seem

01:12:26.160 to identify

01:12:26.820 with these thoughts

01:12:27.560 and they completely

01:12:28.380 consume.

01:12:28.600 You needed to practice.

01:12:30.320 Yeah.

01:12:30.840 You know,

01:12:31.240 and that is something

01:12:32.240 else that the church,

01:12:33.900 the Christian church

01:12:34.580 could offer to young

01:12:35.420 people.

01:12:35.680 It's like,

01:12:36.020 okay,

01:12:36.240 you want to be a

01:12:36.900 Christian.

01:12:37.240 Okay,

01:12:37.440 what do you do?

01:12:38.720 Sure.

01:12:39.660 You know,

01:12:40.200 maybe you volunteer

01:12:41.260 at a hospital.

01:12:42.500 Right.

01:12:43.060 So you need practice.

01:12:44.200 It's not just

01:12:44.760 religious belief.

01:12:46.580 Religious life

01:12:47.800 isn't just belief,

01:12:48.880 right?

01:12:49.440 It's not,

01:12:50.060 it's not a set

01:12:51.020 of philosophical

01:12:52.420 propositions.

01:12:53.580 It's also a practice

01:12:55.080 and you found

01:12:55.940 some solace

01:12:56.640 and some utility

01:12:57.300 in a spiritual

01:12:58.700 discipline.

01:12:59.740 And so do many

01:13:00.260 people.

01:13:00.760 Many people study

01:13:01.780 yoga.

01:13:02.660 And so what's

01:13:04.160 the Christian

01:13:04.580 equivalent of that?

01:13:05.700 Well,

01:13:06.200 is there a question?

01:13:08.120 Yeah.

01:13:08.800 Well,

01:13:09.220 there isn't one

01:13:10.020 that's popularized

01:13:11.060 and detailed

01:13:12.140 and available

01:13:12.960 to people

01:13:13.560 to practice.

01:13:14.120 There are

01:13:14.940 mystical prayer

01:13:16.900 traditions.

01:13:18.580 Yeah.

01:13:18.980 Rosary,

01:13:19.460 and the Catholic

01:13:20.560 rosary

01:13:21.020 is a form

01:13:21.620 of meditative

01:13:22.340 practice.

01:13:24.740 Right,

01:13:25.020 right.

01:13:25.480 Yeah.

01:13:25.740 So,

01:13:26.260 okay,

01:13:26.500 so we've

01:13:27.300 established

01:13:27.760 that Western

01:13:28.680 traditions,

01:13:29.620 Western religious

01:13:30.200 traditions are

01:13:31.300 divorced from

01:13:32.020 spiritual experience,

01:13:33.180 right?

01:13:33.320 We agree on that.

01:13:34.560 Well,

01:13:34.760 they're divorced

01:13:35.240 enough so that

01:13:35.940 they don't seem

01:13:36.600 to be,

01:13:37.520 they're not

01:13:38.100 motivating

01:13:39.260 in the same

01:13:40.000 way.

01:13:40.520 See,

01:13:41.240 you said it

01:13:41.960 yourself

01:13:42.420 where we talked

01:13:43.140 about this.

01:13:44.060 Well,

01:13:44.280 let's say

01:13:44.640 you're an

01:13:45.020 ideologue

01:13:45.480 and you've

01:13:46.000 decided that

01:13:46.660 the patriarchy

01:13:47.360 needs to be 0.88

01:13:47.920 smashed.

01:13:48.440 Well,

01:13:48.560 what do you

01:13:48.840 do?

01:13:49.100 Well,

01:13:49.520 you go

01:13:49.760 to protests.

01:13:51.280 Well,

01:13:51.480 that's

01:13:52.200 smoke and

01:13:54.880 fire.

01:13:55.680 You know,

01:13:55.900 it's dramatic.

01:13:57.460 Well,

01:13:57.800 if you're

01:13:58.200 a Christian,

01:13:58.940 a young

01:13:59.300 Christian,

01:14:00.480 well,

01:14:01.120 what should

01:14:01.560 you do?

01:14:03.320 Well,

01:14:03.860 be good.

01:14:05.940 Well,

01:14:06.280 it's a little

01:14:06.700 vague.

01:14:07.940 Sure.

01:14:08.380 Yeah.

01:14:09.280 Yeah.

01:14:09.660 And

01:14:09.940 reaching those

01:14:11.160 high states,

01:14:12.220 those different

01:14:12.740 states of

01:14:13.220 consciousness

01:14:13.640 where you're

01:14:14.180 aware of

01:14:15.300 your inner

01:14:15.780 primal impulses

01:14:17.300 and how

01:14:17.720 they can

01:14:18.300 lead you

01:14:18.680 astray,

01:14:19.120 that seems

01:14:19.960 to be

01:14:20.220 something

01:14:20.500 that I'm

01:14:21.120 finding in

01:14:22.900 Eastern

01:14:23.720 spirituality,

01:14:24.320 in meditation,

01:14:24.920 being aware

01:14:25.720 of my own

01:14:26.400 flaws and

01:14:27.100 how I

01:14:28.140 sort of

01:14:28.460 dupe myself

01:14:29.280 with all

01:14:30.280 this negative

01:14:30.820 thinking and

01:14:31.820 identification

01:14:32.800 with thought

01:14:33.600 and becoming

01:14:34.840 practically a

01:14:35.820 slave to

01:14:36.440 whatever

01:14:36.780 internally or

01:14:38.140 externally that

01:14:38.860 I'm experiencing,

01:14:39.600 whether it's an

01:14:40.040 impulse to do

01:14:40.740 something or

01:14:41.400 it's, you

01:14:42.400 know,

01:14:42.480 somebody says

01:14:43.000 something bad

01:14:43.680 or I don't

01:14:44.080 get the job

01:14:44.640 I want.

01:14:45.480 And that just

01:14:45.840 completely becomes

01:14:46.660 my reality.

01:14:47.980 And I don't

01:14:48.520 recognize that

01:14:49.400 that is separate

01:14:50.520 from my own

01:14:51.340 consciousness,

01:14:51.780 that I can

01:14:52.440 take a step

01:14:53.360 back and

01:14:54.600 not let it

01:14:55.680 define my

01:14:56.340 experience,

01:14:56.940 right?

01:14:57.080 That is

01:14:57.400 something profound

01:14:58.140 that I'm

01:14:58.440 finding within

01:14:59.580 mindfulness

01:15:00.040 meditation.

01:15:01.260 And I think

01:15:01.800 you can do

01:15:02.260 that with

01:15:02.760 prayer and

01:15:03.700 I think

01:15:04.060 that's the

01:15:04.420 purpose of

01:15:05.180 prayer is

01:15:05.720 that,

01:15:06.100 well,

01:15:06.660 imagine that

01:15:07.320 you want to

01:15:08.080 engage in a

01:15:08.720 practice that

01:15:09.340 would orient

01:15:10.020 you away from

01:15:10.920 evil and

01:15:11.480 towards the

01:15:12.100 good.

01:15:12.520 So that's

01:15:12.920 your goal.

01:15:14.360 Okay,

01:15:14.520 so you can

01:15:15.020 ask yourself

01:15:15.960 and this is,

01:15:17.300 I would say

01:15:17.680 this is a

01:15:18.100 form of

01:15:18.460 communion with

01:15:19.300 your hypothetical

01:15:20.060 higher self

01:15:20.940 and perhaps

01:15:22.160 it's through

01:15:22.860 that that you

01:15:23.660 find your

01:15:25.160 relationship with

01:15:26.000 God,

01:15:26.660 something like

01:15:27.180 that,

01:15:27.500 speaking

01:15:27.820 psychologically.

01:15:28.840 You ask

01:15:29.400 yourself,

01:15:29.980 well,

01:15:31.240 what am I

01:15:32.400 doing that's

01:15:33.220 corrupt and 1.00

01:15:34.040 stupid? 1.00

01:15:35.620 That's a 1.00

01:15:36.200 prayer.

01:15:36.940 It's not,

01:15:37.740 oh,

01:15:37.860 I wish I

01:15:38.320 could find

01:15:38.720 my wallet.

01:15:40.460 You know,

01:15:41.100 when you

01:15:41.540 lose it,

01:15:42.660 you don't

01:15:43.220 pray to God

01:15:43.800 to help you

01:15:44.380 find your

01:15:44.880 wallet.

01:15:45.800 I mean,

01:15:46.240 I'm making

01:15:46.660 fun of it,

01:15:47.400 but you have

01:15:49.140 to ask the

01:15:49.720 right question.

01:15:50.540 Well,

01:15:50.700 what's the

01:15:51.040 right question?

01:15:51.960 How am I 1.00

01:15:52.680 stupid and 1.00

01:15:53.500 weak in a 1.00

01:15:54.500 way that I

01:15:55.020 could change?

01:15:56.640 And then

01:15:57.140 maybe you

01:15:57.560 ask,

01:15:57.960 well,

01:15:58.340 if I don't

01:15:59.140 want to

01:15:59.560 change,

01:16:00.660 but no,

01:16:01.200 I should,

01:16:02.140 well,

01:16:02.300 then you

01:16:02.660 ask yourself,

01:16:03.360 well,

01:16:04.300 how is it

01:16:05.080 that I

01:16:05.400 could take

01:16:06.680 a step

01:16:07.120 forward to

01:16:07.840 wanting to

01:16:08.580 change?

01:16:10.140 And so

01:16:10.720 you can

01:16:11.340 see,

01:16:11.840 even if you

01:16:12.460 only speak

01:16:13.040 psychologically,

01:16:13.880 you posit an

01:16:14.700 ideal within

01:16:15.460 yourself that

01:16:16.200 you can

01:16:16.560 commune with,

01:16:18.020 and then you

01:16:18.800 ask that

01:16:19.480 ideal to

01:16:21.360 guide you.

01:16:23.280 Well,

01:16:23.840 that will

01:16:24.200 work.

01:16:25.020 That'll

01:16:25.360 work.

01:16:26.820 Now,

01:16:27.200 it may not

01:16:27.700 be unerring or

01:16:28.720 infallible,

01:16:29.280 but you'll get

01:16:29.740 better at it

01:16:30.320 across time.

01:16:31.080 And what

01:16:31.360 that might

01:16:31.740 mean is that

01:16:32.600 God speaks

01:16:33.460 more clearly

01:16:34.100 to you

01:16:34.600 across time.

01:16:36.620 Right.

01:16:37.320 But again,

01:16:37.920 the absence

01:16:38.620 of spiritual

01:16:39.280 experience

01:16:39.880 within Christianity

01:16:41.540 and other

01:16:42.120 Western traditions,

01:16:43.200 that seems to

01:16:44.200 be an

01:16:44.820 interesting place

01:16:45.420 we're at

01:16:45.880 right now.

01:16:46.680 So we've

01:16:47.080 established

01:16:47.420 that.

01:16:48.180 So are

01:16:48.760 you saying

01:16:49.220 that in

01:16:50.520 some ways

01:16:51.000 Christianity

01:16:51.620 and other

01:16:52.080 Western

01:16:52.360 traditions

01:16:52.840 aren't

01:16:53.800 fulfilling

01:16:54.180 our

01:16:54.720 fundamental

01:16:55.220 innate

01:16:55.920 spiritual

01:16:56.620 impulses?

01:16:57.220 Is that

01:16:57.420 what you're

01:16:57.640 saying?

01:16:58.080 Because you

01:16:58.480 seem to

01:16:58.840 be,

01:16:59.180 you know,

01:16:59.700 why would

01:17:00.380 people be

01:17:00.880 leaving the

01:17:01.360 church?

01:17:01.800 Like we

01:17:02.060 see these

01:17:02.880 unbelievably

01:17:03.920 impressive,

01:17:05.820 magnificent

01:17:06.360 cathedrals

01:17:07.140 emptying.

01:17:08.980 Well,

01:17:09.540 there's

01:17:10.240 something wrong.

01:17:11.460 We're doing

01:17:11.820 something wrong.

01:17:12.940 Well,

01:17:13.340 something wrong

01:17:13.960 within the

01:17:15.680 church or

01:17:16.160 something wrong

01:17:17.080 within society,

01:17:18.380 right?

01:17:18.520 The other

01:17:18.880 increased

01:17:19.820 political

01:17:20.240 polarization,

01:17:21.140 the rise

01:17:21.440 of technology,

01:17:22.260 other secular

01:17:23.200 ideas.

01:17:23.720 Yeah,

01:17:23.860 both.

01:17:24.320 Right.

01:17:24.400 Well,

01:17:24.680 the church

01:17:25.120 is us

01:17:25.880 after all.

01:17:28.020 You know,

01:17:28.320 these medieval

01:17:29.520 people spent

01:17:30.940 vast fortunes

01:17:32.820 and unbelievable

01:17:33.740 effort making

01:17:34.520 these incredible

01:17:35.580 places of

01:17:36.340 worship.

01:17:36.860 They're so

01:17:37.220 beautiful that

01:17:37.960 it's beyond

01:17:39.180 comprehension.

01:17:40.840 And what's

01:17:42.180 happening inside

01:17:43.240 them is so

01:17:43.840 insipid that 0.84

01:17:45.520 no one will

01:17:46.240 attend.

01:17:47.220 Well,

01:17:47.500 that's wrong.

01:17:48.680 Look,

01:17:48.980 I learned

01:17:49.480 something when

01:17:50.060 I was a

01:17:50.400 clinical

01:17:50.660 psychologist

01:17:51.240 about talking

01:17:52.040 to my

01:17:52.440 clients.

01:17:52.880 if it

01:17:53.960 was boring.

01:17:55.920 It's the

01:17:56.520 same with

01:17:56.860 podcasts.

01:17:58.220 If it's

01:17:59.020 boring,

01:17:59.880 you're doing

01:18:00.640 it wrong.

01:18:02.760 There's a

01:18:03.420 lie in it

01:18:04.120 somewhere.

01:18:05.520 So,

01:18:06.220 you know,

01:18:06.640 we're having

01:18:07.100 a reasonably

01:18:07.820 intense

01:18:08.240 conversation.

01:18:08.940 This is

01:18:09.180 going well.

01:18:09.660 We're both

01:18:10.100 engaged.

01:18:11.020 We're doing

01:18:11.580 it right.

01:18:12.140 Now,

01:18:12.300 maybe we're

01:18:12.660 not doing

01:18:13.060 it as well

01:18:13.520 as it

01:18:13.780 could be

01:18:14.140 done,

01:18:14.520 but here

01:18:15.160 we are

01:18:15.660 and we're

01:18:16.040 in it.

01:18:16.860 Yeah.

01:18:17.420 Well,

01:18:17.740 if that

01:18:18.600 experience isn't

01:18:19.380 being offered

01:18:19.960 by the

01:18:20.460 church,

01:18:21.560 then the

01:18:22.560 church is

01:18:23.020 doing it

01:18:23.520 wrong.

01:18:25.120 Right.

01:18:25.640 What's

01:18:25.920 right?

01:18:26.500 Well,

01:18:27.020 I don't

01:18:28.340 know.

01:18:28.760 Well,

01:18:28.940 maybe I

01:18:29.360 know a

01:18:29.680 bit.

01:18:29.960 I did

01:18:30.260 a lot

01:18:30.560 of lectures

01:18:31.020 on the

01:18:31.620 Bible,

01:18:32.400 public

01:18:32.900 lectures,

01:18:33.480 and they've

01:18:34.100 been popular.

01:18:35.520 Can I

01:18:36.020 put my

01:18:36.380 finger on

01:18:36.880 why?

01:18:39.540 Not

01:18:39.980 easily.

01:18:41.020 I took

01:18:41.680 them

01:18:41.880 seriously.

01:18:42.600 I took

01:18:42.960 them

01:18:43.160 seriously,

01:18:43.860 I suppose.

01:18:44.480 Now,

01:18:44.680 is that to

01:18:45.140 say the

01:18:45.460 church

01:18:45.700 doesn't?

01:18:46.440 Yeah.

01:18:47.460 It is

01:18:48.160 to say

01:18:48.540 that.

01:18:48.880 seriousness

01:18:51.480 actually

01:18:52.160 matters.

01:18:52.880 I took

01:18:53.260 the story

01:18:53.860 of Cain

01:18:54.200 and Abel

01:18:54.540 seriously.

01:18:55.860 I studied

01:18:56.560 it for

01:18:56.880 years,

01:18:57.460 trying to

01:18:57.940 figure out

01:18:58.320 what the

01:18:58.720 hell it

01:18:59.100 meant.

01:18:59.880 The story

01:19:00.500 of Adam

01:19:00.840 and Eve,

01:19:01.700 the story

01:19:02.020 of Abraham.

01:19:03.400 Those things

01:19:04.080 have to be

01:19:04.500 made alive.

01:19:05.800 If you don't

01:19:06.220 make them

01:19:06.520 alive,

01:19:06.940 then you're

01:19:07.200 doing it

01:19:07.540 wrong.

01:19:08.540 As soon

01:19:08.860 as they

01:19:09.120 come alive,

01:19:09.720 then they

01:19:09.980 attract

01:19:10.420 people.

01:19:11.780 Right.

01:19:12.600 It seems

01:19:13.480 like we're

01:19:13.780 touching on

01:19:14.240 this

01:19:14.400 disconnect,

01:19:15.120 this difference

01:19:16.320 between religion

01:19:17.080 and spirituality.

01:19:17.720 They're not

01:19:18.380 the same.

01:19:18.960 They can

01:19:19.340 be the

01:19:19.660 same,

01:19:20.240 but here

01:19:20.560 we're

01:19:20.720 saying they're

01:19:21.120 not the

01:19:21.480 same.

01:19:22.000 Well,

01:19:22.200 they need

01:19:22.440 to be

01:19:22.720 melded.

01:19:23.340 That's the

01:19:23.740 Dionysian and

01:19:24.620 Apollonian

01:19:25.180 marriage that

01:19:26.000 Nietzsche

01:19:26.260 spoke of,

01:19:26.900 but it's

01:19:27.180 also the

01:19:27.740 place where

01:19:28.720 dogma and

01:19:29.380 spirit.

01:19:29.780 Look,

01:19:30.960 spiritual

01:19:31.840 experience

01:19:32.340 without

01:19:32.580 structure can

01:19:33.460 make you

01:19:33.980 insane. 0.62

01:19:35.200 It's very,

01:19:36.240 very dangerous,

01:19:37.420 but dogmatic

01:19:38.320 structure bereft of

01:19:39.440 the mysticism and

01:19:40.920 spiritual is

01:19:41.620 dead. 0.89

01:19:42.500 It's a

01:19:42.760 corpse,

01:19:43.840 and the

01:19:44.300 proper balance

01:19:45.060 is somewhere

01:19:45.480 in the

01:19:45.800 middle.

01:19:46.400 We've known

01:19:46.980 that as a

01:19:47.540 species forever.

01:19:48.780 I mean,

01:19:49.000 the Egyptians

01:19:49.520 regarded the

01:19:50.260 highest god,

01:19:51.120 and so he

01:19:51.720 was the

01:19:52.240 embodiment of

01:19:55.160 the principle

01:19:55.720 of sovereignty

01:19:56.440 itself.

01:19:57.640 He was

01:19:58.060 Horus,

01:19:58.680 who was

01:19:58.960 the eye,

01:19:59.820 the capacity

01:20:00.340 to pay

01:20:00.680 attention,

01:20:01.800 allied with

01:20:02.820 Osiris,

01:20:03.860 who was the

01:20:04.820 patriarch.

01:20:05.740 So it was

01:20:06.140 this living

01:20:06.920 dynamism between

01:20:09.200 lived experience,

01:20:12.060 Dionysian experience

01:20:13.260 even, and

01:20:14.560 intense,

01:20:15.580 emotional,

01:20:16.320 highly

01:20:16.580 motivated,

01:20:17.380 and structure.

01:20:19.220 Well,

01:20:19.800 that's where

01:20:21.080 valuable religious

01:20:22.960 experience,

01:20:23.840 the most valuable

01:20:24.680 religious experience

01:20:25.540 occurs.

01:20:26.500 It doesn't tear you

01:20:27.720 into bits,

01:20:29.360 which is the

01:20:30.480 problem with

01:20:31.140 unbridled

01:20:31.640 mysticism,

01:20:32.920 and the

01:20:33.620 problem with

01:20:34.220 psychedelics.

01:20:35.680 I mean,

01:20:35.900 when psychedelics

01:20:36.640 were reintroduced

01:20:37.460 to our society,

01:20:38.500 it caused a

01:20:39.720 tornado,

01:20:40.460 a hurricane.

01:20:41.400 We had no

01:20:42.000 idea what to

01:20:42.720 do with them.

01:20:43.680 And so we

01:20:44.180 made them

01:20:44.480 illegal immediately.

01:20:45.600 It's like,

01:20:45.940 wow, we don't

01:20:46.440 know what to

01:20:46.760 do with these

01:20:47.180 things.

01:20:48.340 You know,

01:20:48.520 and they've

01:20:48.740 been reintroduced

01:20:49.640 into our

01:20:50.080 culture after an

01:20:50.860 absence of

01:20:51.420 several thousand

01:20:52.060 years.

01:20:52.520 We had no

01:20:52.880 idea how to

01:20:53.500 deal with

01:20:54.020 whatever they

01:20:54.940 are.

01:20:55.920 And we have

01:20:56.460 no idea what

01:20:57.600 they are.

01:20:58.260 We have no

01:20:59.100 idea.

01:21:00.280 And I would

01:21:01.080 argue, just as a

01:21:01.920 side note, that

01:21:02.680 the closest thing

01:21:03.660 to psychedelic

01:21:04.480 experience is in

01:21:06.080 meditative practice,

01:21:07.100 primarily mindfulness

01:21:07.880 meditation.

01:21:09.040 You know,

01:21:09.180 people have

01:21:09.680 talked about

01:21:10.140 this, ancient

01:21:12.120 yogis, and Sam

01:21:13.420 Harris talks about

01:21:14.060 this as well,

01:21:14.560 about reaching

01:21:15.120 states of

01:21:15.720 consciousness in

01:21:17.120 consistent discipline

01:21:18.940 practice of

01:21:19.560 meditation that is

01:21:20.560 akin or almost

01:21:21.860 identical to

01:21:22.860 psychedelic experience,

01:21:24.420 which is very

01:21:24.880 powerful.

01:21:25.520 And that's a

01:21:26.560 different whole

01:21:27.340 conversation.

01:21:28.160 But so you're

01:21:29.320 saying the

01:21:30.320 spiritual absence

01:21:31.380 within Christianity,

01:21:32.760 that's a problem

01:21:34.520 that you're

01:21:34.900 identifying.

01:21:35.820 And that's a

01:21:36.260 big problem,

01:21:36.880 you're saying,

01:21:37.520 right?

01:21:37.700 It's a

01:21:37.960 catastrophe.

01:21:38.520 It's a

01:21:39.520 catastrophe.

01:21:40.840 Nietzsche knew

01:21:41.640 this 150 years

01:21:43.180 ago.

01:21:43.940 Right.

01:21:44.140 You know, he

01:21:44.500 said God is

01:21:45.220 dead and we

01:21:45.940 have killed 1.00

01:21:46.320 him and we'll 0.98

01:21:46.700 never find

01:21:47.200 enough water to

01:21:47.900 wash away all

01:21:48.480 the blood.

01:21:50.020 So modern

01:21:50.940 Christianity, you're 1.00

01:21:51.680 saying, is not

01:21:52.780 centered on

01:21:53.720 spirituality, and

01:21:54.500 that's a

01:21:54.780 problem, just to

01:21:55.460 be clear.

01:21:56.100 I'm not saying

01:21:56.680 it's not centered

01:21:57.480 on it exactly,

01:21:58.560 and I'm not

01:21:59.460 criticizing it as

01:22:01.440 if I'm the man

01:22:02.660 with the answers or

01:22:03.580 as an outsider.

01:22:04.700 It's our problem

01:22:05.780 as Westerners,

01:22:06.800 let's say, that

01:22:07.920 our central

01:22:08.820 religious core

01:22:09.880 has been

01:22:10.740 hollowed out.

01:22:12.520 And it's the

01:22:13.780 fault of

01:22:14.400 everyone, the

01:22:16.360 church practitioners,

01:22:17.820 the religious

01:22:18.260 authorities, it's

01:22:19.380 their fault, but

01:22:19.940 it's also the

01:22:20.540 fault of those

01:22:21.860 of us who

01:22:22.340 are, let's say,

01:22:23.140 alienated from

01:22:23.800 the church.

01:22:25.080 We can't, we

01:22:27.000 haven't managed

01:22:28.740 to the proper

01:22:31.000 spiritual relationship

01:22:32.260 with existence.

01:22:33.260 We haven't

01:22:33.960 managed that, and

01:22:35.380 that's a terrible

01:22:36.300 catastrophe.

01:22:38.140 Interesting, right.

01:22:39.260 And it's vitally

01:22:40.840 important, it's

01:22:41.640 vitally, it's more

01:22:43.040 important than

01:22:44.240 anything else.

01:22:45.040 It's the most

01:22:45.960 important thing.

01:22:47.340 Right, yeah.

01:22:47.960 It's just

01:22:48.360 interesting to see

01:22:49.060 you make this

01:22:49.500 observation, which

01:22:50.340 I completely agree

01:22:51.280 with, but you

01:22:52.360 always seem to be a

01:22:53.140 proponent of

01:22:53.800 religion, speaking

01:22:54.580 good about religion,

01:22:55.820 doing lectures, and

01:22:56.660 debating Sam Harris

01:22:57.800 about these things

01:22:58.560 while he is

01:22:59.400 identifying problems

01:23:00.700 within religion, yet

01:23:01.860 you now...

01:23:02.660 Well, the

01:23:03.000 problem with the

01:23:03.740 materialist atheists

01:23:04.820 is they don't

01:23:05.380 leave people with

01:23:06.280 anything.

01:23:07.440 You know, Dawkins,

01:23:08.220 for example, who I

01:23:09.220 respect, especially

01:23:10.540 I respect his

01:23:11.900 intellect and his

01:23:12.760 verbal capacity, but

01:23:14.720 his conclusion is

01:23:17.140 essentially, well,

01:23:18.420 it's a clockwork

01:23:20.200 universe that's

01:23:21.100 meaningless.

01:23:22.680 Right, yeah.

01:23:22.960 Well, you know,

01:23:23.240 people take that

01:23:23.980 sort of thing

01:23:24.500 seriously, and it

01:23:26.580 isn't obvious what

01:23:28.000 you do when you're a

01:23:29.240 serious nihilist,

01:23:30.440 nihilist, but it

01:23:31.960 looks to me that if

01:23:32.880 you're a serious

01:23:33.860 nihilist, what you

01:23:34.860 do is not good.

01:23:36.700 It's not good to

01:23:37.660 yourself, but it's

01:23:39.280 also not that good to

01:23:40.460 other people.

01:23:42.360 And so, it's...

01:23:45.720 And to think of all

01:23:47.000 we've left behind, the

01:23:48.400 whole shamanic

01:23:49.360 tradition, and its

01:23:50.480 ancient, ancient,

01:23:52.740 ancient roots, and

01:23:54.640 the Greek mysteries and

01:23:56.780 Christianity, to leave 1.00

01:23:57.940 that all behind and

01:23:58.820 say, well, that was

01:23:59.440 nothing but primitive

01:24:00.200 superstition, it's

01:24:01.240 that's that casual

01:24:02.160 contempt that I was

01:24:03.100 talking about.

01:24:03.680 It's like, those 0.99

01:24:04.560 people weren't stupid. 0.99

01:24:06.340 And what you don't 0.97

01:24:07.240 know about religious

01:24:08.120 experience would fill

01:24:09.180 many, many, many

01:24:11.080 books.

01:24:12.600 Right, right.

01:24:13.220 So, don't just

01:24:14.100 casually dismiss it.

01:24:15.900 And perhaps that's

01:24:16.680 that spiritual

01:24:17.480 experience is preserved

01:24:19.640 within various

01:24:20.680 Eastern traditions,

01:24:21.340 like Buddhism and

01:24:22.200 Hinduism, again, with 1.00

01:24:23.280 the whole meditation.

01:24:24.200 Well, pieces of it are,

01:24:25.500 certainly.

01:24:26.400 And, and...

01:24:27.100 Right.

01:24:27.240 I mean, there's no

01:24:28.060 shortage of Westerners 0.98

01:24:29.240 going to the Amazonian

01:24:30.480 jungle to reacquaint

01:24:32.320 themselves with

01:24:33.040 shamanic traditions.

01:24:34.820 And that's actually how

01:24:35.800 psychedelics were 1.00

01:24:36.600 reintroduced into

01:24:37.480 Western culture.

01:24:38.840 It was Gordon

01:24:39.460 Wasson and his crew

01:24:40.740 who found magic

01:24:41.920 mushrooms in Mexico,

01:24:42.920 and that launched the

01:24:44.320 entire psychedelic

01:24:46.880 revolution.

01:24:47.700 We reestablished

01:24:48.700 contact with our

01:24:49.720 lost shamanic

01:24:50.820 past.

01:24:52.100 We have no idea

01:24:53.300 what the consequences

01:24:54.200 of that will be.

01:24:55.120 And no way of

01:24:56.780 formulating it

01:24:57.620 intellectually in a

01:24:58.520 manner that's

01:25:00.060 comprehensible or

01:25:01.320 we don't know

01:25:06.340 what to do with

01:25:07.000 it.

01:25:07.600 Right.

01:25:08.000 So you're always a

01:25:09.040 proponent of Judeo-Christian

01:25:10.560 values in our society,

01:25:11.700 of some kind of

01:25:13.100 religious structure

01:25:14.160 that we have, right?

01:25:15.000 You're always a

01:25:15.700 proponent of that.

01:25:16.900 But right now, you're

01:25:17.580 also identifying this

01:25:19.280 fundamental disconnect,

01:25:20.720 this kind of pathology

01:25:22.260 almost within, we're

01:25:23.920 talking about Christianity

01:25:24.920 specifically.

01:25:26.540 Is that fair to say?

01:25:28.420 Yes.

01:25:29.360 Okay.

01:25:30.220 Do you see that as a

01:25:31.100 disconnect that you're

01:25:31.940 always sort of arguing

01:25:33.240 in favor of religion

01:25:34.320 when you're debating

01:25:34.940 Sam Harris, but you

01:25:36.280 still identify this

01:25:38.240 pathology that exists?

01:25:39.640 The father is always 0.58

01:25:42.600 dying or dead, and 0.75

01:25:44.640 it's always your job to

01:25:45.960 revitalize him.

01:25:46.980 Always.

01:25:47.800 You can't leave the

01:25:48.800 past behind.

01:25:50.140 We are the past.

01:25:51.180 We're old, us human

01:25:53.780 beings.

01:25:54.820 We've been around a

01:25:55.820 long time.

01:25:57.120 We can't just leave the

01:25:58.420 past behind.

01:26:01.560 So you go back, and

01:26:02.940 with some humility, and

01:26:04.960 you think, well, we'll

01:26:05.740 sift among the ashes, and

01:26:07.060 if we can find some

01:26:08.140 treasure, thank God, we

01:26:11.120 need it.

01:26:12.280 And I said, look, look,

01:26:13.460 I'm watching people like

01:26:15.580 Lomborg and Matt Ridley,

01:26:17.580 and I just spoke with

01:26:20.280 Marion Toopey, who runs

01:26:21.840 humanprogress.org.

01:26:23.460 He's another incremental

01:26:25.680 materialist optimist.

01:26:28.180 I say this with all

01:26:29.140 respect.

01:26:30.040 I'm thrilled, as

01:26:31.420 everyone should be, that

01:26:32.420 200,000 people are being

01:26:34.320 lifted out of abject

01:26:35.320 poverty every day.

01:26:36.980 But we see that

01:26:38.240 happening.

01:26:38.900 At the same time, we

01:26:40.200 see this spiritual

01:26:41.340 malaise grip the West

01:26:43.660 to such a degree that

01:26:45.540 we're undermining our

01:26:46.680 own presuppositions.

01:26:49.700 Right.

01:26:50.480 And we seem actively

01:26:51.660 involved in this process

01:26:52.940 of destruction.

01:26:53.640 And I would say, well,

01:26:54.380 that's perhaps that's

01:26:55.400 partly because these

01:26:56.820 axioms are being

01:26:57.540 challenged by people who

01:26:59.600 are angry for valid and

01:27:02.880 invalid reasons, and we

01:27:04.060 cannot mount a

01:27:04.900 counter-defense.

01:27:05.920 We're too weak to

01:27:06.960 defend ourselves.

01:27:07.840 Well, that's not good,

01:27:09.460 especially because I do

01:27:11.380 believe that the West

01:27:13.900 got many, many things

01:27:17.340 right.

01:27:18.200 Yeah.

01:27:18.980 Yeah.

01:27:19.260 And I think the

01:27:20.000 evidence for that is

01:27:20.820 clear.

01:27:21.680 Individual autonomy, even

01:27:23.140 the protesters, when they

01:27:24.300 go out and protest, are

01:27:25.520 acting out the

01:27:26.420 proposition that the West

01:27:27.960 got things right because

01:27:29.100 they wouldn't regard

01:27:29.820 themselves as autonomous

01:27:31.240 individual agents who have

01:27:32.700 a political responsibility if

01:27:34.500 they weren't saturated in

01:27:35.820 Western thinking.

01:27:37.360 Right.

01:27:37.620 Yeah.

01:27:37.860 That is the great irony

01:27:38.820 there.

01:27:39.140 And by the way, have

01:27:41.480 you ever tried

01:27:42.140 mindfulness meditation?

01:27:43.260 Have you gone down that

01:27:44.100 Eastern consciousness kind

01:27:45.580 of road?

01:27:46.160 Have you been there or have

01:27:47.400 you not explored that in

01:27:48.780 depth?

01:27:49.880 I would say yes and no.

01:27:51.740 I mean, as a clinical

01:27:53.000 practitioner, I did

01:27:55.460 mindfulness meditation all

01:27:56.840 the time.

01:27:57.380 And I do that during

01:27:58.400 podcasts and interviews.

01:28:00.280 You do it during

01:28:01.220 interviews.

01:28:02.040 Okay.

01:28:02.740 Yes.

01:28:03.100 Because I watch.

01:28:04.600 Right.

01:28:05.160 I watch.

01:28:06.080 And all I'm trying to do

01:28:07.740 is watch and say what I

01:28:10.600 think.

01:28:11.400 That's it.

01:28:12.160 I don't have a ulterior

01:28:14.160 motive in mind except to

01:28:16.260 pay as much attention as I

01:28:17.580 possibly can to what's

01:28:19.360 happening and to respond

01:28:21.220 in as untrammeled a

01:28:23.080 manner as I can possibly

01:28:24.500 manage.

01:28:25.500 Right.

01:28:25.940 Okay.

01:28:26.200 So you've thoroughly

01:28:26.920 engaged with mindfulness

01:28:27.980 meditation.

01:28:28.840 Well, I don't sit by

01:28:31.000 myself and in

01:28:32.480 contemplation.

01:28:33.220 I do it in the way that I

01:28:34.480 just described and try to

01:28:36.140 fall into the conversation

01:28:38.520 and that was very useful

01:28:40.760 to me as a clinical

01:28:42.000 practitioner and it's been

01:28:43.900 extremely useful, I would

01:28:45.440 say, as a speaker and

01:28:46.580 also as, you know, I'm

01:28:47.960 doing all these podcast

01:28:48.860 interviews and that sort

01:28:50.040 of thing.

01:28:50.480 And when they go well,

01:28:51.840 they're sure they're

01:28:52.820 there.

01:28:53.940 They go well.

01:28:55.240 And that's why it's

01:28:57.160 attention.

01:28:57.920 Like I learned from my

01:28:59.360 studies of Egypt, of

01:29:00.760 ancient Egypt, that the

01:29:02.360 eye is sacred to pay

01:29:04.520 attention, not to think

01:29:07.120 it's different.

01:29:08.140 It's a different thing.

01:29:09.480 Right.

01:29:09.660 Yeah.

01:29:09.900 And ultimately the

01:29:11.160 barrier between meditating,

01:29:13.760 sitting down and focusing on

01:29:14.880 your thoughts versus living

01:29:16.600 your life, that barrier is

01:29:18.540 artificial, right?

01:29:19.240 The idea.

01:29:19.880 Well, the goal is the goal

01:29:20.940 is to be mindful in your

01:29:22.200 day to day.

01:29:22.840 Exactly.

01:29:23.340 Yeah.

01:29:23.580 Yeah.

01:29:23.740 The barrier is artificial

01:29:24.780 between sitting down and

01:29:25.700 practicing versus living your

01:29:27.700 life.

01:29:27.960 Like you see people who

01:29:28.800 meditate so much, you

01:29:30.200 know, consistently, yet if

01:29:32.100 something irritates them,

01:29:33.120 they're yelling right away

01:29:34.440 and they're screaming on the

01:29:35.860 top of their lungs and

01:29:36.700 they're right.

01:29:37.780 Well, people ask me

01:29:38.780 sometimes how I can maintain

01:29:40.260 control of myself in

01:29:41.580 provocative interviews, for

01:29:43.280 example, where there's lots

01:29:44.300 at stake.

01:29:44.740 And the answer to that is

01:29:46.440 what I just said is that I'm

01:29:47.820 paying attention and I'm

01:29:49.700 doing my best to say

01:29:51.280 whatever is appropriate to

01:29:53.420 that particular situation.

01:29:55.660 Right.

01:29:56.180 And I can do that better

01:29:57.880 sometimes.

01:29:58.680 You know, I get peevish and

01:30:00.180 irritable.

01:30:00.720 And and when I'm off my

01:30:02.960 feed, let's say.

01:30:04.500 Yeah.

01:30:04.700 But when it works, it

01:30:05.700 really works.

01:30:06.880 Right.

01:30:07.340 Yeah.

01:30:07.760 I guess the thing that I was

01:30:08.700 curious about here, and

01:30:09.680 maybe this is unanswerable

01:30:11.240 to some extent, but I was

01:30:12.920 wondering if you've ever

01:30:13.780 derived any spiritual

01:30:14.800 experience from

01:30:15.860 mindfulness meditation,

01:30:17.580 but maybe that's something

01:30:19.280 that in the future you

01:30:20.900 might.

01:30:21.680 Well, I've had powerful

01:30:22.700 religious experiences, I

01:30:24.120 would say, as a

01:30:24.860 consequence of of

01:30:26.240 of attentional focus

01:30:28.420 that's like that.

01:30:29.500 I made this piece of

01:30:30.840 art called the meaning

01:30:32.320 of music, which is my

01:30:33.740 logo, essentially.

01:30:35.580 And it took me four

01:30:38.240 months to make it.

01:30:39.180 I carved it out of

01:30:40.540 foam core.

01:30:41.180 It's about eight inches

01:30:41.900 thick, about 20 layers

01:30:43.000 thick, and it's about

01:30:43.840 six by six.

01:30:44.660 And I was trying to

01:30:45.720 understand the meaning

01:30:47.500 of music.

01:30:47.980 It was an exploration.

01:30:49.020 And I had an intense

01:30:50.700 religious experience

01:30:51.780 while looking at it and

01:30:53.680 what and listening to

01:30:55.140 Mozart's 41st Symphony

01:30:56.680 at the same time.

01:30:57.680 Like, I was completely

01:30:58.500 transported.

01:30:59.940 It was, it was, it

01:31:00.980 was, it was, it

01:31:02.120 was, my pupils

01:31:03.780 dilated completely.

01:31:05.800 Right.

01:31:06.480 Yeah.

01:31:06.740 It was an overwhelming

01:31:07.980 experience.

01:31:09.140 I mean, that's how that

01:31:10.000 particular experience

01:31:11.020 happened to me three

01:31:11.780 times in my life.

01:31:13.280 Wow.

01:31:13.940 Okay.

01:31:14.200 And that was the

01:31:14.600 consequence, you're

01:31:15.200 saying, of the

01:31:15.840 mindfulness practice?

01:31:17.000 Well, I kind of

01:31:17.440 opened my mind.

01:31:18.420 I thought I was

01:31:18.880 looking at this thing

01:31:19.740 that I had produced,

01:31:20.520 which was also a

01:31:21.240 Mandela.

01:31:21.800 It's a three-dimensional

01:31:22.500 Mandela.

01:31:23.320 And people who've

01:31:24.560 studied Jung will know

01:31:25.520 something about what

01:31:26.460 that means.

01:31:27.020 Mandela is a symbol

01:31:27.860 of potential.

01:31:29.140 It's a symbol of the

01:31:29.840 higher self.

01:31:30.700 It's a symbol of

01:31:31.440 possibility.

01:31:32.020 It's a symbol of

01:31:32.860 structure.

01:31:33.620 I was meditating on

01:31:35.620 this Mandela, which

01:31:36.960 moved because that's

01:31:38.100 how I designed it.

01:31:38.880 It moves visually like

01:31:40.540 music does and

01:31:41.360 listening intently to

01:31:42.320 music.

01:31:42.800 Music is intrinsically

01:31:44.800 meaningful.

01:31:46.000 And what happened was

01:31:47.340 that that sense of

01:31:48.560 intrinsic meaning

01:31:49.480 magnified itself

01:31:50.640 intensely.

01:31:51.300 And that was the

01:31:52.560 basis of the

01:31:53.280 experience.

01:31:54.080 Right.

01:31:54.460 And it just, it

01:31:55.200 just knocked me

01:31:56.700 over.

01:31:57.300 And it was a

01:31:58.340 complete transformation

01:31:59.300 of consciousness.

01:32:00.740 And I thought I was

01:32:01.900 in a different state

01:32:03.320 of mind.

01:32:03.720 I thought, well, I

01:32:04.300 could be like this

01:32:04.960 all the time.

01:32:06.300 And then I thought,

01:32:07.580 well, I wouldn't know

01:32:08.360 how to conduct myself

01:32:09.380 if that was the case.

01:32:10.440 And then it

01:32:11.260 dissipated.

01:32:12.820 And, and, but it

01:32:14.380 gave me a glimpse

01:32:15.180 of, it gave me a

01:32:16.500 glimpse of, of, of

01:32:18.700 something I certainly

01:32:20.100 don't understand, but

01:32:21.540 certainly see.

01:32:22.820 Yeah.

01:32:23.380 Maybe something akin to

01:32:24.360 a psychedelic experience.

01:32:25.760 Yeah.

01:32:25.920 That's what I was

01:32:26.580 going to say.

01:32:27.020 And I do want to dig

01:32:28.100 deeper into this

01:32:28.880 intersection of

01:32:29.640 spirituality, religion,

01:32:30.980 meditation, art, this

01:32:32.300 kind of thing, but I do

01:32:33.500 want to move on to the

01:32:34.140 more important stuff

01:32:35.100 here.

01:32:36.040 So let's talk about

01:32:37.100 good luck.

01:32:39.240 Let's talk about

01:32:40.220 victimhood here, victim

01:32:42.040 culture.

01:32:43.620 So, so why do you

01:32:44.700 think victimhood is so

01:32:45.720 attractive right now in

01:32:46.740 our culture?

01:32:47.280 Why are so many young 0.98

01:32:48.380 people and also older

01:32:49.760 people identifying as

01:32:51.780 victims along, along

01:32:53.540 gender lines, racial

01:32:54.820 lines, or just, just in

01:32:56.540 general too, there seems

01:32:57.480 to be this push against

01:32:58.720 personal responsibility.

01:33:00.100 And there's all these

01:33:01.140 psychological and

01:33:02.360 sociological factors at

01:33:04.080 play here that are

01:33:04.980 incentivized within the

01:33:06.260 culture, within the

01:33:07.540 media, within, within

01:33:09.560 Hollywood and all these

01:33:10.880 things.

01:33:11.140 So, so that's kind of

01:33:12.300 this cultural pathology 0.97

01:33:13.600 that I've identified

01:33:14.760 here.

01:33:15.040 And I want to hear

01:33:15.720 your thoughts on

01:33:16.520 that.

01:33:17.540 Well, you should always

01:33:19.520 start by giving the

01:33:20.500 devil his due, right?

01:33:22.320 Okay.

01:33:22.840 Okay.

01:33:23.380 So, um, one source of

01:33:26.700 moral action is

01:33:28.200 empathy, clearly.

01:33:30.680 And we admire and even

01:33:33.040 hold sacred the

01:33:34.800 empathic capacities of a

01:33:36.440 mother caring for an

01:33:38.020 infant, right?

01:33:39.140 It's a primary 0.83

01:33:39.880 religious symbol in

01:33:41.140 many cultures.

01:33:43.260 Certainly you see it in

01:33:44.540 Christianity with Mary 0.98

01:33:45.700 and, and, and

01:33:46.660 Christ, but it's not

01:33:49.460 unique to Christianity.

01:33:50.960 And any society that

01:33:52.740 doesn't hold the mother 0.98

01:33:54.480 and infant as a sacred

01:33:55.760 image is doomed,

01:33:56.980 obviously.

01:33:58.920 Right?

01:33:59.560 Because that means you

01:34:01.020 don't like mothers and 0.88

01:34:02.080 children.

01:34:02.880 And so that is doom,

01:34:05.200 literally.

01:34:06.420 So, okay.

01:34:07.400 So, so we can say,

01:34:10.300 well, practice empathy

01:34:11.860 and you can see that

01:34:13.680 that's as if insofar as

01:34:17.260 morality can be

01:34:18.060 encapsulated in one

01:34:19.280 statement, that's not

01:34:21.340 bad, but it can't be

01:34:22.840 encapsulated in one

01:34:23.880 statement.

01:34:24.180 It's too complicated.

01:34:25.400 We're more, there isn't

01:34:26.740 only one dimension of

01:34:28.060 morality, but that is an

01:34:29.540 important one.

01:34:30.180 And so, well, you can't

01:34:31.800 be too empathetic.

01:34:33.300 Yeah.

01:34:33.780 Well, yes, you can

01:34:35.620 degenerate into 0.81

01:34:36.440 sentimentality and you

01:34:37.760 can do too much for

01:34:39.060 people and you can

01:34:39.960 over mother them. 0.99

01:34:41.220 And so, so it has its

01:34:42.700 boundaries, but they're

01:34:43.540 very difficult to

01:34:44.700 identify.

01:34:46.160 Right.

01:34:46.680 Like the opposite of

01:34:47.640 empathy looks like

01:34:48.840 predation.

01:34:50.140 Right.

01:34:50.640 So, yeah.

01:34:51.100 So somebody who's in a

01:34:51.920 car accident, who's going

01:34:53.040 through a difficult time.

01:34:54.040 Yes.

01:34:54.200 You want to care for

01:34:54.820 them, be empathetic, but

01:34:56.120 at a certain point, they

01:34:57.440 need that force of

01:34:58.460 self-determination to take

01:34:59.840 action and get better

01:35:01.120 themselves from their

01:35:02.100 physical injury.

01:35:02.700 Well, that's the

01:35:03.360 tension, isn't it?

01:35:04.260 And it's the tension.

01:35:05.320 Yeah.

01:35:05.920 Yeah.

01:35:06.080 It's the tension that

01:35:06.880 every parent faces.

01:35:07.840 It's like, well, you have

01:35:08.680 to take care of your

01:35:09.380 infant, but as the

01:35:10.840 infant matures, you

01:35:12.360 retract the care.

01:35:14.780 Yeah.

01:35:15.200 And let them, because

01:35:16.360 then, and if you don't,

01:35:17.600 the empathy, the

01:35:19.720 reflexive empathy that

01:35:20.900 you would show towards an

01:35:21.800 infant is, is downright

01:35:23.080 pathological.

01:35:23.740 If you're dealing with a

01:35:24.720 three-year-old and

01:35:25.340 absolutely counterproductive,

01:35:26.760 if you're dealing with a

01:35:27.760 competent adult, let's

01:35:29.340 say.

01:35:29.560 Yeah.

01:35:30.100 Somebody who's

01:35:30.600 rehabilitating from an

01:35:31.640 injury or drug addiction,

01:35:33.040 right?

01:35:33.340 Empathy is not limitless,

01:35:35.140 right?

01:35:35.280 There are constraints at

01:35:36.920 play here, and there is

01:35:38.000 some virtue in personal

01:35:40.280 responsibility, obviously,

01:35:41.540 and letting go of

01:35:42.420 empathy and letting go of

01:35:43.160 Yes.

01:35:43.300 Well, that's also why we

01:35:44.500 even have two personality

01:35:45.800 dimensions that are

01:35:46.760 separate.

01:35:47.120 We have agreeableness,

01:35:48.320 which is basically the

01:35:49.440 empathy dimension, and we

01:35:50.520 have conscientiousness, which

01:35:51.760 is basically the

01:35:52.720 effortful striving dimension

01:35:54.460 or something like that.

01:35:55.520 And they're both sources of

01:35:57.180 moral virtue.

01:35:58.400 Right.

01:35:58.540 So, okay, so anyway.

01:36:00.120 So back to victimhood.

01:36:00.660 Victimhood culture, why is 1.00

01:36:02.260 it so attractive?

01:36:03.080 Why are so many people

01:36:04.040 identifying as victims?

01:36:05.240 Well, the first part of it

01:36:06.120 is people don't necessarily

01:36:08.060 regard themselves as

01:36:09.520 victims.

01:36:10.100 They tend, the activist

01:36:11.320 types, they tend to regard

01:36:12.540 themselves as spokespeople

01:36:14.280 for the victims.

01:36:18.100 Sure, right.

01:36:19.320 Well, right.

01:36:19.920 So they see an ethical,

01:36:22.220 an altruistic, ethical

01:36:23.600 motivation in that and

01:36:25.760 regard it as admirable.

01:36:27.120 And to some degree, it is

01:36:29.520 subject to the constraints

01:36:30.880 that we already discussed,

01:36:31.900 but those are important

01:36:32.800 constraints.

01:36:34.140 So it's just not good

01:36:36.380 enough.

01:36:36.840 That's the thing.

01:36:37.800 It's, it's, and, and it

01:36:39.140 has this market disadvantage.

01:36:40.740 And then, you know, there's

01:36:42.220 all the ways that it can be

01:36:43.360 manipulated and shifted and

01:36:44.920 twisted and, and, and, and,

01:36:47.600 and used counter

01:36:49.200 productively, and that's

01:36:50.300 highly probable unless you

01:36:51.560 have a saint doing it.

01:36:53.860 So, but the first level of

01:36:55.820 attraction is, well, it is

01:36:58.820 a pathway to, to moral

01:37:00.860 behavior.

01:37:02.720 It is a valid pathway.

01:37:04.440 And if you don't have a more

01:37:06.240 valid pathway offered to

01:37:07.780 you, then, you know,

01:37:10.400 compassion for the

01:37:11.380 dispossessed is not a bad

01:37:13.080 first pass approximation,

01:37:14.180 but it's not good enough.

01:37:17.300 And so, you know, that's

01:37:18.880 maybe why you should go to

01:37:19.960 university.

01:37:20.460 It's like, well, you've got

01:37:21.560 to figure out what's better

01:37:22.800 than mere reflexive

01:37:24.280 empathy.

01:37:25.260 And, you know, there's the

01:37:26.320 unearned, first of all,

01:37:28.240 what makes you think that

01:37:29.300 you're a spokesperson for

01:37:30.500 the oppressed?

01:37:31.320 What makes you think that

01:37:32.420 you have that right?

01:37:33.280 Why should anyone take you

01:37:34.360 seriously?

01:37:34.780 How do you know you've got

01:37:35.600 the message right?

01:37:36.560 Why do you think you have

01:37:37.980 the solution at hand?

01:37:39.560 How do you know you're not

01:37:40.600 more dangerous than the

01:37:41.800 problem itself?

01:37:42.740 How do you know that your

01:37:43.820 dark and unexamined

01:37:44.980 motivations aren't blinding

01:37:46.440 you, et cetera, et cetera,

01:37:48.100 et cetera?

01:37:48.800 Well, that's the issue.

01:37:50.020 But, you know, as I said,

01:37:51.660 you give the devil his due

01:37:52.860 and the empathic striving is

01:37:54.620 a valid source of moral

01:37:56.440 endeavor.

01:37:59.480 Right.

01:37:59.620 Yeah.

01:38:00.200 And when we can look

01:38:01.020 specifically on the racial

01:38:02.460 dimension and maybe this

01:38:03.760 can elucidate some of the

01:38:05.240 underlying cultural

01:38:06.580 pathology that's at play

01:38:07.860 here.

01:38:08.300 So in my experience as a

01:38:10.160 young person of color,

01:38:12.120 somebody who's been

01:38:13.260 tormented, bullied for his

01:38:15.340 skin color in elementary

01:38:16.580 school, all things which,

01:38:18.300 you know, you know, I went

01:38:19.040 through a hell of a time in

01:38:19.840 elementary school for

01:38:20.680 looking different and being

01:38:22.560 mocked in so many different

01:38:24.820 ways.

01:38:25.360 And I used to wear a turban on

01:38:26.700 the top of my head as well,

01:38:27.620 you know, being of Sikh

01:38:28.420 background.

01:38:29.020 And so that was always a point

01:38:30.240 of of being bullied

01:38:32.340 and, you know, people saying,

01:38:34.320 you know, Indian people are 0.99

01:38:35.200 dirty and, you know, you're 1.00

01:38:36.220 brown and and, you know, 1.00

01:38:37.680 sort of.

01:38:38.280 Yeah, well, you're going to

01:38:38.940 get you're going to get

01:38:39.840 sorely tested if you're

01:38:41.380 different, because if you

01:38:42.940 look at act like everyone

01:38:44.200 else, you're not a mystery.

01:38:46.340 But if you don't, then you

01:38:47.680 are a mystery.

01:38:48.360 And how do children solve

01:38:49.840 mysteries?

01:38:50.500 Well, that's easy.

01:38:51.220 They poke at them and see

01:38:52.880 what happens.

01:38:53.640 So that's what happened to

01:38:54.780 you.

01:38:55.020 It's like you had a

01:38:55.700 turban.

01:38:56.080 It's like, who's this?

01:38:57.200 Well, let's make fun of

01:38:58.420 them and see what happens,

01:38:59.520 because if you want to find

01:39:00.540 out who someone is, one way

01:39:02.120 of doing it is by making fun

01:39:04.020 of them.

01:39:04.780 Yeah.

01:39:05.360 You know, and if they can

01:39:06.120 take and this is I'm not

01:39:07.920 saying this is justifiable and

01:39:09.560 I'm not saying anything at

01:39:11.080 all about.

01:39:11.900 Right.

01:39:12.180 But, you know, generally

01:39:13.760 speaking, the better you are

01:39:16.060 at taking a joke, the less

01:39:18.740 you'll get tormented, all

01:39:20.760 things considered.

01:39:21.940 And so it is a reasonable

01:39:23.140 exploratory mechanism, although

01:39:25.880 it can go completely out of

01:39:27.200 hand.

01:39:27.860 But it's understandable.

01:39:29.360 Yeah, right.

01:39:30.280 So so I would say there is a

01:39:31.660 sign of progress here.

01:39:32.660 The fact that that after

01:39:34.900 elementary school, I wasn't

01:39:36.620 really bullied for my skin

01:39:37.680 color.

01:39:38.020 And eventually I did cut off

01:39:39.600 my hair for various

01:39:40.480 religious reasons.

01:39:41.740 I didn't really resonate.

01:39:42.700 Yeah.

01:39:43.000 And, you know, if you hadn't

01:39:44.060 been harassed for being a

01:39:45.260 Sikh, there's pretty high 1.00

01:39:46.260 probability that the kids

01:39:48.600 who are prone to bullying

01:39:49.640 would have picked something

01:39:50.880 else about you and tortured

01:39:52.200 you about that.

01:39:53.160 And it might not have been as

01:39:54.580 horrible as your ethnic 1.00

01:39:55.800 identity, say.

01:39:57.220 But most kids are subject to

01:39:59.360 a substantial amount of

01:40:00.840 provocative bullying.

01:40:02.840 Right.

01:40:03.020 Yeah, definitely.

01:40:03.580 Yeah.

01:40:04.080 And just, you know, putting

01:40:04.900 aside the religious part of

01:40:06.200 it, which is sort of another

01:40:07.600 area of exploration, just the

01:40:09.460 skin color part of it.

01:40:10.380 Let's look at that.

01:40:11.340 So, you know, in ninth grade,

01:40:12.640 I remember this one incident.

01:40:14.960 And the reason why I remember

01:40:16.200 this right now is because I

01:40:18.400 mentioned this in my column

01:40:20.180 from today in the New York

01:40:21.420 Post about the cancel

01:40:23.960 culture, about victimhood,

01:40:25.560 about racial transgressions and

01:40:27.680 all these things.

01:40:28.280 And I remember in grade nine

01:40:30.280 being in this classroom where

01:40:32.420 two white boys basically

01:40:33.780 singled me out and they said,

01:40:35.600 you know, you Indian people 1.00

01:40:36.480 are dirty and just all sorts 1.00

01:40:39.680 of things of using my racial

01:40:41.780 identity as a point of

01:40:43.020 targeting me for my various

01:40:44.360 social eccentric behaviors,

01:40:48.260 my various, you know, problems

01:40:49.440 and flaws that I had using race

01:40:50.880 as like, OK.

01:40:51.400 Yeah, the dirty element, that's

01:40:52.920 really telling because one of the

01:40:54.700 things that regulates our

01:40:56.080 intergroup behavior is

01:40:57.460 disgust sensitivity, not fear.

01:41:01.020 And this is something everyone

01:41:01.980 should know.

01:41:02.700 We aren't really afraid of

01:41:04.840 strangers.

01:41:05.860 However, we are easily

01:41:07.400 disgusted by them.

01:41:08.960 And that's worse because you 0.98

01:41:10.880 destroy disgusting things. 0.71

01:41:12.960 It's disgust, not fear.

01:41:14.860 It's a major political

01:41:16.180 discovery that's only been

01:41:17.400 made in the last 30 years.

01:41:18.980 So the dirty element, that's

01:41:20.360 really crucial.

01:41:21.040 And also, it's a terrible thing

01:41:22.620 to be accused of, right?

01:41:24.840 You're a contaminating agent.

01:41:26.460 Yeah, exactly.

01:41:27.580 Yeah, that's a good way to put

01:41:28.420 it.

01:41:28.580 Yeah.

01:41:29.040 And I remember with that.

01:41:30.780 Yeah.

01:41:30.920 And I remember being totally

01:41:31.920 paralyzed in that situation.

01:41:33.260 It was ninth grade.

01:41:34.440 All of the other white peers 1.00

01:41:35.980 and classmates, they were

01:41:37.340 sort of paralyzed, too.

01:41:38.660 They didn't want to speak up

01:41:39.640 for me.

01:41:41.060 And so I left the room crying.

01:41:42.920 Probably didn't know how.

01:41:44.420 Yeah.

01:41:44.580 And it was ninth grade, too.

01:41:45.640 So it was embarrassing to be

01:41:46.580 crying in ninth grade.

01:41:47.620 Oh, absolutely.

01:41:48.440 You're a teenager, right?

01:41:49.580 But so the point of saying

01:41:52.500 that was that, yes, racism

01:41:53.700 exists.

01:41:54.220 We should acknowledge that.

01:41:55.400 And racism has impacted

01:41:57.800 my life at the margins,

01:42:00.260 I would say, in various

01:42:01.300 individual incidents.

01:42:03.360 And obviously, you know, you

01:42:04.880 know, I know of people who

01:42:05.780 were bullied far more, people 0.89

01:42:07.480 who are white for being fat, 0.93

01:42:09.440 for for just being socially 0.98

01:42:10.940 awkward, various other sort

01:42:13.560 of things that can be used

01:42:15.060 as targets for bullying.

01:42:16.160 Yeah, about 75 percent of

01:42:18.760 children have one observable

01:42:20.940 physiological abnormality that

01:42:22.860 can be used as the focal

01:42:24.380 point for bullies.

01:42:25.860 Exactly.

01:42:26.320 Yeah.

01:42:26.840 But so the point that I want

01:42:27.840 to make here is that, yes,

01:42:28.860 racism exists and it has

01:42:30.180 impacted me at the margins.

01:42:31.400 But but so this is sort of

01:42:33.440 how I how I came to be

01:42:36.660 sort of where I am right now.

01:42:38.180 So last year, I started

01:42:39.420 writing about white

01:42:40.580 privilege, intersectionality,

01:42:42.900 the ideas of systemic racism.

01:42:44.380 And I, you know, I noticed

01:42:45.540 this pathology of like,

01:42:48.100 OK, I'm a person of color.

01:42:49.660 Yes, I've experienced racism,

01:42:50.900 but I don't identify

01:42:52.940 as a victim, but it's

01:42:54.600 incentivized for me to be

01:42:56.040 a victim, for me to be

01:42:57.420 protesting against white

01:42:59.140 supremacy, of being this

01:43:01.280 victim of systemic racism.

01:43:02.300 Well, it gives you an easy,

01:43:03.960 as we discussed, an easy

01:43:05.020 pathway to moral, unearned

01:43:06.380 moral superiority, which is

01:43:08.520 really attractive because

01:43:09.740 earned moral superiority is

01:43:11.940 unbelievably difficult, right?

01:43:13.840 I mean, there's nothing more

01:43:15.140 difficult than this, the

01:43:17.260 attempt to be a good

01:43:18.720 person.

01:43:19.500 That's hard.

01:43:20.860 And so if you can just be a

01:43:21.860 good person because you

01:43:22.820 believe, you know, the right

01:43:24.320 three things, well, how

01:43:26.040 convenient is that?

01:43:27.140 And that's another reason for

01:43:29.040 when people do take on the

01:43:31.240 role of victim, you know,

01:43:33.140 plus they can wield a club

01:43:34.520 righteously.

01:43:35.400 And that's I mean, that's an

01:43:37.080 extraordinarily attractive

01:43:38.040 option.

01:43:38.660 Right, right.

01:43:39.320 And and one of the things

01:43:40.600 that I pointed out earlier in

01:43:41.980 my writing last year, which

01:43:43.120 was so it was so influential

01:43:45.020 and a lot of my articles went

01:43:46.280 viral right away was that race

01:43:48.440 is not a barrier to my

01:43:49.700 success.

01:43:50.140 Like I live such a privileged

01:43:52.180 life.

01:43:52.980 Stop telling me that I suffer

01:43:55.400 from, you know, racial

01:43:56.780 disadvantage or that other

01:43:58.820 people have white privilege

01:43:59.860 that's helping them get ahead.

01:44:01.040 Like I found that to be

01:44:02.100 totally counterproductive and

01:44:03.580 pathological, like that whole

01:44:05.200 narrative.

01:44:06.000 Why?

01:44:06.100 Why was it?

01:44:06.880 Why did you regard it that

01:44:08.100 way because I want to take

01:44:10.340 ownership of my own life and

01:44:12.160 there is no supernatural

01:44:13.800 force of racism that's

01:44:15.320 keeping me down.

01:44:16.060 Right.

01:44:16.380 Like I can write essays and

01:44:18.300 publish my work in all these

01:44:20.160 influential places and I get

01:44:21.600 to talk to you here right now

01:44:22.780 and I'm at a fairly young

01:44:24.440 age and I'm doing all these

01:44:25.960 important things.

01:44:27.160 Race has impacted me.

01:44:28.680 Yes, but it's not a

01:44:29.960 systemic barrier.

01:44:31.300 It's not stopping me from

01:44:32.360 succeeding in life.

01:44:33.280 But that seems to be the

01:44:34.540 narrative perpetuated by so

01:44:36.120 many white people, especially 0.85

01:44:37.820 that there is this

01:44:39.600 overarching force of

01:44:42.060 racial victimization that's 0.79

01:44:43.900 at play.

01:44:44.740 And so I stepped in.

01:44:45.600 Yeah, well, I think part of

01:44:46.560 that, too, on the part of the

01:44:48.180 of the white people, let's 0.57

01:44:49.900 say, is that they get to

01:44:51.680 have and this is something

01:44:52.520 that really bothers me about

01:44:53.760 the radical left.

01:44:54.700 you get your privilege and you

01:44:58.440 get to be moral, morally

01:44:59.760 superior because you're

01:45:00.760 standing up for the victim.

01:45:02.060 So it's like you get to be

01:45:04.200 privileged and a victim at the

01:45:05.920 same time.

01:45:06.540 It's like, hey, pick one.

01:45:07.960 OK, like maybe it's just too

01:45:10.600 much to be privileged and a

01:45:13.160 victim at the same time.

01:45:14.580 And that really that I it's

01:45:19.240 it's not a an effective

01:45:21.100 psychological practice.

01:45:22.340 It's terribly socially divisive

01:45:24.120 and it's unbelievably 0.98

01:45:25.560 hypocritical. 0.95

01:45:27.040 You know, anybody who comes 0.98

01:45:28.900 to stands up and says, well,

01:45:30.300 you know, I'm a professor.

01:45:31.740 The system that produced me.

01:45:34.000 Yeah.

01:45:34.600 Was so racist that it's or

01:45:36.480 was so prejudiced that it's

01:45:38.260 racist.

01:45:39.260 It's like, OK, you just

01:45:40.600 admitted you have no moral

01:45:41.920 claim to your position.

01:45:42.940 You shouldn't resign.

01:45:44.780 Yeah.

01:45:45.580 Now.

01:45:46.300 Right.

01:45:47.120 Right.

01:45:47.420 Right.

01:45:47.540 Otherwise, otherwise, I

01:45:49.400 wouldn't say shut up because

01:45:50.740 no. 0.64

01:45:51.860 Right.

01:45:52.180 People need to talk and they

01:45:53.280 need to express their

01:45:54.080 opinions.

01:45:54.440 But if you're if your

01:45:56.720 statement is that the

01:45:58.560 system that produced you,

01:46:00.020 say, as a professor, is so

01:46:01.080 systemically prejudiced that

01:46:03.880 it it it's racist.

01:46:05.920 You don't have a valid claim.

01:46:07.820 You're actually an 1.00

01:46:08.700 incompetent fraud. 1.00

01:46:10.540 You've just said that.

01:46:12.060 Yeah.

01:46:12.400 Yeah.

01:46:12.540 You who who's being paid far

01:46:14.200 beyond your competence for

01:46:15.760 reasons that have nothing to

01:46:17.000 do with your ability.

01:46:17.900 The only.

01:46:20.540 Truly ethical thing to do, if

01:46:22.280 that's true, is to stop

01:46:24.940 doing what you're doing and go

01:46:26.180 find a job that you're

01:46:27.160 actually qualified to do.

01:46:29.780 Yeah.

01:46:30.220 Yeah.

01:46:30.420 And I'm glad I'm glad you

01:46:31.660 brought this up here, because

01:46:32.760 one of my earliest critics was

01:46:34.880 the editor of my local

01:46:36.400 newspaper here

01:46:37.180 for the Chilwack Progress.

01:46:39.320 His name is Paul Henderson.

01:46:40.240 And initially he was critiquing

01:46:42.260 my work and a very

01:46:43.540 progressive guy.

01:46:45.080 And that's fine.

01:46:45.720 But he disagreed with me

01:46:47.260 rejecting the traditional

01:46:48.520 narratives of of white 0.55

01:46:50.320 privilege and systemic racism.

01:46:51.620 And that was great that he was

01:46:53.540 critiquing my work.

01:46:54.460 But then then, you know, he

01:46:57.380 was targeting me for being

01:46:59.640 associated with alt-right, that

01:47:00.980 my articles rejecting these

01:47:02.600 racial grievance narratives are

01:47:04.520 are alt-right, which is just a

01:47:06.600 euphemism for white supremacy.

01:47:07.760 Right.

01:47:08.720 And and then one of the things

01:47:10.420 that so so so he wrote this

01:47:12.660 column, I remember, last summer

01:47:14.040 where it was titled something

01:47:16.460 like Dear White People, Dear

01:47:17.880 Dear Straight White Males in 0.93

01:47:20.300 Our City.

01:47:20.660 And so many people read this.

01:47:21.700 And I remember reading this

01:47:23.500 vividly.

01:47:24.580 And one of the arguments that he

01:47:26.420 made was that throughout

01:47:27.780 history and even today,

01:47:29.640 straight white males have the 0.86

01:47:32.500 dominant power in our society.

01:47:34.020 So and he's a straight white 0.73

01:47:35.600 male.

01:47:36.000 And so he's saying it's time

01:47:37.040 for us to listen to people of

01:47:38.460 color.

01:47:38.940 It's time for us to step down

01:47:40.520 and let them achieve some

01:47:42.500 success in our society.

01:47:44.640 And the irony was that he's a 0.83

01:47:46.720 straight white male saying that

01:47:48.020 and either, you know, like you

01:47:49.700 said, resign for your unearned

01:47:51.660 position or, you know, even,

01:47:53.820 you know, listening to people of

01:47:55.500 color.

01:47:55.860 I remember this explicitly in the

01:47:57.360 column.

01:47:57.740 Listen to people of color.

01:47:58.760 Listen to their struggles.

01:48:00.060 And this whole stereotype of

01:48:02.240 people of color being, you

01:48:03.900 know, victims.

01:48:04.360 It's like, I'm a person of

01:48:06.080 color.

01:48:06.340 Does my perspective matter?

01:48:07.740 And the answer is no.

01:48:08.940 Right.

01:48:09.240 It's it's the individual, you

01:48:11.820 know, activists.

01:48:12.700 It's the people who align

01:48:14.160 themselves with left wing

01:48:15.520 ideologies that align with.

01:48:17.680 Well, you know, your your status

01:48:19.640 as a minority immigrant to

01:48:21.920 Canada.

01:48:22.540 Yeah.

01:48:23.140 Means that you have some things

01:48:24.840 to say to someone like me,

01:48:26.460 let's say that.

01:48:27.760 Right.

01:48:28.080 That I might benefit by hearing.

01:48:30.060 But to think of that as

01:48:31.880 something that's going to

01:48:33.640 constitute an insuperable

01:48:35.100 barrier between us.

01:48:37.160 That's right.

01:48:38.420 And and and to think about

01:48:40.740 that as fundamentally what you

01:48:43.320 have to bring to the table.

01:48:45.200 That's unbelievably demeaning.

01:48:47.940 Right.

01:48:48.580 I'm not talking to you because

01:48:50.140 you're young or because you're a

01:48:52.300 racial minority.

01:48:53.600 Yeah.

01:48:53.860 I mean, but I'm listening to

01:48:55.940 you about your experience of

01:48:58.380 those things.

01:48:59.500 Right.

01:48:59.920 But that certainly doesn't it

01:49:01.560 would be horrible.

01:49:04.020 It would be horrible if that's.

01:49:07.940 What I how I conceived of you.

01:49:11.220 I mean, the reason I'm talking

01:49:13.420 to you, well, it's because you

01:49:14.680 ask that's part of it.

01:49:15.880 But, you know, you're a bright

01:49:17.220 young character and you've

01:49:18.900 managed some accomplishments and

01:49:21.340 that's kind of interesting to

01:49:22.840 me and.

01:49:25.300 You have a developing voice.

01:49:28.020 You're a competent writer.

01:49:30.120 You're credible.

01:49:32.060 Despite your youth, let's say.

01:49:34.640 And so and I wanted to hear

01:49:37.260 what you had to say and what

01:49:38.620 questions you wanted to

01:49:39.780 formulate.

01:49:40.760 That's why I'm talking to you.

01:49:42.920 And it would be really

01:49:44.160 something if the only reason I'm

01:49:45.660 talking to you were for

01:49:47.620 reasons that would make you

01:49:50.040 easily replaceable of by

01:49:52.340 someone exactly your age and

01:49:54.260 background.

01:49:55.000 It's like, who cares about you

01:49:56.500 bring in the next young 0.97

01:49:57.980 Sikh because they're all the 1.00

01:49:59.940 same anyways.

01:50:02.140 Right.

01:50:02.740 Right.

01:50:03.160 There's this assumption with

01:50:04.460 these racial narratives that

01:50:05.700 you, Jordan Peterson, as a

01:50:07.480 white man, you have a

01:50:09.160 fundamental advantage in our 0.98

01:50:10.580 society because you are white 0.83

01:50:12.000 compared to me.

01:50:12.780 I have a disadvantage because

01:50:14.420 I'm because I'm of a certain

01:50:15.700 skin color here.

01:50:16.560 Right.

01:50:17.040 That's that's the.

01:50:17.900 Yeah, well, I probably do have

01:50:19.200 a bit of an edge there, all

01:50:20.560 things considered.

01:50:21.900 Well, I'm not sure about

01:50:22.820 that.

01:50:23.200 Well, it might not be true.

01:50:24.880 It might not be true now.

01:50:26.120 It might not be true.

01:50:27.100 I'm you know, I've certainly

01:50:28.280 seen in my in academia, if

01:50:31.160 you're a white male, a young 0.98

01:50:32.720 white male, it's like, forget 1.00

01:50:34.140 it and forget it.

01:50:36.500 Your probability that you're

01:50:38.000 going to find a high end

01:50:38.840 academic job, which is very

01:50:40.540 difficult and unlikely to

01:50:41.720 begin with, is vanishingly

01:50:43.560 small.

01:50:44.260 And it's not impossible, but

01:50:45.640 but you have to be hyper,

01:50:47.000 hyper competent.

01:50:48.220 So there are places,

01:50:49.760 there's definitely places

01:50:50.980 where maleness and.

01:50:53.700 Right.

01:50:54.380 And being Caucasian are 0.99

01:50:55.480 working against you.

01:50:56.220 It's definitely the case in 0.99

01:50:57.540 academia.

01:50:58.060 It has been for 25 years,

01:51:00.660 maybe longer.

01:51:02.020 Right.

01:51:02.560 Yeah.

01:51:02.700 So I just mean, you know,

01:51:04.840 this idea of white

01:51:05.760 privilege is that because

01:51:07.080 I'm part of the majority

01:51:08.100 culture.

01:51:09.180 Right.

01:51:09.740 I'm never the stranger as

01:51:11.600 long as I stay in my own

01:51:12.920 culture.

01:51:13.360 And that, that, that

01:51:15.560 deprives me of certain

01:51:16.900 experiences, but it's

01:51:19.000 easier, obviously.

01:51:20.800 So we can, we can leave

01:51:23.320 some residual amount of

01:51:24.820 explanation for success

01:51:26.400 being, you know, arbitrary

01:51:28.900 racial prejudice.

01:51:31.400 That's fine.

01:51:32.200 It's brought, I think it's

01:51:34.120 reasonable to argue about

01:51:35.000 how much of it's there and

01:51:36.000 whether it's flipped around

01:51:37.020 entirely because it might

01:51:38.520 have by now, you know.

01:51:40.620 Right.

01:51:40.760 Yeah.

01:51:42.320 But, and I certainly have

01:51:44.080 seen in organizations, law

01:51:47.340 firms, for example, I worked

01:51:48.560 with a lot of law firms and

01:51:49.780 if they have a high powered

01:51:51.680 minority female, they'll bend 1.00

01:51:54.600 themselves into knots to keep 0.98

01:51:56.420 her.

01:51:56.820 And as they should, because if

01:51:58.220 she's hyper-competent, like

01:51:59.540 great, hyper-competent people

01:52:01.220 are rare, but, but, and I've,

01:52:04.740 I've worked with women, Asian

01:52:06.620 women, mostly who faced all 1.00

01:52:09.180 sorts of obstacles within law

01:52:10.860 firms, you know, angry men

01:52:13.240 who were competing with them

01:52:14.780 getting in their way in all

01:52:16.460 sorts of ways.

01:52:17.260 So that still exists, but that

01:52:19.180 was more at the level of one

01:52:20.560 to one competition.

01:52:21.560 The firm itself generally did

01:52:24.120 absolutely everything they

01:52:25.260 could to.

01:52:26.640 Right.

01:52:27.240 Allow the career to develop.

01:52:29.080 Right.

01:52:29.580 Yeah.

01:52:29.900 So it's not universally

01:52:31.080 advantageous to be a minority.

01:52:32.980 That's one of my arguments.

01:52:34.100 So yes, being a person of color

01:52:36.400 in a majority white classroom,

01:52:38.480 yes, I've experienced prejudice

01:52:40.420 because of that, but in other

01:52:42.600 spaces, being a minority is

01:52:44.600 seen as a benefit, right?

01:52:45.840 When applying for various jobs,

01:52:47.920 you know, there's so much data

01:52:48.900 on this too, in the United

01:52:49.820 States of being, um, of being

01:52:52.660 black and being. 0.80

01:52:54.000 No, you definitely have an 0.73

01:52:54.900 advantage if you're a female and 1.00

01:52:56.280 you're applying for an academic

01:52:57.500 position, that's clear.

01:52:58.980 And it's been that way for a

01:52:59.880 long time.

01:53:00.860 With SAT scores, there's

01:53:02.220 affirmative action in place.

01:53:03.220 If you're black and you're

01:53:04.240 qualified and you have, and

01:53:06.380 you know, you, you meet the

01:53:07.660 sort of minimum criteria, you

01:53:09.700 have a, you have a much higher

01:53:10.960 chance of being admitted to

01:53:12.160 Harvard, Yale, big law firms,

01:53:14.900 big tech, Google, you have a

01:53:16.580 much higher likelihood of being,

01:53:17.940 um, accepted or getting the job

01:53:20.100 compared to a white person with

01:53:21.940 equal standing with equal

01:53:23.460 credentials, right?

01:53:24.160 If you're black or if you're a 0.90

01:53:25.120 minority, you have much more 0.95

01:53:26.400 likelihood of, uh, of getting

01:53:28.940 it.

01:53:29.060 Unless you're Asian and trying to 1.00

01:53:30.440 get into Harvard.

01:53:31.380 Yeah.

01:53:31.800 Asians.

01:53:32.160 Yeah.

01:53:32.360 That's where, well, that's

01:53:33.880 why I see this so interesting

01:53:35.180 because I think a lot of this

01:53:36.340 intersectional nonsense is 0.62

01:53:37.660 going to be Caucasians, 0.98

01:53:40.100 especially male Caucasians.

01:53:42.220 They're not in the argument.

01:53:43.260 They can't solve the argument.

01:53:44.580 This is going to be settled

01:53:45.520 amongst the minorities.

01:53:47.720 That's how it looks to me.

01:53:49.920 Right.

01:53:50.620 Right.

01:53:50.960 Yeah.

01:53:51.700 Now, so with victimhood, we've

01:53:53.200 talked about the cultural part of

01:53:54.380 it, and this is the crucial part

01:53:55.980 is asking about your

01:53:57.480 experiences here.

01:53:58.460 So, so I'm going to segue into

01:54:00.680 you now.

01:54:02.080 Um, how did you, well, so

01:54:05.100 clearly you're not 100% recovered

01:54:06.940 right now, as you've said, I

01:54:08.000 think you've said 40% before.

01:54:09.920 Five.

01:54:11.180 Five percent.

01:54:12.640 Yeah.

01:54:13.080 Right now I've had a good week,

01:54:14.660 a much better week.

01:54:15.720 Um, I was diagnosed with sleep

01:54:17.340 apnea, not only like three weeks

01:54:19.800 ago, I was waking up.

01:54:22.180 I'm, I was stopping breathing 25

01:54:24.160 times an hour.

01:54:26.000 Wow.

01:54:26.480 And so I have no idea what, but

01:54:28.380 since I have a machine now that,

01:54:30.140 that regulates my breathing and

01:54:32.080 all right now I I'm praying that

01:54:34.640 this is actually the problem, but

01:54:36.600 I've felt much better since I've had

01:54:38.540 this machine and, and, and the

01:54:40.580 data suggests that you continue to

01:54:42.200 get better over about a 40 day

01:54:43.640 period.

01:54:43.980 It's only been about a week.

01:54:45.620 So, you know, maybe finally the

01:54:48.500 finger has been put on at least part

01:54:50.320 of it and so, yeah, and I, like

01:54:52.880 I've been in excruciating pain.

01:54:54.900 Yeah.

01:54:55.700 Unbelievably high levels of

01:54:56.840 anxiety, unbearable.

01:54:58.460 And then I also had a movement

01:54:59.740 disorder, which I wouldn't wear

01:55:01.240 wish on Hitler himself for 10 0.97

01:55:04.240 minutes.

01:55:04.660 It was absolutely intolerable.

01:55:08.540 Um, right.

01:55:09.460 And I've been so, and I just talked

01:55:11.340 to my wife about all this this

01:55:12.520 week.

01:55:12.780 I'm bitter.

01:55:13.660 I'm angry.

01:55:14.420 I'm resentful.

01:55:15.400 All of those things.

01:55:16.300 I shake my fist at God.

01:55:17.720 It's like, what's the justice in

01:55:19.220 this, trying to scour my

01:55:20.940 conscience to see what I've done

01:55:22.220 wrong.

01:55:23.120 It's.

01:55:23.540 And so that's all victim.

01:55:25.440 That's all victimhood, but it's

01:55:27.880 not helpful.

01:55:28.600 I'm doing my best to drop that,

01:55:31.640 you know, like unfair to many,

01:55:34.080 many people.

01:55:34.760 And I think, well, this is a

01:55:36.260 special kind of unfairness and it

01:55:38.200 probably is, but you know, that's

01:55:40.960 not rare.

01:55:43.480 Special unfairness is not rare.

01:55:45.740 Tolstoy said, you know, every happy

01:55:48.580 family is happy the same way, but

01:55:50.100 every unhappy family is unhappy in

01:55:52.320 their own unique way.

01:55:53.460 And I think unjust suffering is like

01:55:56.320 that.

01:55:56.620 It's, it's arbitrary and unfair.

01:55:58.800 None of the victim.

01:56:01.640 Um,

01:56:02.300 responses have been productive for me.

01:56:07.460 I've tried to fight them and off,

01:56:09.540 tried to fight them off.

01:56:10.800 So the temptation, the attraction is

01:56:13.940 always there, you know, because of

01:56:16.020 what we face, you know, how can you,

01:56:18.900 your, your parents died in an

01:56:20.160 automobile accident and you're 13.

01:56:22.600 Like, how can you avoid feeling like

01:56:24.380 a victim?

01:56:25.760 You are a victim.

01:56:26.760 You are a victim.

01:56:27.540 Well, yes, yes.

01:56:30.540 So then what, what let, so, but then

01:56:33.480 you think, well, I'm a victim and

01:56:34.720 therefore my anger, resentment is

01:56:38.680 hostility is justified.

01:56:41.500 And really it's, it's anger at God

01:56:43.420 fundamentally resentment at its core

01:56:45.500 is anger or the, or at the

01:56:47.480 conditions of being, let's say, which

01:56:49.720 for all intents and purposes is

01:56:51.960 equivalent psychologically to God.

01:56:54.440 You shake your fist and say, how can

01:56:56.480 things be this way?

01:56:57.720 And fair enough.

01:56:58.900 Like, I understand that, but it's not

01:57:01.880 helpful.

01:57:02.800 And it does me damage.

01:57:05.400 I can see that even though it's very

01:57:07.760 difficult to escape from it, you

01:57:10.640 know, when I can barely stand up, which

01:57:12.240 is not an uncommon experience.

01:57:13.940 And I can't even imagine how I'm going

01:57:16.180 to get through the next hour, much

01:57:17.340 less the next day or the next weeks,

01:57:19.660 which I don't even think about because

01:57:21.080 it's like an infinite landscape of

01:57:22.980 pain, that anger and resentment, they

01:57:26.360 spring to mind instantly, but it's not,

01:57:29.480 there's nothing in it that's helpful.

01:57:32.160 Yeah.

01:57:32.820 Okay.

01:57:33.200 So you just basically answered the

01:57:34.500 question because we talked about this

01:57:36.140 before this podcast, which was how, how

01:57:38.780 do you defeat the temptation for

01:57:40.120 victimhood of developing that mindset?

01:57:41.800 So, so you're continually struggling with

01:57:44.980 this internal psychological turmoil of, like

01:57:49.060 you said, battling, you know, with God

01:57:50.580 and dealing with this unfair, just

01:57:53.180 extraordinarily unfair and, and painful

01:57:57.760 situation that you're in to put it mildly

01:57:59.740 even, um, so yeah, I mean, I've looked

01:58:02.400 at my contribution to it, at least insofar

01:58:04.360 as I could, I took benzodiazepines and

01:58:06.280 that seems to have been ill-advised.

01:58:08.180 I'm very sensitive to benzodiazepine

01:58:09.960 withdrawal.

01:58:11.000 I mean, when I took them, I was really

01:58:12.800 sick.

01:58:13.680 I was insomniac for a long time, weeks, 0.51

01:58:18.600 three weeks.

01:58:19.160 I was freezing.

01:58:20.140 I couldn't get enough clothes on.

01:58:21.500 I, my blood pressure was so low.

01:58:23.360 I couldn't stand up.

01:58:24.520 I was like terror in absolute terror.

01:58:27.260 I have no idea what happened.

01:58:28.680 Um, and then I went to the doctor and was

01:58:31.580 prescribed this medication and I slept and

01:58:34.000 I felt better and I, I didn't think much

01:58:37.120 of it.

01:58:37.540 My life was very stressful at that point.

01:58:39.420 And that turned out to be a very bad

01:58:41.580 decision, but I, and, but, but, but it

01:58:46.260 turned out to be a bad decision.

01:58:48.980 I didn't do it without cause.

01:58:52.320 I was genuinely ill and so severely, I

01:58:55.780 didn't know if I'd be able to return to

01:58:57.240 work or, or conduct any of my, uphold any

01:59:00.800 of my responsibilities.

01:59:02.340 So, you know, I've looked at that.

01:59:04.100 Did, why did you start?

01:59:05.560 Oh yeah.

01:59:06.060 You were really sick.

01:59:07.640 Well, why didn't, why did you continue?

01:59:09.540 Well, your life was stressful and, and you

01:59:12.020 didn't realize.

01:59:15.240 I wasn't aware of how dangerous this could

01:59:17.740 be for some people.

01:59:18.900 Right.

01:59:20.740 So you, you've been at this, this extremity

01:59:24.180 of battling with the victimhood mindset,

01:59:26.480 right?

01:59:26.800 Cause dealing with what you're dealing

01:59:27.960 with is infinitely worse than dealing with

01:59:30.460 racism or, or.

01:59:32.800 Well, maybe, I mean, racism can get pretty

01:59:35.000 bad, you know?

01:59:35.800 Sure, sure, sure.

01:59:36.580 I mean, sort of like my experiences, like

01:59:38.360 dealing with racist people in society, like,

01:59:41.020 like that's one aspect of it or other forms

01:59:43.360 of suffering in your life of being broke, of

01:59:46.380 being, you know, all sorts of other things.

01:59:48.540 Like you've been at the extreme state based

01:59:50.600 on what you're describing.

01:59:51.160 Well, it was extreme enough for me.

01:59:53.180 Like I, any more, if it was any more extreme,

01:59:55.840 it would have killed me.

01:59:57.020 I believe.

01:59:57.580 Right, exactly.

01:59:58.400 Yeah.

01:59:58.900 Yeah.

01:59:59.060 So you've been at that.

01:59:59.720 I couldn't believe that.

02:00:00.300 I couldn't believe many days, many, many days

02:00:03.420 in the last two years, I truly believed

02:00:07.680 that I would die before the end of the day.

02:00:09.740 Wow.

02:00:10.160 That, that was, I just couldn't see how I

02:00:12.340 could possibly be that impaired.

02:00:16.380 And live, it turns out you're a lot tougher

02:00:19.820 than you even want to be sometimes.

02:00:22.920 Yeah, you're right about that.

02:00:23.900 A lot more resilient, you know?

02:00:25.120 I mean, people are, we're very, very tough sometimes.

02:00:29.200 So how did this-

02:00:30.500 I don't mean morally or anything like that. 0.96

02:00:31.840 I just mean, you're not that easy to kill.

02:00:37.380 So how did this unimaginably difficult period

02:00:40.040 in your life, how did it change your,

02:00:42.040 your perceptions of spirituality or your-

02:00:45.380 Well, two ways, two ways.

02:00:47.360 Relationship with God, religion.

02:00:48.980 How did that change?

02:00:49.620 Because that's something that's really important

02:00:51.640 because some people, like I described earlier,

02:00:54.440 when they're suffering a lot in their life,

02:00:56.500 when tragedy happens, the attendees' religion

02:00:58.620 as a kind of crutch.

02:01:00.100 So people who don't normally pray,

02:01:02.100 something bad happens, then they go to religion,

02:01:04.540 searching for answers.

02:01:05.500 You know, why am I suffering?

02:01:06.360 Other people, when they're experiencing

02:01:09.420 tremendous hardship, they lose their faith.

02:01:12.960 They're like, you know, my mom died in a car accident. 0.99

02:01:16.480 Where the fuck is God? 1.00

02:01:17.580 Does God exist? 1.00

02:01:18.620 Why am I experiencing this?

02:01:20.100 And even if he does exist, why should I be his friend?

02:01:23.500 Exactly, yeah.

02:01:24.220 So you can go sort of both ways,

02:01:25.880 either becoming more religious in some ways

02:01:27.600 or becoming nihilistic, cynical, 0.51

02:01:30.540 misanthropic about society.

02:01:31.760 So I'm curious where you lie in that spectrum.

02:01:33.780 Well, what I learned was that even though I had,

02:01:37.460 I had already concluded intellectually

02:01:44.260 that there was nothing good about nihilism

02:01:48.080 and bitterness and resentment,

02:01:51.200 that it was unbelievably dangerous

02:01:54.360 and that it isn't justified under any circumstances.

02:02:01.760 And then I entered these extreme circumstances

02:02:04.540 and I thought, oh, well, this justifies it.

02:02:07.840 It's like, I can't see how anybody could be

02:02:11.580 in this situation and not shake their fist at God

02:02:13.960 and in outrage, but I really, really thought it through

02:02:19.080 and talked to my wife about it.

02:02:20.580 And all I could conclude was that that was wrong,

02:02:25.160 is that it didn't justify it.

02:02:28.320 There was nothing good in it.

02:02:29.900 There was nothing helpful in it.

02:02:31.140 All it was doing was hurting me.

02:02:33.100 It was interfering with whatever good

02:02:35.020 I still might be able to do in the world.

02:02:39.620 You know, the last chapter of my new book

02:02:41.800 is Be Grateful in Spite of Your Suffering.

02:02:43.960 And that was a chapter I, you know,

02:02:46.540 worked on and was doubtful about

02:02:50.340 and returned to and was like thoroughly

02:02:54.240 what I rate about and felt hypocritical about

02:02:58.840 and so on and so forth, the full gamut of emotional responses.

02:03:02.340 But it's the right thing to do, to be grateful.

02:03:09.720 It's, and I'm not claiming this for myself.

02:03:12.420 It's, it's tightly allied with a kind of existential courage.

02:03:16.340 It's a decision.

02:03:18.140 And, you know, undoubtedly, there are people who've been pushed farther

02:03:22.300 in the domain of pain than me.

02:03:24.420 Burn victims, people, you know, suffer unimaginable agony.

02:03:29.360 And I would never dare to compare my pain

02:03:34.440 to someone else's extraordinarily, extraordinary pain.

02:03:39.240 It was certainly far worse than every day that I spent in the last two years

02:03:44.080 was worse than any day I had before that by a huge margin.

02:03:48.420 Yeah.

02:03:48.520 So for me, it was, well, like I said, if it had got any more extreme,

02:03:53.940 I can't imagine that I would have lived through it.

02:03:56.520 But the, okay, so the first conclusion was

02:03:59.140 you still under those conditions, you orient yourself upward

02:04:03.640 and you try to do good in the world and you, and you don't,

02:04:06.840 if you fall prey to resentment and, and anger and hostility,

02:04:11.480 however justified,

02:04:12.920 not even however rationalized, but however justified,

02:04:17.980 even if an objective observer would say,

02:04:19.940 well, no wonder you feel that way.

02:04:22.280 It's not helpful.

02:04:23.400 So there is no good in it.

02:04:24.880 That's what you said.

02:04:25.660 I see no good in it.

02:04:26.920 But then I wonder, like, like I, I would agree with you.

02:04:29.940 I'm inclined to agree with that, that there's no good in that,

02:04:31.980 but, but, you know, through, you know, there's the old cliched adage

02:04:36.220 about going through hard times, revealing certain silver linings

02:04:40.000 and certain benefits that you may not see in the moment.

02:04:42.500 So are you open to that possibility of in the future,

02:04:45.120 some realization?

02:04:47.960 There has been, I guess that, that this thing we already discussed,

02:04:51.480 I would say is of benefit,

02:04:53.700 whether that benefit justifies what I went through,

02:04:56.680 I would say, so would I repeat what I went through

02:04:59.860 and still going through for that matter?

02:05:01.820 I mean, I've only been feeling somewhat better for five, six days.

02:05:05.860 Right.

02:05:06.580 I wouldn't repeat it to learn that.

02:05:10.020 And I think maybe you're still learning something.

02:05:11.680 Maybe there's still something that's to come.

02:05:13.580 Some realization.

02:05:14.380 I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying that's the case.

02:05:16.400 I know you, I know you're not.

02:05:17.900 Well, God only knows, right?

02:05:19.800 I mean, it wasn't until this last week that I really thought that through

02:05:25.460 and realized that, however extreme my pain, which was diffuse,

02:05:31.960 Yeah.

02:05:34.260 It didn't justify resentment.

02:05:37.380 It didn't justify ingratitude.

02:05:40.360 It, it didn't make, certainly didn't make those things work.

02:05:43.100 But then the other thing that I did realize was,

02:05:46.520 and people have commented on that being a difference between this book

02:05:51.040 and the first book.

02:05:52.040 The second book is more communitarian.

02:05:54.100 There's less humor in it because I just wasn't up to humor, you know,

02:05:57.160 but there's more emphasis on, uh, cooperation and, and, and the social role

02:06:05.740 in ethical behavior.

02:06:07.420 And I think that's partly a consequence of me observing how far above the call

02:06:13.940 of duty, my friends and my family went while they were caring for me and not

02:06:19.180 only my friends and my family, but medical personnel and the general public

02:06:24.180 who've been my, well, the general public, my viewers, readers, and listeners,

02:06:28.720 let's say have been unbelievably loyal and supportive.

02:06:31.860 And so I've seen this outpouring of love from, you know, at the micro level

02:06:37.800 within my family and, and from my friends and from people I don't know,

02:06:44.000 but who I communicate with, um, that's well, that saved my life for sure.

02:06:49.840 There's no doubt about that multiple times, many, many times.

02:06:53.200 And has really, you know, I saw my, my father-in-law years ago, um,

02:07:00.760 sort of a man about town kind of guy, um, um, extroverted and, and gregarious

02:07:08.440 and, um, and amusing and, um, a real character.

02:07:13.480 Everyone in my small town knew him.

02:07:15.300 He's still alive.

02:07:16.400 His wife developed prefrontal dementia and he took care of her over 15 years.

02:07:20.580 And right.

02:07:21.100 And you mentioned this in the book.

02:07:22.300 Yeah.

02:07:22.480 He did a stellar, uh, an admirable job.

02:07:25.600 I mean, it just, it just floored me how, how he, how he did that with no complaints

02:07:34.480 and, and allowing help and, and loving her throughout her lengthy, lengthy decline.

02:07:41.360 That was staggering to me to witness.

02:07:43.380 I'm, I thought, I'm not sure I could do that.

02:07:45.940 It isn't obvious to me that he's doing something that I'm capable of doing.

02:07:49.180 And I certainly felt that way about my friends, many friends, my, my immediate family, my kids,

02:07:57.580 my wife, my parents, but my sister-in-law, um, met an old college friend who's still walking

02:08:07.800 with me virtually every day.

02:08:09.520 Um, and then relative strangers that we hired to help, to help with my care.

02:08:15.280 Uh, also, uh, um, uh, my, uh, I'm in a state of jaw dropping admiration for the capacity

02:08:24.800 of people to care.

02:08:27.360 Yeah.

02:08:28.240 Amazing.

02:08:28.980 So I, I, I saw it more deeply into that.

02:08:32.080 And right.

02:08:33.020 So now I'm not saying that made it all worthwhile.

02:08:35.460 It's like, no, no, no, not so far.

02:08:39.240 I certainly wouldn't have drawn that conclusion, but that's not the point.

02:08:43.100 Right.

02:08:43.580 You know, here I am, this guy, you know, I'm a clinical psychologist.

02:08:48.000 I got tangled up with benzodiazepines.

02:08:50.800 Um, I'm talking to people about getting their house in order and things collapsed around

02:08:56.080 me.

02:08:56.480 And like, it's, it's the irony is, well, it's almost unbearable.

02:09:00.500 That was part of what made this so difficult was not only the pain, physical pain, but this

02:09:07.580 absurd paradox, and yet people have forgiven me.

02:09:14.340 And right.

02:09:15.000 Yeah.

02:09:15.520 Right.

02:09:15.900 Yeah.

02:09:16.160 Right.

02:09:16.320 Now we're amazed.

02:09:17.320 I'm amazed.

02:09:17.800 You know, we say that culture has no capacity for forgiveness.

02:09:20.740 You know, you hear that about cancel culture and about people that are being eradicated for

02:09:25.100 making one mistake and we have to learn to forgive.

02:09:27.220 It's like, I experienced a lot of forgiveness.

02:09:29.540 And, and then again, you know, when I've been attacked in the press, when people have gone

02:09:33.900 after my reputation with all guns blazing, that's for sure, you know, our lives, my family's

02:09:40.720 life was punctuated over the last five years with two week periods where I've been attacked

02:09:47.180 for something, accused of something like, you know, wanting the government to distribute

02:09:53.060 nubile women to undeserving men to preserve social harmony. 1.00

02:09:58.240 Right.

02:09:58.260 All these things that, that look absolutely reprehensible being compared to Hitler, et cetera,

02:10:04.240 et cetera.

02:10:04.760 There's always a two week period after that blows up where we have no idea if I'm done

02:10:10.300 at that point.

02:10:12.140 And yet the support that I've received has been continuous.

02:10:16.900 And so why, why that is, I don't know.

02:10:21.600 I think I have hypotheses.

02:10:23.700 I mean, I include myself in the audience of reprobates to whom I'm lecturing.

02:10:31.300 I don't assume that, you know, I abide by all these rules.

02:10:35.100 There are, there are targets for attainment and hopefully that, you know, has protected

02:10:43.560 me at least to some degree against the perception of undue moral superiority.

02:10:49.620 Mm-hmm.

02:10:51.080 Yeah.

02:10:51.760 Yeah.

02:10:52.080 You sort of answered my first question and then you answered one of the other questions

02:10:55.780 that I was going to ask, which was the, the irony here of, of, of the guy who's supposed

02:11:01.740 to, who we're supposed to go to for advice, for self-help wisdom, somebody who's supposed

02:11:06.320 to teach us how to put our house in order, has his house completely collapsed, at least psychologically

02:11:12.380 speaking.

02:11:13.480 And so.

02:11:14.100 Physically too.

02:11:14.900 Physically.

02:11:15.340 And practically.

02:11:15.980 And so this is what I wanted to pose to you and you've sort of answered this, you know,

02:11:19.540 from a devil's advocate perspective, many people, many people on the left were saying

02:11:23.940 this, especially many prominent journalists, critics, intellectuals, like, like this guy 0.71

02:11:28.420 is a complete fraud.

02:11:29.640 Like he went through like all this stuff.

02:11:31.440 He's completely destroyed.

02:11:32.600 He can barely, you know, get his, his speech in order and talk like so much suffering going

02:11:37.400 on.

02:11:38.680 And so why should we read his book about getting our own lives in order?

02:11:42.080 Like maybe this guy should take a year or two, get his life in order, you know, fix

02:11:46.480 whatever he's going through.

02:11:48.160 And then we can listen to his wisdom afterwards, but not right now while he's dealing with this

02:11:52.840 immense hardship.

02:11:53.700 And again, I'm not saying that, but that's the, that's one of the main criticisms of your

02:11:57.700 new book.

02:11:58.180 Like without even reading it is that you're trying to teach the world.

02:12:01.900 You're trying to impart your values onto the world.

02:12:04.640 Yet you have gone through this period where you've become completely destroyed and petrified

02:12:10.800 by these, these both psychological, physical, uh, problems that you've, you've dealt with.

02:12:17.760 Yeah.

02:12:18.360 Right.

02:12:18.840 Well, believe me, I've tortured myself about that plenty.

02:12:21.800 Yeah.

02:12:22.340 And I'm glad you constantly.

02:12:23.540 Yeah.

02:12:23.760 I'm glad you see that irony.

02:12:24.980 You said there is an irony there.

02:12:26.740 Yeah.

02:12:27.440 Well, you have to be pretty blind, not see that.

02:12:29.960 I mean, you know, it's been a source of constant torment and I was very apprehensive about writing

02:12:35.340 this book or certainly about releasing it.

02:12:37.380 And, but, um, but what's your response to encouraging people?

02:12:43.440 I'm encouraging people.

02:12:44.160 What's your response to that critique though?

02:12:45.700 That because you're going through this much, because you don't have your, you don't have

02:12:50.260 your house in order, so to speak, in one way, why should we listen to you?

02:12:53.480 That's the critique.

02:12:54.060 Well, I guess the first thing would be is that it isn't self-evident that whatever happened

02:12:59.220 to me was a consequence of not having my house in order.

02:13:01.900 I mean, if someone has cancer, you don't come up to them and say, well, you know, if you,

02:13:06.140 if you would have just, you know, acted more ethically that, you know, you deserve what

02:13:12.280 you get, you've got this cancer.

02:13:13.760 It's obviously your fault.

02:13:14.820 It's like, well, my, whatever happened to me, whatever my illness is or was, wasn't as

02:13:20.740 clear cut in some sense as cancer.

02:13:23.280 Um, so the edges are fuzzy, but.

02:13:29.220 But, you know, everyone is susceptible to be cutting off, to be cut off at the knees

02:13:38.400 at any moment that happens and you can protect yourself against that to some degree by putting

02:13:45.080 your life in order and by living properly.

02:13:47.060 And, and, but that doesn't mean that you're fully protected from it.

02:13:51.280 We all die, we all get sick.

02:13:54.140 And so if we don't take, if we can't communicate with anyone who doesn't get sick or die, then

02:14:01.240 we can't communicate with anyone.

02:14:02.700 And so does that mean we're all so radically imperfect that we have nothing to offer?

02:14:07.420 And right.

02:14:08.340 No, it means we're all so radically imperfect that we should be careful, but, but we're stuck

02:14:15.540 with our inadequacies and.

02:14:17.660 Yeah.

02:14:18.960 And I have my inadequacies and, you know, you, you can say, well, look, look what he did.

02:14:24.780 He should have known better.

02:14:25.720 It's like, that's possible.

02:14:27.280 It isn't self-evident to me what I did wrong.

02:14:31.400 I've had this propensity for depression forever.

02:14:35.320 It's, it appears familial.

02:14:37.580 It's affected all my male relatives on my dad's side, pretty much very, very intensely.

02:14:47.020 And my children, my, my daughter, not my son.

02:14:49.680 He, he seems completely free of it.

02:14:51.820 Thank God.

02:14:52.980 Oh, so you've had this for a while.

02:14:54.400 This is a natural.

02:14:55.340 Well, I've had this propensity for depression for very long time.

02:14:59.440 Right.

02:14:59.780 Probably from the time I was about eight years old, maybe earlier than that, a long, long

02:15:03.460 time.

02:15:03.740 Yeah.

02:15:04.240 Is that, does that relate to like you sort of being more serious in general?

02:15:07.720 Like lots of people have said, like, we've never seen Jordan Peterson laugh a lot.

02:15:10.880 Like there was that one time where you laughed really hard on Theo, Theo Vaughn's podcast

02:15:14.780 and people were like, Oh, that was, that was cool.

02:15:17.060 Like, well, you know, it's funny because I'm.

02:15:19.580 Um, look, since I've been launched into the public eye, let's say, or launched myself or

02:15:26.460 whatever, um, since I've become notorious, my life has been very complex.

02:15:33.840 And, and so the, the levity has declined.

02:15:39.180 The playfulness has declined and it's really unfortunate.

02:15:42.180 I'm a very playful person.

02:15:43.580 All I did with my kids was play with them and.

02:15:46.740 Right.

02:15:47.400 Laugh with them and joke with them.

02:15:49.240 When I get together with my son and my daughter and we're healthy, which is quite rare because

02:15:55.480 my daughter's very ill, very much of the time, all we do is laugh and, and make fun and play.

02:16:04.220 Um, you know, when I tried to bring that to my lectures, uh, before, before making them

02:16:11.020 public, let's say, you know, I, I, I leave in my seriousness with, with jokes.

02:16:17.940 I, I can't tell a joke to save my life, but I can say funny things and I like talking to

02:16:23.200 comedians.

02:16:23.720 And, um, so I, if you had known me before, you would have thought that I was one of the

02:16:29.160 most, most playful people you'd ever met.

02:16:32.460 But you know, since 2016, I mean, things have been complicated to say the least.

02:16:42.320 I mean, my, my daughter was extremely ill.

02:16:44.600 My wife was extremely ill and we thought for sure she was going to die.

02:16:48.820 She had a cancer that only 200 people, only 200, um, cases have ever been reported.

02:16:55.040 And every single one of those people died.

02:16:57.460 Wow.

02:16:58.460 So, and then she had terrible surgical complications that were, that appeared that they were going

02:17:04.120 to be fatal.

02:17:05.120 And so she lived on the edge of life and death for five months.

02:17:08.240 And then, and that was just after I got back from Switzerland, being in the hospital with

02:17:12.680 my daughter to have her ankle replaced.

02:17:14.640 Yeah.

02:17:15.140 Wow.

02:17:15.420 And then at the same time, you know, I was, I had this meteoric rise to, to public notoriety

02:17:24.860 fame, which hasn't slowed down at all.

02:17:28.200 No.

02:17:28.920 Um, in fact, seems in some sense to be accelerating.

02:17:32.180 I mean, we use social media a lot and so we're accelerating it, I suppose, to some degree

02:17:36.820 trying to communicate what, trying to communicate and to learn all these technologies.

02:17:41.780 But, you know, and my reputation was on the line in, in an international way, dozens of

02:17:50.280 times.

02:17:50.680 And generally what I've observed in people's lives is if something like that happens to

02:17:56.000 them once on a local scale, that's enough to traumatize them.

02:18:01.240 And that happened to me like every week, it's happened to me every week, essentially in

02:18:07.020 multiple countries for like five years.

02:18:11.800 So, you know, so people can look at that and think, well, he should have managed it better.

02:18:15.780 It's like, well, okay, fair enough.

02:18:17.780 You try it.

02:18:19.360 Yeah.

02:18:20.140 Yeah, exactly.

02:18:20.760 See how you do.

02:18:21.460 I don't even want to say that.

02:18:22.660 I don't want to say that because I wouldn't wish this on anyone.

02:18:25.400 Right.

02:18:25.760 I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

02:18:27.260 Yeah.

02:18:28.280 I mean, I, I, I don't think I wouldn't wish it on anyone for any reason.

02:18:33.320 And I'm not, I'm not complaining.

02:18:34.920 Like, I'm, I mean, um, and, you know, you might also ask, well, why did, why do you think

02:18:42.180 you have the right to continue?

02:18:45.200 Because really that's the question.

02:18:46.960 Why do you think you have the right to continue?

02:18:48.720 It's like, well, I don't necessarily think that.

02:18:51.380 I certainly doubted it profoundly.

02:18:53.800 I thought, well, I'll get back on my feet.

02:18:57.040 So what did I get do first?

02:18:59.160 Some podcasts.

02:19:00.640 It's like, well, do people find this useful?

02:19:03.660 Will they find it useful?

02:19:05.980 How will they respond?

02:19:08.120 Well, positively.

02:19:10.660 Okay.

02:19:12.160 I'll do another one.

02:19:13.720 Yeah.

02:19:14.520 How will they respond?

02:19:16.300 Well, positively.

02:19:18.320 So I think, well, I'm, I'm either going to curl up and die.

02:19:22.440 Right.

02:19:22.920 Or I'm going to continue.

02:19:25.140 And so I'm continuing.

02:19:28.000 And you still have your, you still have your wisdom intact.

02:19:30.240 Like as we're talking right now.

02:19:31.780 Well, that's up to, that's up to people to decide.

02:19:34.440 And I say what I believe to be true.

02:19:36.540 And if people find it useful, well, good.

02:19:39.420 But they're deciding that you still have that intact, right?

02:19:42.120 You're still a useful figure.

02:19:43.480 Despite.

02:19:43.600 Well, that's what they tell me.

02:19:44.960 It's I watch the comments and they say, well, you know, you, you, you are okay.

02:19:49.500 And I listen to, I talk to my parents.

02:19:52.360 Actually, I talk to my parents every night.

02:19:54.120 They're in their eighties and, and they keep an eye on what I'm doing and they're encouraging.

02:19:59.220 Thank God.

02:20:00.000 And, you know, I'm, I'm doing what I've done before.

02:20:12.180 I'm doing what I've always done.

02:20:14.180 I'm trying to figure things out.

02:20:15.840 Right.

02:20:16.360 And to communicate about that and, and lots of people are along for the ride and an ever

02:20:22.880 growing number.

02:20:23.840 I mean, we have.

02:20:28.980 Translation slated for 13 languages all be launched this month.

02:20:33.860 And we're using social media to break down all the talks into one minute, two minute,

02:20:39.340 five minute segments.

02:20:40.160 And we have a real unbelievably qualified and, and able person doing that communicate with

02:20:47.120 young people on Tik TOK and all these social media platforms.

02:20:50.720 Yeah.

02:20:51.140 And if people find it useful, it's up to them to decide.

02:20:55.140 Yeah.

02:20:55.940 Okay.

02:20:57.080 We have two loose ends here to tie.

02:20:59.840 We have a couple of things that we should finish that you've touched on, which were related

02:21:03.340 to my question.

02:21:04.220 So, so in the book.

02:21:05.820 Yeah, we have to stop.

02:21:07.500 We have to stop real quick.

02:21:08.780 Oh, okay.

02:21:09.780 It's much later than I thought.

02:21:11.380 So.

02:21:12.020 Oh, wow.

02:21:12.780 Holy.

02:21:13.820 Totally lost track.

02:21:15.160 Well, that's good, isn't it?

02:21:16.460 But it does mean that we'll have to wrap up.

02:21:18.840 Okay.

02:21:19.380 Should I end off on, I guess, one of the questions?

02:21:22.080 Sure.

02:21:22.560 That I have?

02:21:23.100 Okay.

02:21:23.400 Sure.

02:21:24.480 Yeah.

02:21:25.520 So in the book, you state that you're frequently plagued with doubts about the role that you

02:21:31.380 play.

02:21:32.720 You know, many people see you as this kind of avatar that's science oriented, religion inspired,

02:21:37.580 that is supposed to help us with our own lives.

02:21:40.740 And you've touched so many people, obviously.

02:21:43.420 And, you know, I can talk about so many people personally.

02:21:46.720 You know, one person that in particular that I met last year, 17 year old girl at the time,

02:21:52.620 she was going through an abusive relationship. 0.94

02:21:54.640 And she was listening to your lectures during that time.

02:21:58.420 And eventually she escaped this relationship through watching your lectures and mustering

02:22:05.100 that self-determination, that confidence and that assertiveness to make that decision

02:22:10.040 of not being sort of psychologically sort of held hostage to this person.

02:22:15.340 Right.

02:22:15.500 And, you know, many people, I tweeted this out last night, many people have this caricature

02:22:21.120 of you having, you know, a male dominated, you know, audience for, you know, men 25 and

02:22:27.180 older or whatever.

02:22:27.840 But, but this was a young girl who was deeply, deeply touched by you.

02:22:31.620 And I just remember it vividly.

02:22:33.100 And I, I never forget it.

02:22:34.760 So, so how do you make sense of this role that you have?

02:22:38.840 Like, do you consider it a moral responsibility to empower people, to give them the psychological

02:22:45.920 wisdom to take action and, and find the self-determination like with, not to give it to them, but not to

02:22:53.480 give it to them, but to help them find it.

02:22:55.560 Right.

02:22:56.060 That's your role.

02:22:56.740 You consider that to be.

02:22:58.020 Yes.

02:22:58.360 That's my moral obligation.

02:22:59.620 That's everyone's moral obligation.

02:23:01.120 But not everyone though, like for you, it's different because you're an author, you're

02:23:05.580 a public speaker, right?

02:23:06.720 You have the role now to, to tell your wisdom on millions of people, right?

02:23:13.000 Very different from anybody else.

02:23:14.260 I hope to engage in a collaborative process of finding wisdom with millions of people.

02:23:19.480 Yes.

02:23:20.260 You know, and well, I, I, I have my PhD.

02:23:23.600 I taught at Harvard.

02:23:24.920 I'm an educated person.

02:23:26.720 I'm a product of the best universities in the world.

02:23:29.760 I'm the inheritor of the Western tradition.

02:23:33.440 I'm a defender of that.

02:23:36.220 Mm-hmm.

02:23:37.400 So you, so you think you have that responsibility to keep on going?

02:23:40.440 No, I know.

02:23:40.940 I know I have that responsibility.

02:23:43.440 Right.

02:23:44.100 Clearly.

02:23:45.600 I mean, that's, that's what you do with your privilege.

02:23:49.020 Right.

02:23:50.020 Right.

02:23:50.920 You turn your privilege into responsibility.

02:23:54.540 Yeah.

02:23:55.020 Okay.

02:23:57.300 What else would you do with it?

02:23:59.060 Be ashamed of it?

02:24:00.920 Hide it?

02:24:01.880 Right.

02:24:02.460 Right.

02:24:02.640 Especially because you're helping other people for it.

02:24:05.120 Yeah.

02:24:05.720 And you're helping so many people too, right?

02:24:07.440 So it's working, right?

02:24:08.340 It's not just some people are listening.

02:24:10.300 So many people, young girls, older men, people in their marriages, people who are young, people

02:24:14.920 like me who have listened to your stuff.

02:24:17.060 And in large part, you know, me being in this place, you know, being 20 and, and writing

02:24:21.720 for some of the biggest publications right now, it's been through listening to your lectures

02:24:25.720 throughout high school and, and learning, learning so much, right.

02:24:29.960 It's because of you, like, even, even just from an intellectual perspective, like listening

02:24:34.280 to your lectures on Marxism, postmodernism, quoting you in my university essays and my

02:24:39.460 lectures.

02:24:39.800 And, you know, I mentioned that must've gone down well.

02:24:42.440 Yeah, yeah.

02:24:45.800 But, you know, in the Colette essay, I, I had your, your video.

02:24:49.140 Oh, there's an interesting.

02:24:50.980 Eric, my, my producer, 1,064,000 females have watched our videos on YouTube within the last

02:24:57.040 28 days.

02:24:57.920 Way to be Eric.

02:24:58.740 That's a great stat.

02:25:00.420 That's incredible.

02:25:01.780 Yeah.

02:25:02.920 Yeah.

02:25:03.520 But yeah, but yeah, just to finish off, like, like you've inspired me in so many ways,

02:25:07.200 man, like just, just intellectually in so many ways.

02:25:10.260 And it's a privilege.

02:25:11.460 I'm so happy to hear it.

02:25:13.380 Good work, man.

02:25:14.540 Keep it up.

02:25:15.660 Who knows who you could be?

02:25:17.780 You're only 20.

02:25:19.840 You get your act together, man.

02:25:21.640 You're an unstoppable force.

02:25:24.520 Yeah.

02:25:25.120 And, and I, I thank you for that.

02:25:26.960 So my pleasure.

02:25:28.340 So please always, always think about that.

02:25:30.220 Always know the amount of people that you're touching is truly like near infinite.

02:25:34.080 So you should, you should, you should know that.

02:25:39.000 Thank you.

02:25:41.460 Worked great, man.

02:25:43.980 Thanks.

02:25:44.520 Appreciate it.

02:25:45.120 You bet.

02:25:45.460 My pleasure.

02:25:46.080 My pleasure.

02:25:46.100 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - February 11, 2022

225. The Spiritual Void and the West ｜ Rav Arora

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