The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - How To Become Someone People Rely On

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00:00:57.880 I was reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins today.

00:01:04.700 In principle, I'm going to speak with him publicly at some point in the next five or six months.

00:01:12.140 I don't really want to have a debate with him.

00:01:14.360 I want to have a discussion, and I think we can manage that.

00:01:17.600 But I've been trying to contrast the way that he views the world

00:01:28.140 with the viewpoint that I'm putting forward in everything I do, really.

00:01:35.740 Probably culminating to some degree in this new book,

00:01:39.460 the topic of this tour, We Who Wrestle With God.

00:01:44.760 See, I think that Dawkins is wrong.

00:01:47.600 And not just on, not even primarily on religious grounds, not exactly.

00:01:53.520 I think he's wrong on scientific grounds.

00:01:56.200 I think he's behind the curve, scientifically speaking.

00:02:01.260 And I want to tell you why first, to set the stage for what we're going to talk about tonight.

00:02:06.700 So Dawkins is an empiricist or a rationalist.

00:02:11.340 Now, an empiricist is someone who believes that, essentially, that we get all of our information from sense data, so to speak, that we orient ourselves in the world as a consequence of understanding the facts.

00:02:30.760 now the empiricists have been aligned to some degree since the enlightenment with the rationalists

00:02:39.360 and the rationalists believe that we can use our rationality as well as the empirical facts at our

00:02:45.660 disposal to organize the facts say in a rational manner but there's some real problems with that

00:02:53.140 perspective i mean one real problem scientifically is that isn't how the large language models now

00:03:02.660 that mimic human thought so accurately actually work they work by weighting facts and and there's

00:03:10.460 something crucially important there so the problem with the idea that you can orient yourself in

00:03:18.400 accordance with the facts which is let's say the scientific rationalist doctrine is that

00:03:24.240 there's an infinite number of facts so there's one fact per phenomena that's one way of looking

00:03:31.620 at it but that's not that doesn't even encompass the world of facts because there's one fact for

00:03:37.360 every combination of phenomena and there's an innumerable number of things that you can attend

00:03:44.520 to and the fact of though of the existence of those facts provides you with no guidance now

00:03:53.740 david hume scottish philosopher figured this out about 200 years ago and i think he was right he

00:04:00.220 said we can't get to an ought from an is by which he meant something like there's no navigating your

00:04:08.560 way forward on the mere basis of the facts you have to prioritize the facts

00:04:17.720 and and that's not that's a non-trivial observation that you have to prioritize the facts

00:04:26.120 now there's there's something even more subtle going on with regards to the facts

00:04:33.180 the empirical hypothesis is something like you look at the world the unfiltered sense data comes

00:04:40.620 rushing in you evaluate the data the data and then you act but that's not right it's not even

00:04:51.520 close to right and the reason it's not right is because in that schema action comes last

00:04:59.660 but that isn't how perception works

00:05:01.980 when you're looking at the world

00:05:04.360 we'll use vision

00:05:06.160 because that's the primary human sense

00:05:08.260 but the same thing

00:05:10.200 applies to all the senses

00:05:11.500 when you're looking at

00:05:14.200 the world you're moving your eyes

00:05:15.920 now and you're not just moving

00:05:18.180 them voluntarily although you have eye

00:05:20.160 fields at the front of your brain called the

00:05:22.060 frontal eye fields that

00:05:23.920 allow you to move your gaze

00:05:26.240 voluntarily

00:05:27.000 but your eyes also vibrate at a very rapid at multiple different frequencies and if they ever

00:05:34.100 stop moving even for a tenth of a second you go blind so your eyes have to move back and forth

00:05:39.600 they have to move the light back and forth on the retina for you to even be able to see

00:05:43.320 and when you're looking at the world gathering sense data objectively you're doing nothing of

00:05:51.520 the sort because you have to prioritize your attention so here's a simple example of that

00:05:59.060 although you're doing this all the time imagine that you're in a crowded restaurant on a first

00:06:04.600 date and maybe there's 30 conversations going on around you the place is buzzing maybe there's

00:06:11.620 some background music as well now you can filter what you hear

00:06:17.200 you can direct your attention and filter what you hear now we don't exactly know how we do that but

00:06:25.380 we can do it and what you're likely to do if you have any sense is prioritize attending to the

00:06:34.360 person that you're on the date with right okay so now everybody thinks that's funny so that's

00:06:41.840 very interesting because you you understand exactly what i mean you know that your attention

00:06:47.360 could wander right it could wander especially if the date's dull your attention could and that's a

00:06:56.600 bad sign either because there's something wrong with you or because there's something wrong with

00:07:02.840 the person or both or both you could you could have your attention attracted by a distal conversation

00:07:10.900 and focus on that and that's very interesting because you know as soon as you do that that

00:07:15.120 you can start to make sense of that conversation and filter out all the other ones including

00:07:21.140 the one that your date might be attempting to have with you you could focus on the background music

00:07:28.080 you you don't do that because generally especially if you're polite because you prioritize the

00:07:37.720 exchange of information that you're attempting to undertake in the course of the evening

00:07:45.620 okay now i said you do that because you're polite but there's many reasons that you do that so we

00:07:53.060 could kind of walk through the reasons because it gives you some sense of the structure within which

00:07:57.900 your attention is prioritized so maybe you're a maybe you're someone who engages in short-term

00:08:06.820 mating strategies. Let's phrase it that way. And your goal is to entice or bribe or fool

00:08:19.240 this person into bed with you that night. Well, then you're prioritizing your attention

00:08:27.060 with that end in mind. But that end is nested in something broader. It's nested inside your

00:08:34.840 broader conceptualization of sex and relationship and that's nested inside a

00:08:41.260 broader conception of the relative role of men and women it's nested inside your

00:08:47.600 idea of what your moral orientation might be in terms of establishing a

00:08:54.520 relationship that's nested inside a moral concept of sex and relationship as

00:09:02.500 As such, that's nested inside a broader perception of what it means to be human.

00:09:09.060 And it's that nesting that constitutes the grounds for the direction of your attention.

00:09:17.240 You're up to something when you're attending.

00:09:19.660 You're aiming at something when you're attending.

00:09:22.760 You're pursuing an aim.

00:09:25.900 And because of that, you prioritize the facts.

00:09:30.600 and so you filter the world of facts through a structure of value

00:09:38.800 okay so i was thinking backstage i'd elaborated this idea of a structure of value so

00:09:47.860 we don't attend to the fact we attend to the relevant fact we attend to the meaningful facts

00:09:57.500 okay now what makes fact what makes a fact meaningful now look here's something else to

00:10:05.100 understand almost everything that you could apprehend has zero meaning as long as it

00:10:15.300 doesn't misbehave so and we know this from intensive experimental analysis so for example

00:10:23.720 it's dark now it's highly probable that none of you can remember what color the carpet that you

00:10:30.120 walked in on was or even if there was a carpet

00:10:34.900 the reason you don't remember is because it doesn't matter as long as the floor stays solid

00:10:43.580 underneath you as you make your way to your seat you can ignore it and you ignore almost everything

00:10:50.380 all right so what don't you ignore which is the same question as how does the world lay itself

00:10:58.560 out in front of you you're a mobile creature right you're always moving you're moving in

00:11:07.120 order to sense you're moving in order to move towards your aims you're always on a journey

00:11:12.360 you're always on a quest you're always in pursuit of a vision you're always pursuing an aim

00:11:17.400 you're always up to something it might be something short-term it might be something

00:11:22.520 medium-term it might be something long-term if you're reasonably coherent your short-term

00:11:27.600 preoccupations are linked to your medium-term desires and those are linked to your long-term

00:11:33.720 plans and the way you take care of yourself is now the way you pursue what you want and need now

00:11:41.660 is associated with you taking care of yourself as you repeat into the future you don't do things

00:11:48.300 that are foolish but enjoyable in the immediate present if you understand that they're going to

00:11:56.000 cause you misery and grief in the future or at least you don't do that if you're disciplined 0.93

00:12:01.340 and mature so you constrain your aims in consequence of your knowledge of the fact that

00:12:09.100 you exist across time and you do the same thing in relationship to other people.

00:12:15.260 You constrain your aims in the moment, knowing full well that the things you do have impacts

00:12:22.060 on other people and that those impacts are reciprocal and that they're going to propagate

00:12:25.940 across time as well. And so the construction of your aim, the construction of your value system

00:12:33.020 is a very complex matter that takes into account

00:12:36.560 what it is that you need and want now,

00:12:39.620 but also what you'll need and want as you progress through the future,

00:12:43.780 and then takes into account you,

00:12:46.360 but in relationship to everyone you are in relationship with.

00:12:51.700 Okay, so the structure of values that you inhabit

00:12:55.300 has to account for all of those...

00:13:00.360 Realities

00:13:03.860 How does the world of facts make itself

00:13:10.680 Evident to you in terms of relevance

00:13:13.860 What's a meaningful fact

00:13:17.100 A pathway forward

00:13:18.580 That's a meaningful

00:13:21.140 That's a meaningful fact

00:13:22.940 Something that lays itself

00:13:25.020 In front of you

00:13:27.800 As a

00:13:28.600 stepping point a stepping path a pathway to something that you value that's an opportunity

00:13:36.840 a quest is a pursuit of an opportunity a quest is a pursuit of a treasure

00:13:44.020 why is the mythological story the quest well the answer is because you're always in pursuit of the

00:13:50.000 treasure you're always moving from where you are to somewhere richer and better as insofar as you're

00:13:57.400 You're aiming up and attempting to expand your domain of opportunity.

00:14:02.880 What facts that are relevant might you come across along the way?

00:14:09.640 Well, tools.

00:14:13.380 You can use tools to facilitate your movement forward.

00:14:20.060 Cooperative agents, people that you can work together with to attain a goal.

00:14:28.340 Obstacles.

00:14:30.260 They trigger negative emotion.

00:14:32.940 They stand in your way.

00:14:34.900 Markers of failure.

00:14:37.480 And transformative agents.

00:14:40.820 That's the landscape of meaning.

00:14:42.780 And as you traverse the landscape of meaning,

00:14:52.780 you aim up,

00:14:54.680 and you move away from what's down.

00:14:57.040 And that's the landscape of good and evil.

00:15:01.020 If good is the ultimate up and evil is the ultimate down, the abysmal down,

00:15:08.880 then you orient yourself along that axis.

00:15:11.580 You see the pathways forward.

00:15:13.840 You move uphill.

00:15:15.760 Things come along with you that facilitate your movement forward and indicate progress.

00:15:22.220 Those things please you.

00:15:24.260 obstacles occur and indicators of failure those things displease you produce negative emotion

00:15:32.120 and agents of transformation change your goal and that's the magic of an agent of transformation

00:15:41.940 agents of transformation are very common figures in fairy tales for example

00:15:47.120 because they've changed the way you look at things.

00:15:53.680 So there is a world of facts,

00:15:55.480 but the world you live in is the world of relevant facts,

00:15:58.100 and the world of relevant facts is a reflection of your structure of value,

00:16:02.900 and that in turn is a reflection of your aim.

00:16:06.020 Imagine your favorite lecture.

00:16:08.760 Dial that up on Macs, put that on steroids,

00:16:11.220 and then add some cinematic elements to it.

00:16:13.960 That's the best way I could describe a Peterson Academy lecture.

00:16:17.120 I went to college because I had to.

00:16:21.340 I go to Peterson Academy because I want to.

00:16:23.240 I'm still paying off college from 10 years ago, and I'm also still questioning the value

00:16:27.600 that I got out of college.

00:16:28.600 The traditional universities, a lot of times, it's just pretty dry.

00:16:32.180 They don't bring the same energy as the professors at Peterson Academy.

00:16:36.000 It is a completely different experience to learn from somebody who actually wants to

00:16:39.980 teach you.

00:16:40.980 If you've been on the fence about this, this is the time.

00:16:44.280 thing that's calling to you you won't have an answer for it unless you enroll and see for

00:16:48.080 yourself you have the opportunity to investigate that calling

00:16:51.060 no aim no value that's a that's a that's a conclusion you can derive from that outline

00:17:04.080 ultimate aim ultimate value that's another conclusion that's worth knowing

00:17:09.340 if you experience positive emotion in relationship to a goal.

00:17:16.380 What that implies is that the more lofty the goal that you're pursuing,

00:17:21.200 the more opportunity there is for hope.

00:17:26.880 Hope is the emotion that indicates progress towards a valued goal.

00:17:31.440 No goal, no hope.

00:17:33.680 a goal also an aim a value structure also constrains you it delimits possibility

00:17:43.720 in a manner that's equivalent to the regulation of chaos if you're aimless and directionless

00:17:52.460 not only are you hopeless you're anxious and so a well-constituted structure value

00:18:00.080 moves you towards your ultimate goal

00:18:03.240 specifies your objects of perception

00:18:06.320 orients you emotionally

00:18:08.860 provides you with hope

00:18:10.880 and quells anxiety.

00:18:20.220 The embodiment of someone's structure of value

00:18:23.260 is their character or their personality.

00:18:26.280 Okay, so that's the next link you need to know

00:18:29.180 to understand what we're going to talk about tonight.

00:18:37.880 People portray their structure of value

00:18:42.460 in their actions,

00:18:44.940 in their patterns of attention and their actions.

00:18:47.680 Their patterns of attention

00:18:49.180 and their patterns of actions

00:18:51.420 are their character or their personality.

00:18:55.000 Okay, now,

00:18:55.640 An account of someone's character or personality is a story.

00:19:03.740 Okay, so now you know why you need stories.

00:19:08.820 You need stories because it's very hard to perceive the world.

00:19:14.380 There's an infinite multitude of facts and their combinations.

00:19:18.160 And getting a grip on those and determining which of them are relevant and which aren't under which circumstance

00:19:23.860 is extraordinarily difficult.

00:19:28.300 One of the things we do

00:19:29.860 when we're communicating with other people

00:19:32.960 is we look at their eyes.

00:19:36.640 You know, when you talk to someone,

00:19:37.880 you look at their eyes.

00:19:39.540 The reason you do that

00:19:40.960 is because you want to see

00:19:42.680 where they're pointing their eyes.

00:19:45.120 And the reason you want to see

00:19:46.480 where they're pointing their eyes

00:19:47.520 is because you assume

00:19:48.740 that they're pointing their eyes

00:19:50.480 at something valuable.

00:19:51.620 and the direction of their gaze is an indication of the presence of value now if they're looking at

00:19:57.740 you which everyone hopes for at least under the appropriate circumstances then you understand that

00:20:07.800 they regard you as a source of value that's what you'd be trying to do on the date that we described

00:20:13.540 at the beginning of this lecture indicating your value of the person for whatever nefarious ends

00:20:20.520 you might be cooking up but you could be playing a straight game as well indicating to the person

00:20:26.520 by your direction of attention their value in your eyes our eyes actually evolved to allow that kind

00:20:35.960 of signaling you know our our iris is colorful it's surrounded by a ring of contrast it's against

00:20:43.420 a white background because the direction of our gaze is such a tremendously important signal it's

00:20:51.020 a it's a signal of attentional focus and aim it's this and it's a place of signaling of

00:20:57.500 associated emotions when you get to know someone you get to understand their character and their

00:21:02.820 personality and you can step into their shoes that enables you to understand them

00:21:08.000 and that enables you to cooperate with them but equally importantly perhaps it enables you to see

00:21:14.360 the world through their eyes and that's a tremendous gift because it means you can get access

00:21:21.400 to the wisdom they've earned through their struggles without having to go through those

00:21:27.700 struggles yourself that's what you do when you go see a movie it's a great mystery that you go see

00:21:34.340 a movie. You'll pay to do it. You'll line up to do it. You'll be enthusiastic about it. The root

00:21:41.400 word of enthusiasm is theos. Deus means to be inspired by God. You can be enthusiastic about

00:21:48.580 going to see a movie. Well, why? Well, it's in a way, it's because you meet the gods in a movie.

00:21:55.060 Now, sometimes literally, right? Or as literal as a movie can be, you go watch a Marvel movie

00:22:00.860 and there are gods in it.

00:22:04.320 Thor, Loki, and the rest of the superheroes.

00:22:09.180 But even if you're just watching a movie

00:22:13.000 that's a more realistic portrayal,

00:22:18.720 you're watching characters and personality

00:22:23.600 unfold in real time.

00:22:25.740 Okay, so what are you doing when you're doing that?

00:22:28.200 well let's let's start with what the movie is doing first

00:22:33.160 you want the movie to be interesting you want it to grab your attention and so the what the writer

00:22:40.940 does is he distills the experience of one person or many people into a set of associated interesting

00:22:51.360 experiences. Right? So when you go see the movie, you don't see every single thing the character

00:22:59.860 does second to second in real time. You see something edited, so only what's gripping remains.

00:23:09.040 And you see characters that in the main are more than human. Right? Even if the movie is realistic,

00:23:17.440 it's edited so that everything that's only predictable is gone

00:23:24.420 and only what's informative about the person's character is left

00:23:29.860 and then you might ask yourself

00:23:31.680 well why do you want to see a value structure characterized

00:23:36.940 so that you can inhabit it, understand it, and benefit from it

00:23:44.460 so you watch the dark night it's a mythologized movie it's halfway to a religious story

00:23:54.840 a superhero story is halfway to a religious story why are you interested in the characterization of

00:24:02.380 the joker because you're interested in the author of all ill you want to identify the pathway to

00:24:11.880 the abyss you want to understand the nature of evil and not only as it makes itself manifest

00:24:18.700 in in in characters in the real world who have wandered off the path but as an essence

00:24:27.700 you want to understand evil as that which all people aiming down have in common and so a great

00:24:36.380 writer extracts out all the structures of value that orient people downward towards

00:24:45.720 pain and suffering and distills it and then you can watch that character adopt his frame of

00:24:54.660 reference evaluate the obstacles and facilitators and pathways that make themselves manifest to him

00:25:03.340 experience the accompanying emotions embody the experience and walk away somewhat wiser

00:25:13.300 you do the same thing when you watch the hero except it's in the opposite direction

00:25:21.060 the hero in a movie is an amalgam of heroic patterns of attention and action and you have

00:25:29.100 the opportunity to evaluate them as they lay themselves out in the fictional world

00:25:35.240 and to embody them as you observe them. The fiction is a distillation. In our world,

00:25:43.940 because we're naive, we contrast fiction with fact. We say that fact is one thing and fiction

00:25:50.620 is another

00:25:51.140 fiction is a distillation

00:25:54.020 of the prioritization

00:25:58.460 of facts

00:25:59.320 it's an abstraction

00:26:01.740 it's a very very very profound

00:26:04.500 form of truth

00:26:05.620 it's truth as it manifests itself

00:26:08.220 in character

00:26:09.140 and since you're a character

00:26:11.940 there's no truth deeper

00:26:14.340 than

00:26:14.820 mythological characterization

00:26:17.760 right

00:26:19.620 so what happens

00:26:24.580 so what happens in the biblical corpus

00:26:31.240 the character that defines

00:26:41.640 the highest possible orientation

00:26:43.340 is portrayed and explored

00:26:46.640 the biblical

00:26:49.680 the Bible is a

00:26:51.120 library of stories

00:26:53.020 and each story presents

00:26:55.820 the character

00:26:57.900 from a

00:27:00.060 slightly different angle

00:27:01.340 who is the character?

00:27:05.640 well there's

00:27:06.120 there's two

00:27:07.800 there's God and human beings

00:27:10.480 right

00:27:11.980 and

00:27:13.460 God is characterized

00:27:15.560 and human beings are characterized in relationship to God.

00:27:19.760 And that means that human beings are characterized in relationship to the infinite.

00:27:24.560 It's something like that.

00:27:26.080 We have to be characterized in relationship to the infinite

00:27:29.080 because we exist, despite our finitude, in relationship to the infinite.

00:27:36.140 Managing that relationship is very difficult

00:27:38.560 because we're bounded and mortal.

00:27:42.440 there's only so much we can do and take.

00:27:47.560 So the relationship has to be filtered and particularized.

00:27:52.480 The God of the tabernacle is veiled.

00:27:57.740 That's because the infinite is veiled from us

00:28:01.280 but also has to be.

00:28:03.660 There's only so much you can take

00:28:05.740 as you tell yourself and other people frequently.

00:28:08.940 the full revelation

00:28:11.940 a full revelation would destroy

00:28:14.740 how is God characterized

00:28:20.280 alright so now you see

00:28:22.860 this is a different approach

00:28:24.760 to the religious problem

00:28:26.820 I made some reference

00:28:29.100 to Dawkins at the beginning

00:28:30.540 Dawkins characterizes

00:28:33.200 the religious endeavor

00:28:35.440 well first of all 0.99

00:28:36.960 as the sum of all evil

00:28:38.920 which i think is not very fair because you can find evil everywhere and limiting it to the

00:28:46.700 religious domain is foolish there's economic evil and political evil and social evil and

00:28:53.180 familial evil and there's evil in love and it's everywhere and to delimit it arbitrarily like that 0.99

00:29:02.280 and to attribute it let's say to the religious enterprise is convenient but preposterous

00:29:07.760 but also

00:29:09.280 it's based on a misapprehension

00:29:13.180 of what the religious endeavor

00:29:14.520 is attempting to do

00:29:16.100 it's attempting to characterize

00:29:19.240 the good

00:29:20.000 it's attempting to characterize

00:29:23.440 good and evil

00:29:26.360 and it's attempting to characterize

00:29:28.680 man in relationship to good and evil

00:29:31.200 now you might say

00:29:32.740 I don't believe in good

00:29:34.140 and my response to that would be

00:29:36.560 You don't know what you're talking about.

00:29:39.780 You simply don't know what you're talking about.

00:29:42.680 Because you can't prioritize your attention without acting out a relationship with the good.

00:29:51.980 What you believe is good is what you attend to.

00:29:56.320 That's why you attend to it.

00:29:58.480 Attention is expensive.

00:30:00.500 It's a sacrificial gesture.

00:30:02.400 when you attend to one thing

00:30:04.660 you forego the attention

00:30:06.980 you could pay to everything else

00:30:08.900 that's an opportunity cost

00:30:11.260 that's a sacrifice

00:30:12.180 when you attend to one thing

00:30:15.700 you celebrate it and worship it

00:30:17.780 you put it on a pedestal

00:30:19.160 you can do that excessively

00:30:21.760 you might do that on your first date

00:30:23.600 for example

00:30:24.340 because everything in its proper place

00:30:27.540 but to attend to something

00:30:30.420 is to raise it above all else.

00:30:33.420 To raise something above all else

00:30:35.840 and to devote attention to it

00:30:38.060 is the same as establishing a relationship

00:30:41.740 with what's good.

00:30:43.480 It's the same thing.

00:30:45.920 And so,

00:30:47.120 you may have a fractured idea

00:30:49.940 of what constitutes good.

00:30:52.100 You might have an incoherent account of it.

00:30:54.620 You might not be able to make sense

00:30:56.660 of how what's good

00:30:58.240 makes itself manifest in your life but that doesn't mean that you're not inhabiting that

00:31:04.900 landscape you have no choice

00:31:09.100 that's why we wrestle with god because every decision we make every decision we make every

00:31:19.940 Every glance we take is a moral act within the landscape of up and down,

00:31:28.220 within the landscape of good and evil.

00:31:31.900 The biblical corpus is an attempt to characterize good and evil

00:31:38.240 and man's relationship to them.

00:31:41.700 It sets forth a series of characterizations.

00:31:49.940 So let's walk through them.

00:31:56.340 The first characterization occurs in Genesis 1,

00:32:00.620 where God is presented as

00:32:02.940 the spirit associated with the word

00:32:09.040 that moves on the face of the chaotic and deep.

00:32:14.940 Tohu vabohu.

00:32:17.280 What's that?

00:32:19.940 it's something like possibility.

00:32:24.340 Okay, so what's the idea there?

00:32:28.440 The idea is that the spirit that gives rise to the order,

00:32:35.080 to the order that is good,

00:32:37.280 is the spirit that interacts with possibility

00:32:41.540 in a certain manner,

00:32:43.960 in a manner that's characterized by the definition of the divine word.

00:32:48.060 The divine word is conceptualization that aims upward in love and orients itself in truth.

00:32:58.600 The spirit of divinity in Genesis 1 is characterized as the spirit that brings order to possibility and chaos

00:33:06.760 with upward aim and in truth.

00:33:13.000 Okay, so what does that mean?

00:33:15.040 Well, it's best understood in a relational manner.

00:33:23.740 There's an insistence in Genesis 1 that human beings are made in the image of God.

00:33:28.000 Man and women are made in the image of God.

00:33:30.180 Now, that's a fundamental proposition.

00:33:33.880 Make no mistake about it.

00:33:35.340 The reason that you all have rights,

00:33:40.580 the reason we understand the idea of rights and their requisite responsibility,

00:33:45.280 is because the system of conceptualization in which those ideas exist

00:33:53.260 emerged from the notion that human beings are manifestations of the transcendently divine order

00:34:02.840 and have, in consequence, an intrinsic worth that's inviolable.

00:34:09.800 You can't violate it even with your own criminality.

00:34:13.900 The state cannot impose on it.

00:34:16.940 You can't impose on it even in relationship to yourself.

00:34:22.160 Your intrinsic value transcends the natural and social order.

00:34:29.400 Okay.

00:34:32.840 is there any justification for that claim?

00:34:38.460 Well, here's a way of thinking about it.

00:34:45.480 Your spirit is made in the image of God.

00:34:50.940 The closest word we have in modern parlance to spirit is consciousness.

00:34:58.380 You might ask yourself, what does your consciousness do?

00:35:02.140 What are its objects?

00:35:03.860 Well, we laid it out a little bit.

00:35:06.280 The objects of your consciousness are not facts.

00:35:09.020 They're relevant facts.

00:35:11.720 But there's more to it.

00:35:17.040 The objects of your consciousness are something like the realm of...

00:35:21.140 The realm of the infinite potential.

00:35:25.140 That's a good way of thinking about it.

00:35:27.240 When you wake up in the morning, what occupies your consciousness?

00:35:30.320 this is why you're conscious in the morning well it's the possibilities of the day now if

00:35:36.680 your life is in disorder and disarray the possibilities of the day will make themselves

00:35:43.460 manifest to you in a manner that evokes anxiety too many directions too many things crowding in

00:35:50.940 on you too many facts at hand if things are well ordered for you then the possibilities of the day

00:35:58.080 will make themselves manifest as the opportunity that compels you forward.

00:36:05.280 And what is it that you undertake to do when you awaken?

00:36:11.520 You undertake to take the possibility that's at hand

00:36:15.140 and to wrestle with it

00:36:19.300 so that you produce the order that is good or very good.

00:36:24.420 if you're operating as you should in relationship to yourself and to those you love and to your

00:36:35.460 community and to the future then you shape that possibility that chaos into the actuality that's

00:36:46.620 beneficial at all

00:36:48.620 those levels simultaneously.

00:36:50.940 And that makes you

00:36:52.440 admirable,

00:36:54.300 self-confident,

00:36:58.340 relatively

00:36:58.920 free of existential

00:37:00.580 terror, faithful,

00:37:03.300 courageous, and possessed

00:37:04.680 of hope.

00:37:08.320 There's no difference between that

00:37:10.900 and the biblical idea

00:37:12.900 that's expressed in Genesis

00:37:14.400 one of walking with god that's the same idea paradise vanishes when people cease to walk

00:37:25.160 with god paradise vanishes when people cease to employ their central affinity with the divine word

00:37:35.540 when interacting with the possibility that lays itself out in front of them

00:37:41.440 the fundamental object of your consciousness

00:37:44.480 is equivalent to the chaos that God moves upon

00:37:51.800 not only at the beginning of time, but now and forever.

00:37:57.760 It's that affinity that defines the human being.

00:38:03.200 And it's that transformation of possibility

00:38:07.720 into beneficial actuality

00:38:10.900 that constitutes the first characterization of God.

00:38:16.080 The second characterization of God

00:38:18.780 occurs when Adam and Eve overreach

00:38:24.000 as a consequence of their sin of pride.

00:38:28.800 Human beings are characterized as those creatures

00:38:32.220 that will overreach as a consequence of pride.

00:38:35.120 And God is characterized as the spirit that objects to that prideful overreach.

00:38:49.900 How can you understand that?

00:38:51.940 Well, how often do you bite off more than you can chew?

00:38:55.820 And how often do you do that because you fail to attend?

00:38:59.800 How often do you do that because you're putting forward something within yourself that shouldn't be put forward?

00:39:08.440 Adam overreaches to impress Eve.

00:39:12.200 That's the eternal sin of men. 0.74

00:39:16.040 Eve overreaches to impress herself with her ability to even clasp serpents to her breast. 1.00

00:39:23.880 That's the eternal sin of Eve. 1.00

00:39:26.060 those are characterizations of human beings

00:39:30.080 and their proclivity to go astray

00:39:32.220 and God is the spirit that

00:39:36.340 responds to that overreach

00:39:40.060 with the dissolution of the paradisal state

00:39:43.320 how does that make itself manifest in your life?

00:39:49.420 well how many failures have you encountered

00:39:53.080 that were a direct consequence of your cataclysmic arrogance?

00:39:59.580 Well, it's really a serious question.

00:40:02.720 You know, there's an emphasis in Christian theology.

00:40:05.740 It's very difficult to make sense of.

00:40:07.880 There's an idea in Christian theology that suffering enters the world with Adam and Eve's sin.

00:40:14.200 So the idea there is that suffering is a consequence of prideful overreach.

00:40:18.960 now this is a hard idea to wrestle with because suffering in some ways seems to be built into

00:40:24.860 the structure of existence right because we all are fragile we're mortal we age we're subject to

00:40:32.300 decay to some degree that appears to be independent of our ethical orientation although

00:40:38.180 you can certainly make your life a lot shorter and a lot worse with some effort and so we do

00:40:44.920 understand what we do understand that there's a relationship between our inability to aim properly

00:40:51.420 and the suffering that visits us and there's an there's an open question in consequence of that

00:40:56.940 which is something like if you ceased overreaching and continued to walk with god how much of the

00:41:07.800 suffering that characterizes the world

00:41:09.620 would vanish

00:41:10.400 it's akin to

00:41:12.860 a related question

00:41:14.620 the question being

00:41:17.380 if you were as good as you could be

00:41:19.860 how much better would

00:41:21.500 everyone around you become

00:41:23.400 in the story of Cain and Abel

00:41:29.320 God is

00:41:33.180 characterized as the

00:41:34.940 object of proper sacrifice

00:41:37.660 this is a definition

00:41:41.740 what does sacrifice mean

00:41:46.080 if you understand this

00:41:47.920 you have a key to understanding

00:41:49.560 the entire

00:41:51.340 biblical story

00:41:53.340 if you understand sacrifice

00:41:55.080 it's difficult to understand

00:41:57.240 because it's multidimensional in its meaning

00:41:59.420 but one of its more

00:42:01.280 straightforward meanings is

00:42:02.580 simply work

00:42:04.000 there's no difference between sacrifice

00:42:07.040 and work

00:42:07.600 human beings work why because we're self-conscious right part of adam and eve's awakening is the dawn

00:42:17.760 of self-consciousness their eyes open and they realize that they're naked right they realize

00:42:23.060 their mortal vulnerability and the reason we work is because we realize our mortal vulnerability

00:42:30.120 we know that even if things are good right now look imagine you're a zebra you're out on the

00:42:37.200 belt with all the other zebras and the lions are sleeping and what do you think with your zebra

00:42:43.960 mind something like there's nothing dangerous about sleeping lions well what's the problem

00:42:52.160 with that theory well the same lions in the future will be awake and then they'll be hungry

00:42:59.040 and so a sensible group of zebras would get together and stomp the lions when they're asleep

00:43:06.520 but because they have no sense of their boundaries or their future

00:43:12.360 they have no comprehension of the future and its dangers

00:43:18.020 we have plenty of apprehension of the future and its dangers and its promises

00:43:23.780 and in consequence we organize our actions so that we sacrifice the present to the future

00:43:32.360 that's what work is right work is delayed gratification work is investment in tomorrow

00:43:42.600 work is a covenant with tomorrow right work is a covenant with the spirit that rewards proper

00:43:50.740 sacrifices that's why the relationship with god in the old testament is characterized as covenantal

00:43:58.120 it's because we act out the notion of a contractual relationship when we work you work so you can get

00:44:06.300 a paycheck in two weeks you put some of your money in the bank so you can invest for the long run

00:44:12.280 you do that on the understanding that if you make the proper sacrifice in the present you will be

00:44:19.220 rewarded in the future that's a contract in the covenant and it's faith predicated now if you're

00:44:27.380 sensible you keep the covenant in all its dimensions because by doing so you stabilize

00:44:37.280 your society in precisely the manner that increases the probability that your future

00:44:43.620 investments will in fact pay off right because you invest wisely only if only under conditions

00:44:52.760 of sufficient stability so that immediate gratification is not the best bet and you do

00:45:00.040 that in your faith that things are organized well enough so that what you invest will be returned to

00:45:06.680 you that's an action of trust and trust is dependent on the maintenance of an ethos of

00:45:16.100 honesty and so the value of your work is dependent on the trust that characterizes your society and

00:45:25.740 that in turn is dependent on the moral action and orientation of everyone who makes up that society

00:45:32.580 the covenant that guarantees that sacrifices will be amply repaid

00:45:38.860 extends to include the actions that stabilize the processes that make that return likely

00:45:46.680 and there's no real difference between that there's no real difference between that and

00:45:53.020 the psychological sense in maturation if you're a mature person you don't run your life by

00:45:58.460 impulsive whim that's what you do when you're two when you're grown up you take into account

00:46:05.760 the ramifications of your behavior into the future to govern your behavior in the present

00:46:11.400 and you take into effect the effect of your actions on the people around you and that's the

00:46:17.380 definition of maturation and it's really the ability to see over that long span of time and

00:46:24.020 in that multi-dimensional manner that actually characterizes neurological maturation and

00:46:30.240 development when you're young when you're two when you're a toddler when you're impulsive

00:46:37.800 you're at the mercy of your instinctual whims and they have a very short-term time horizon

00:46:44.500 and you might there's something wonderful about that there's something wonderful about being

00:46:49.340 around toddlers with their unbridled emotionality and motivation and enthusiasm but if you put

00:46:57.040 ten of them in the forest for a week

00:46:59.660 they're dead

00:47:00.920 and while that's an indication that

00:47:05.680 the notion of moral relativism is incorrect

00:47:08.880 right there's a directionality in maturation

00:47:12.360 and the directionality

00:47:14.500 involves

00:47:16.840 the transformation of that short-term

00:47:21.060 mode of apprehension

00:47:23.320 into the long-term and pro-social view

00:47:26.960 that characterizes the proper covenant.

00:47:31.180 Cain and Abel make sacrifices.

00:47:34.380 Now, it's a hard thing to understand

00:47:35.760 because it's couched in archaic language.

00:47:39.700 Cain offers what's second rate?

00:47:45.760 Abel offers the finest that he has.

00:47:49.480 What does that mean?

00:47:52.980 God accepts Abel's offering

00:47:55.000 and rejects Cain's offering.

00:47:56.960 Well, how do you understand that?

00:48:02.900 It will take everything you have to keep the covenant properly.

00:48:07.000 That's how you understand it.

00:48:09.460 Anything you offer that's second rate will be insufficient

00:48:13.460 to adapt properly to the conditions, to the dreadful conditions of your life.

00:48:20.020 It will require your total commitment.

00:48:25.280 god is conceptualized in the story of cain and abel as the spirit that punishes those who sacrifice

00:48:32.640 in a second-rate manner and then you can ask yourself this with regard to your own moral

00:48:40.280 orientation do you admire people who are convicted and committed are you proud of yourself in those

00:48:49.900 moments when true self-esteem is justified when you observe yourself convicted and committed

00:48:57.180 or when you're playing both ends against the middle and trying to pull the wool over your eyes

00:49:03.240 the eyes of people you love society at large and god

00:49:07.720 conscience calls you out on your failure to sacrifice properly

00:49:17.040 In the Old Testament corpus, conscience is one manifestation of God's character.

00:49:31.580 In the story of Noah, which is the next story, Cain sacrifices improperly.

00:49:42.180 Okay, so what happens to him?

00:49:44.040 Well, he becomes murderous first.

00:49:45.920 to become insanely jealous, right?

00:49:48.220 And not only insanely jealous,

00:49:49.700 but insanely jealous of his brother.

00:49:52.700 Not just his brother,

00:49:53.980 his own ideal, right?

00:49:57.860 And then he destroys his own ideal

00:50:00.100 in his bitterness and resentment.

00:50:01.860 And then his children become 0.90

00:50:03.940 murderous and genocidal.

00:50:10.620 Cain's inhabitants fill the earth

00:50:12.840 and God determines to destroy everything.

00:50:19.780 Is that real?

00:50:21.740 Well, what happens

00:50:23.620 when everyone becomes bitter and resentful,

00:50:28.520 stops making the right sacrifices,

00:50:32.040 becomes vengeful and murderous,

00:50:35.200 and destroys their own ideal?

00:50:38.040 It's happened in many countries in the 20th century

00:50:43.020 And the consequence was

00:50:45.100 The flood

00:50:46.760 A flood of blood

00:50:48.460 That's what happens in the story of Noah

00:50:52.580 Okay, what's God in the story of Noah?

00:50:56.560 God is the spirit that calls the wise

00:50:59.020 In their time

00:51:00.700 To prepare when chaos looms

00:51:05.320 It's a definition

00:51:07.480 So imagine that you're like Noah, you're someone wise in your generations.

00:51:12.300 What does that mean?

00:51:13.220 It means that for your time and place, you're a good man or woman.

00:51:19.980 Which is all you can really expect from, which is almost all you can expect from someone.

00:51:27.060 Right?

00:51:27.660 To be good within the confines of your time and place.

00:51:32.400 And Noah is presented, that's his characterization.

00:51:36.120 And he receives a message telling him that all hell is about to break loose

00:51:46.440 and that he needs to shepherd his family, his community,

00:51:53.900 and the natural order itself through the flood.

00:51:58.760 And that's what you're called on to do.

00:52:02.880 What does that mean?

00:52:05.300 Well, cataclysms come in various orders of magnitude.

00:52:12.060 We'll all go through periods in our lives where things fall apart around us,

00:52:16.320 and now and then, collectively, we go through periods of time

00:52:20.320 where everything falls apart around everyone, everywhere.

00:52:27.100 If you're wise,

00:52:28.580 you'll hearken to the voice that warns you that such occurrences are pending

00:52:37.140 and you'll make whatever preparations are necessary

00:52:40.720 despite the noise of the mob

00:52:45.960 and that's Noah's role

00:52:48.580 and so his characterization as a good man

00:52:52.580 presents him as someone who's in alignment

00:52:57.980 with his calling and his conscience

00:52:59.840 but whose vision

00:53:02.000 is also untrammeled.

00:53:07.180 One of the things I realized many decades ago

00:53:09.820 that scared me to the core, I would say,

00:53:12.200 was that

00:53:12.740 there are times in your life where

00:53:15.620 you will have to rely on your judgment.

00:53:19.280 Your judgment.

00:53:20.340 So then you ask yourself, well, how do you know you can rely on your judgment?

00:53:28.420 How do you know if you can rely on anyone's judgment?

00:53:31.860 You ask yourself that. Whose judgment do you rely on?

00:53:35.200 Well, you rely on the judgment of people who have proved themselves to you as honest and reliable.

00:53:43.000 Their patterns of attention and action indicate their honesty and reliability.

00:53:48.280 You assume, in consequence, that their vision is clear and that they can be trusted.

00:53:52.540 Those are the people you might call upon for counsel or use as a confidant.

00:53:57.660 The same thing applies to yourself.

00:54:02.160 The acuity of your vision is proportionate to the clarity of your purpose.

00:54:09.100 if you have deviated from the path which is what sin means sin means to miss the mark by the way

00:54:19.160 three different languages have the same derivation same insistence that to err is to miss the target

00:54:27.420 if you purposefully miss the target you obscure your vision what's the consequence when the crunch

00:54:35.820 comes, first of all you might not

00:54:37.840 even notice it until it's too late

00:54:39.740 or you'll be so

00:54:41.720 addled in your judgment that you won't be able

00:54:43.780 to make the proper preparations

00:54:45.220 and if the crisis is acute

00:54:48.000 that'll be worse than

00:54:49.760 fatal and you might

00:54:51.780 say well what's worse than fatal

00:54:53.520 well how about

00:54:54.460 the occurrence that results in the prolonged

00:54:57.560 suffering of the people you love

00:54:59.120 disorient yourself at your peril

00:55:05.500 that's a violation of the covenant

00:55:08.720 with what is described as

00:55:10.760 God in the Old Testament corpus

00:55:12.760 Noah

00:55:15.160 walks with God

00:55:18.080 that's the definition of his goodness

00:55:20.640 in consequence when he has

00:55:22.760 an intuition, a revelation

00:55:24.700 that

00:55:26.180 trouble is brewing

00:55:27.940 he can trust himself

00:55:30.360 he can take action

00:55:32.460 and he's correct

00:55:34.680 that's what makes him a prophet

00:55:36.460 how do you become a prophet?

00:55:39.600 by seeing what's right in front of your eyes

00:55:42.780 how do societies fall apart

00:55:48.720 under the dominion of the false sacrifices of Cain

00:55:51.800 the flood comes

00:55:53.060 that's not the only way

00:55:54.820 totalitarian tyranny beckons

00:55:59.320 that's the Tower of Babel 1.00

00:56:01.660 Cain's descendants 0.92

00:56:04.080 Build cities

00:56:05.760 They worship technology

00:56:07.760 It isn't that technology in and of itself

00:56:12.140 Or human intellectual activity

00:56:14.360 Is

00:56:15.820 Reprehensible

00:56:19.060 It's that it's reprehensible

00:56:21.460 When it's put in the highest place

00:56:23.420 And those who worship technology do that

00:56:27.280 They're the builders of the Tower of Babel 1.00

00:56:30.180 Babel is Babylon 0.81

00:56:32.200 Babylon is the symbolic city of the tyrant in the biblical corpus.

00:56:37.540 Now you see variants of that.

00:56:38.980 Sometimes it's Rome.

00:56:40.400 Sometimes it's Sodom.

00:56:42.100 Sometimes it's Gomorrah.

00:56:43.540 Although those are more polities of chaos. 0.84

00:56:47.600 Babylon is the tyranny of the presumptuous spirit. 0.98

00:56:54.740 Why a tower? 0.83

00:56:55.980 Well, because at the time in Babylon, potentates in the Middle East had competitions within cities and between states to build the highest tower as testaments to their divine presumption.

00:57:17.620 Societies that deteriorated in the past made their leaders into gods.

00:57:23.240 We haven't stopped doing that. 0.88

00:57:25.200 it's exactly what happened in the soviet union it's exactly what happened in nazi germany

00:57:30.400 it's exactly what happened in maoist china it's still happening in north korea

00:57:35.980 the ruler who's elevated to the position of the highest becomes the tyrant

00:57:42.580 who produces the tower of babel that's a technological enterprise oriented

00:57:47.960 to the wrong end what's the consequence no one can understand each other anymore 0.74

00:57:57.160 all right words lose their meaning does that ring any bells what is a woman 0.99

00:58:17.960 When that word loses its meaning,

00:58:23.320 we all speak different languages,

00:58:26.420 and the tower comes tumbling down.

00:58:29.960 And I mean that very specifically,

00:58:32.680 because I believe, as a cognitive psychologist,

00:58:35.680 that there is no category of apprehension

00:58:40.040 more fundamental than that of sex.

00:58:43.440 Creatures without nervous systems

00:58:45.620 can detect the difference between

00:58:47.400 sexes. Otherwise, they

00:58:49.300 die. Right. 0.86

00:58:51.800 If people lose

00:58:53.360 their apprehension of that fundamental

00:58:55.680 reality,

00:58:57.380 all words lose their meaning.

00:59:00.400 Right. And you

00:59:01.480 can see

00:59:03.220 part of the reason that you're

00:59:05.480 here tonight is because you can see

00:59:07.360 that happening. Right.

00:59:11.620 The next story is the story

00:59:13.480 of Abraham.

00:59:14.000 Now, Abraham is, as the stories progress, the human characters become more realistic.

00:59:26.120 They become more fully human.

00:59:30.080 Cain and Abel are almost purely archetypal.

00:59:32.680 Cain and Abel are representations of the two patterns of adaptation that war with each other eternally within the human soul.

00:59:41.620 The proclivity to aim up and to sacrifice properly

00:59:45.480 The pathway of Abel

00:59:46.960 And the bitter, resentful, callous, prideful, murderous pattern of Cain

00:59:53.620 The earliest representations of the eternal battle between Christ and Satan

01:00:00.120 In its nascent form

01:00:02.000 Noah, again, is deeply mythologized

01:00:08.680 He's emblematic of the pattern of being that shepherds family and society through crisis.

01:00:19.600 With Abraham, we get quite a fully developed character, person,

01:00:29.560 with much of the historical context left intact.

01:00:38.680 Who is Abraham?

01:00:41.180 Well, he's a late bloomer.

01:00:44.480 Abraham comes from a rich family,

01:00:47.480 and he lulls around his tent till he's 75.

01:00:51.880 Not his tent, his father's tent.

01:00:54.080 Right? So...

01:00:57.080 And why?

01:00:58.980 Because he can.

01:01:03.980 Abraham has everything that you hypothetically need.

01:01:08.680 This is why you maintain skepticism in the presence of utopian promises.

01:01:17.900 There's no reason for Abraham to leave home.

01:01:21.740 All of his needs are satisfied.

01:01:26.260 Insofar as the conceptualization of need and satiation covers the domain of human experience,

01:01:35.920 which it does badly.

01:01:38.680 an infant who's been fed and is sheltered and held can sleep there's no need for consciousness

01:01:49.700 abraham is living a life of ease but it's not a life because a life of ease is not a life

01:01:59.880 a life of voluntarily undertaken difficulty is a life

01:02:05.760 and there's no difference between that

01:02:08.720 and an adventure

01:02:10.800 God in the story of Abraham is the call of the spirit of adventure

01:02:17.520 and it comes to Abraham when he's 75

01:02:20.620 and it says to him something very direct

01:02:26.120 it says

01:02:27.500 get out of your father's tent

01:02:31.540 get away from your family 1.00

01:02:33.140 leave your countrymen and your comfort 1.00

01:02:35.620 and go to strange and foreign places 0.99

01:02:39.000 and make your way

01:02:40.680 and if you do that

01:02:45.060 then

01:02:45.960 I'll make you a blessing to yourself

01:02:49.980 I'll make your name resound among other people

01:02:54.300 I'll make your descendants numerous beyond count

01:02:59.020 and I'll make you and them a blessing to everyone.

01:03:04.540 Now that's the promise of God.

01:03:08.800 Do you believe in that promise?

01:03:12.420 It's not a matter of your acceptance of a set of descriptive facts.

01:03:17.700 It's a matter of your willingness to be motivated by a particular spirit.

01:03:22.360 Did you leave home?

01:03:26.540 Why?

01:03:28.520 Do you find yourself impelled to leave your zone of comfort?

01:03:34.520 Do you find yourself dissatisfied with mere comfort?

01:03:40.720 That's a deeper question.

01:03:43.980 You can imagine infantile security as the logical end of striving.

01:03:52.360 But that's not in accordance with the reality of your own experience.

01:03:58.280 If all your romantic partner offers you is security,

01:04:03.440 you're going to be bored into frustration rapidly.

01:04:08.900 What do you want?

01:04:10.880 You want a challenge.

01:04:13.240 The word Eve means beneficial adversary.

01:04:21.520 Why?

01:04:22.360 well because a beneficial adversary is a partner in play imagine you're playing one-on-one

01:04:29.040 basketball you're six foot four your nephew's over he's four foot two so you think i can stomp

01:04:40.480 the little guy and you go out into your driveway and you make 50 baskets and and he makes none

01:04:51.500 and maybe you push them over once or twice just for good measure

01:04:55.540 and you've won

01:04:58.860 so why not do that well the answer

01:05:03.760 is well there's two

01:05:06.840 that's not the right way to play

01:05:10.500 and it's no fun well why not you're winning

01:05:14.920 well isn't winning the point

01:05:18.900 well your children will ask you that especially when they're cheating to win

01:05:23.140 well isn't winning the point you don't know how to answer that because obviously winning is the

01:05:28.060 point but the way you answer is doesn't matter whether you win or lose it's how you play the

01:05:32.900 game you've got that cliche at hand but you have no idea why it's true even though it is true why

01:05:39.060 is it true cheat and have no friends right well then you win the game but you lose the game of

01:05:46.720 games right because if you try to win and you play by the rules and you play fair and you're

01:05:52.260 fun then people keep inviting you to play games and that's how you win and the spirit of play is

01:05:58.460 an indication of the presence of that occurrence and what you really want is not security but life

01:06:04.720 optimally on the edge and you need a partner who keeps you there and that's where you dance

01:06:10.140 and you dance so that you're flexible

01:06:12.380 in the face of life's challenges

01:06:14.360 and you manifest sufficient faith

01:06:17.340 to make those challenges welcome

01:06:18.900 and that's what Abraham does

01:06:20.420 the voice of adventure comes to him

01:06:22.440 and he follows it

01:06:25.140 well that means he believes

01:06:28.280 it's not a statable set of propositions precisely

01:06:32.960 it's an orientation to the world

01:06:35.440 now there's an offer embedded in the story

01:06:39.900 that's unbelievably profound, and it's so optimistic.

01:06:43.420 So, you know, you want to encourage your children.

01:06:46.020 What does it mean to encourage them?

01:06:47.640 It means to reward them for surpassing their limits.

01:06:56.400 Right?

01:06:56.920 You want them to move continually and more effectively

01:06:59.660 farther and farther out there into the world.

01:07:03.480 Okay, why do you want that?

01:07:05.560 Because you assume that if they develop that ability,

01:07:08.540 if they develop the courage and the faith

01:07:11.140 to move forthrightly out into the world,

01:07:14.760 that they will be a credit to themselves and to you

01:07:17.200 and to everyone who knows them.

01:07:19.040 And to the degree that you love them in your encouragement,

01:07:22.040 that's what you want to see.

01:07:23.320 And when you see them doing that,

01:07:25.200 then that fills you with the sense that

01:07:27.220 you're manifesting the proper spirit of the Father.

01:07:34.000 That's what Abraham endeavors to do.

01:07:35.760 And God tells him that if you abide by the calling of the spirit of adventure,

01:07:44.500 then you'll be a blessing to yourself and to the world and the founder of a nation.

01:07:51.920 Now that's a good deal.

01:07:53.420 So imagine this.

01:07:55.220 Imagine that you have an impetus towards an adventure.

01:08:01.100 The adventure can be of any scale.

01:08:03.000 It's the adventure that puts you outside your zone of comfort

01:08:07.700 in a manner that's optimally challenging, right?

01:08:11.120 Not too much, but not too little.

01:08:13.900 Right on the edge.

01:08:15.000 That's the line between yin and yang, by the way.

01:08:17.560 That's the Tao.

01:08:18.860 That's the eternal way.

01:08:21.760 You can feel that because you're maximally incentivized

01:08:25.520 when you occupy that position.

01:08:28.240 What's the promise in God's revelation to Abraham?

01:08:33.000 There's nothing you could do that would be better for yourself, now and in the long run,

01:08:39.960 and for everyone you love, and your descendants, and for everyone else,

01:08:46.220 than to hearken to that voice, in faith and courage.

01:08:51.280 Now you know that you wish that you had the courage to believe that.

01:08:56.200 And you know that the best times in your life have been when you dared that.

01:09:00.760 and you ask yourself whether you want to or not what your life could be like if you did that all

01:09:07.940 the time wholeheartedly all in offering your best without reservation and god has an answer to that

01:09:15.400 in the story of god is the source of the answer to that in the story of abraham the answer is

01:09:21.580 everything you want need in a manner that gives everyone else everything they want and need

01:09:27.960 forever no difference between that and the reappearance of paradise no difference between

01:09:36.180 that and the establishment of the heavenly jerusalem the same thing what's abraham called

01:09:43.160 upon to do lift the burden of his life and make the appropriate sacrifices

01:09:49.060 Abraham leaves and he brings his wife

01:09:54.140 he brings his family 0.98

01:09:56.520 he brings his

01:09:58.100 staff with him on the adventure

01:10:02.340 you don't have to go into the world alone

01:10:05.340 you can journey with other people

01:10:07.700 there'll be plenty for them to do in the adventure as well

01:10:11.440 he leaves

01:10:14.100 he makes the first sacrifice

01:10:16.220 he offers something up to god what does that mean it means to offer something upward what does that

01:10:24.660 mean it means to take something of value and to devote it towards something that's even more

01:10:30.520 valuable you know when when new opportunities emerge in front of you in your life you have to

01:10:37.500 sacrifice well let's say that you started a business and it's it's starting to be successful

01:10:42.200 and you're not the world's best manager

01:10:44.660 because you're too lazy, fundamentally. 0.79

01:10:48.180 You're not disciplined enough. 0.99

01:10:49.680 So there's a part of you that's immature.

01:10:51.600 There's dead wood. 0.99

01:10:53.240 You're partly dead wood.

01:10:54.500 And so you want to move forward with that opportunity

01:10:57.680 so that it makes itself fully manifest.

01:11:00.300 What do you sacrifice? 1.00

01:11:03.140 You painfully sacrifice your own stupidity. 1.00

01:11:08.080 And that is a sacrifice that's pleasing to God 1.00

01:11:10.720 because you're probably in love with your stupidity. 1.00

01:11:14.960 And it pleases God to be offered something that you love 1.00

01:11:18.940 in service of something that's higher.

01:11:21.400 And I would say as well that that's also a hallmark of maturity and commitment.

01:11:26.540 And you can imagine that as your scope of opportunity grows,

01:11:30.340 the magnitude of the sacrifices that you're called upon to make

01:11:33.740 continually increase.

01:11:36.580 Not least because as your opportunities grow

01:11:39.900 and your horizon of possibility expands,

01:11:43.620 there's less and less room for foolish error.

01:11:47.780 The costs, the opportunities multiply,

01:11:50.400 but the costs of foolishness multiply as well.

01:11:53.960 And so what you see in Abraham is life as a secession

01:11:58.400 of expanding sacrifices and opportunities.

01:12:02.380 And so that lays out the pathway for a life that's successful.

01:12:09.900 Abraham journeys

01:12:14.820 with his

01:12:17.560 with his family

01:12:22.300 with

01:12:22.640 with his wife

01:12:25.180 he makes the sacrifices along the way

01:12:28.900 but he also

01:12:31.000 encounters the harsh realities of

01:12:33.240 of everyone's life

01:12:36.400 right?

01:12:38.180 so he's on the adventure

01:12:39.240 and he's hearkening to the call of adventure

01:12:41.580 but that doesn't mean that his life

01:12:43.400 is without challenge

01:12:44.540 quite the contrary, the challenges are profound

01:12:47.300 he almost immediately

01:12:49.040 encounters a famine

01:12:50.460 very common occurrence

01:12:52.900 throughout history

01:12:54.600 rare at the moment

01:12:56.580 so far

01:12:58.660 the elite in Egypt

01:13:03.420 conspired to steal his wife 0.97

01:13:06.880 he parts company with Lot

01:13:11.040 his nephew along the way

01:13:12.420 Lot turns towards Sodom

01:13:14.420 there's a civil war in the vicinity

01:13:18.640 and Lot is captured by the warring kings

01:13:22.740 and so Abraham has to organize

01:13:26.160 his people into an army

01:13:29.100 and go rescue his wayward nephew

01:13:33.460 2. Abraham fully confronts a sequence of catastrophes and opportunities,

01:13:44.900 making the appropriate sacrifices in good faith as he moves forward,

01:13:50.880 determining, regardless of the consequences, to maintain his faithful commitment to the adventure,

01:13:59.040 which is equivalent to his willingness to abide by the spirit that calls to him.

01:14:06.320 It's a good thing to know that God is portrayed in the Old Testament

01:14:10.880 as the spirit that calls you to adventure,

01:14:13.700 that calls you to meaning,

01:14:15.380 is the manifestation of that spirit.

01:14:18.720 In the story of Moses,

01:14:21.600 Moses is going about his business as a shepherd.

01:14:24.020 This is before he becomes the leader who will combat tyranny and slavery.

01:14:29.040 the story of Moses is a story about how to become the leader that can combat tyranny and slavery

01:14:35.420 and you might say well I'm not called upon to do that it's like yes you are you are called upon to 1.00

01:14:41.180 combat the tyranny that you exert against yourself and the fact that you're a slave to your own idiot 0.99

01:14:47.400 whims you're called upon to fight the tyranny and slavery that exists in the workplaces you 0.99

01:14:54.320 inhabit and in the social communities that you're part of in the families that surround you and you

01:15:00.720 develop that ability by becoming a leader how do you become a leader moses is at the foot of mount

01:15:08.200 sinai as a shepherd he's an ordinary man at this point something attracts his attention

01:15:14.600 that's worth noting things attract your attention why

01:15:21.060 well the biblical hypothesis is that's because that's the spirit of being and becoming itself

01:15:28.940 beckoning to you that's what happens in the story of the burning bush something attracts moses

01:15:35.380 attention he goes off the beaten path to investigate he investigates thoroughly he gets

01:15:41.300 closer and closer to this thing that's revealing itself as compelling he takes off his shoes

01:15:48.400 he dispenses with his current identity and his current preoccupations he investigates even more

01:15:55.520 deeply this transformation of life that the burning bush represents as a consequence of his

01:16:04.000 commitment to that pursuit the voice of being and becoming itself speaks to him and says

01:16:13.280 you have within you what it takes to become a leader of men

01:16:20.760 you're to return to the community that spawned you you're to confront the forces of tyranny

01:16:28.360 you're to lead your 1.00

01:16:30.340 enslaved people 0.99

01:16:32.540 from their captivity

01:16:34.060 into the desert of their

01:16:36.740 hopelessness

01:16:38.080 to the promised land

01:16:39.880 how do you become a leader

01:16:43.880 by hearkening to the voice of adventure

01:16:45.960 now that's something to know

01:16:48.720 what's the price

01:16:51.380 you have to orient yourself

01:16:54.660 properly so that you know

01:16:56.600 that the voice that's speaking to you

01:16:59.100 is a genuine manifestation of what's highest.

01:17:03.020 How do you do that?

01:17:04.120 By genuinely aiming at what's highest.

01:17:09.460 Whatever you call upon will answer.

01:17:14.000 That's about the most terrifying thing

01:17:16.420 that you can ever learn.

01:17:22.460 Let's recapitulate.

01:17:26.600 In order for us to perceive and to act,

01:17:42.020 something has to come before something else.

01:17:47.740 That begs the question,

01:17:51.520 what should come before everything else?

01:17:57.240 That's the question that the biblical stories are attempting to address with their characterization.

01:18:06.300 Your ability to wrestle potentiality and possibility into the order that's good.

01:18:13.080 That's what you do in your family.

01:18:15.040 Your determination to make sacrifices of the highest quality.

01:18:21.800 your foregoing of bitterness, resentment, faithlessness, and cowardice

01:18:27.780 your decision to walk with God

01:18:32.220 so that you can be apprised of the chaos

01:18:34.800 when it's about to manifest itself

01:18:37.300 your commitment to the highest good

01:18:40.260 so that the tyrants of technology

01:18:43.400 don't build for you false paradises

01:18:47.640 your willingness to follow the calling of the spirit of adventure

01:18:52.920 in good faith and with courage wherever it takes you.

01:18:58.400 That's the characterization of

01:19:00.760 the values that should establish the priorities in your life

01:19:06.480 if peace, productive harmony, and opportunity

01:19:12.020 are to make themselves manifest to you.

01:19:17.640 Thank you very much.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - August 30, 2026

How To Become Someone People Rely On

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