In this episode, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson continues his series on Depression and Anxiety. In this lecture series, he discusses the complex story of Abraham and Isaac, and how they are the perfect examples of complex and complex stories. Dr. Peterson provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn t easy, it s absolutely possible to find your way forward. If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better. Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. B.P. Peterson's new series, "Depression and Anxiety: A Guide to Feeling Better," where you'll learn how to find relief from the overwhelming feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress that may be holding you back from living your best life. Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve. Thank you for listening and supporting this podcast. Please share it with a friend or become a supporter by clicking the link below. Thank you so we can keep sharing this podcast and spreading the word to others in need of a good dose of hope and encouragement. God bless you! Love Light and Blessings, Blessings. -Isaac and Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Sarah, and Isaac. -Psalm 139:14-15, 2 Chronicles, 3 Chronicles 7:2-3, 3, 4, and 3, 2, 5, and 4, A Good and Goodness, and A Good Day, and a Good Life, and Good Fortune, and Let Me Know That You Have a Good Day and Good Counseling, etc., etc., we will be with you in the next episode, etc. -Let me know what you think of Abraham, Sarah and Isaac? -Amen and Good News, and let me know that you'll see you're in the midst of all of the good things, and I'll see what you can do to help you know you're going to do that? - And I'll let you know so that you can help you do it! - Thank you, God Bless You, Lord bless you, Lord Bless you, Bless You! -- Blessings & Bless You Blessings and Bless Me, Good Bless Me! Thank You, Bless Me Blessings! Blessings - - Eternally, Sarah, - Sarah, Sarah & Isaac, Ephraim, Lord, Lord Jesus Christ, Amen, etc..
00:00:00.880Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
00:00:06.480Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.
00:00:12.740We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.
00:00:20.100With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.
00:00:27.420He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.
00:00:35.340If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.
00:00:41.800Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.
00:00:47.460Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.
00:01:50.480So I've been thinking about things that I'm happy about, and what I'm most happy about so far is that I haven't spilled my bubbly water into my computer so far while I've been doing these lectures.
00:02:01.940That's always. I'll probably do it tonight now that I'm bragging about having avoided it.
00:02:19.560I want to continue, and I'll find another venue, and perhaps to do it every two weeks, but certainly once a month, and maybe I can even get deeper into the material if it's only once a month.
00:02:35.600You know, it's something, a story that everyone with any sense should approach with a substantial degree of trepidation.
00:02:41.180I've been working on my book this week on Chapter 7, which is called, Do What is Meaningful, Not What's Expedient.
00:02:50.580And it's really, it's been a very difficult chapter because I'm coming to, I'm trying to extend my understanding of sacrifice, which is, of course, what we're going to talk about tonight in great detail.
00:03:04.980And I've been wrestling with exactly how to do that, and I'm going to read you some of that, I think, today.
00:03:10.160I don't generally read when I do my lectures, but this is so complicated that I'm not confident of my ability to just spin it off, you know, sort of, what would you call it?
00:03:23.500And so, and it'll also give me a chance to test out whether what I've written, which I've been struggling with, has the kind of poetic flow that I'd like to have.
00:03:31.760If you're writing, it's really good to read things aloud, you know, because you can tell if you've got the rhythmic cadence right then.
00:03:37.100And so, so anyways, thank you all for coming.
00:03:41.060Many of you have, I believe, attended all 12 lectures, and that's really remarkable.
00:03:45.800It's amazing that, you know, this place has been full every single lecture.
00:03:50.140It's completely unbelievable that would be the case.
00:03:52.360And, you know, about more than 2 million views have, this has been watched more than 2 million views.
00:03:58.080It's not 2 million people, because it would be the same people, I would suspect, many times.
00:04:23.280Not really easy to comprehend in any sense of the word.
00:04:27.140I mean, with the story of Isaac, God calls on his chosen individual, Abraham, the person he's made this contract with, to sacrifice his son.
00:04:37.240And it's, how in the world are you supposed to make sensible, any sort of sensible sense out of that?
00:04:42.420It's exactly that sort of story that makes modern people who are convinced that the faster we put the biblical stories behind us, the better.
00:04:50.580It's grist for their mill, you know, because it seems like such an incomprehensible and even barbaric act on the part of God.
00:04:57.420And so, you know, I hesitate to even approach it, because, well, because there's so many ways that an interpretation of that sort can go wrong.
00:05:08.960And so, let's walk through it and see what happens.
00:05:11.920So, we're going to start with the story of Sarah and Isaac.
00:05:15.680And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said.
00:05:18.380You remember when Abraham was in the midst of his appropriate sacrificial routines, which we've characterized as his return to the contract he made with the idea of the good, the contract with God.
00:05:31.320He was informed by God that he would get what he most wanted, which was an error, despite his advanced old age.
00:05:38.120And, of course, Sarah was very skeptical about that, as she had every reason to be.
00:05:42.080But this story opens with the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham.
00:05:47.540And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said.
00:05:49.940And the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
00:05:52.880For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
00:06:00.220And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
00:06:06.220And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God commanded him, had commanded him.
00:06:12.180And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him.
00:06:15.760And Sarah said, God hath made me laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
00:06:25.180And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children suck?
00:06:29.540For I have borne him a son in his old age.
00:06:33.420And Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.
00:06:36.980I suppose one of the purposes, let's say, perhaps the literary purposes of this story, is to exaggerate for dramatic purposes the importance of a child.
00:06:51.100You know, when people are young, and I think this is particularly true in the modern world,
00:06:57.720they seem to often regard the possibility of having a child as an impediment to their lifestyle.
00:07:06.040You know, and of course, in some ways, I suppose that's true.
00:07:10.280Although you have to have quite a lifestyle before a child actually constitutes an impediment.
00:07:15.200Because having a child in your life is actually something that's remarkable, almost beyond belief.
00:07:20.840You know, you can have a relationship with a child that is better than any relationship you've ever had with anyone in your life.
00:07:26.480If you're careful, and if you're fortunate.
00:07:32.600You know, I've seen many people delay having children.
00:07:36.220And for understandable reasons, it's no simple decision to have a child.
00:07:39.360And of course, now we can make the decision to have a child.
00:07:41.800Which, of course, people couldn't in past ages, really.
00:07:45.200But sometimes you see people delay, and they delay too long, and then they don't get to have a child.
00:07:49.300And then they're desperate, and you know, they spent a decade doing fertility treatments, or that sort of thing.
00:07:54.120And immersing themselves in one disappointment after another.
00:07:56.920And it's just at that point, you see exactly how catastrophic it is.
00:08:02.480It can be, how catastrophic it can be, for people not to have one of the,
00:08:08.160not to be able to undergo one of the great adventures of life, let's say.
00:08:11.980And one of the things this story does by delaying the arrival of Isaac and delaying the arrival of Isaac continually is to exaggerate the important significance of the child.
00:08:24.900Because it isn't until you're deprived of something, it's truly not until you're deprived of something that you have any sense of what its value is.
00:08:32.160And Isaac was waiting, or Abraham was waiting a very long time, a hundred years is a very long time.
00:12:04.060You know, we, we pointed out before, we discussed before the fact that because Abraham has made, has lived his life properly and has kept the contract with God.
00:12:13.860There's every evidence in the story that no matter what the vicissitudes of Abraham's life.
00:12:19.520You know, how the great serpent that he sits on in some sense weaves back and forth.
00:12:24.060But there's always the promise that things will work out positively.
00:12:28.140And, you know, you could read that as naive optimism.
00:12:30.680But I think it has a lot more to do with the actual power of keeping the contractual agreement.
00:12:37.860Because I really do believe, and I've spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about this over the last couple of weeks.
00:12:43.080In addition to the decades before that is that, and, and, and all that's happened since I've been doing these biblical lectures is that my conviction in this has been strengthened.
00:12:51.500Which is quite interesting is that if you, if you do what it is that you're called upon to do.
00:12:57.560Which is to lift your eyes up above the mundane, daily, selfish, impulsive issues that might beset you.
00:13:05.500And attempt to enter into a contractual relationship with that which you might hold in the highest regard.
00:13:11.300Whatever that might be, to aim high and, and, and to, and to, and to make that important above all else in your life.
00:13:18.640That that fortifies you against the vicissitudes of existence like nothing else can.
00:13:22.980And I truly believe that that's the most practical advice that you can possibly, that you could possibly receive.
00:13:31.480You know, I received, I was answering questions last night.
00:13:34.980I did this Q&A which I do about once a month for, for the people who are supporting me on Patreon.
00:13:40.840Which I also released on YouTube and somebody asked, you know, they were struggling with their religious faith and they asked what they could do about that.
00:13:48.440And I'd also been thinking about the, the difference between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, which I'll discuss in a minute.
00:13:55.420And I was trying to answer this question with regards to religious faith because he, he, this person was shaky in his faith in life, let's say.
00:14:04.500Which is a better way of thinking about it than, and it seems to me that the way that you fortify your faith in being and in life, in your own existence isn't to try to convince yourself of the existence of a transcendent power that you could believe in the same way that you believe in a set of empirical facts.
00:14:21.440I don't, I don't think that's the right approach.
00:14:23.140I think it's a weak approach actually.
00:14:26.000I don't, I don't think that the cognitive technology, that, I don't think that's the right cognitive technology for that set of problems.
00:14:32.680You know, that's more, a technology that you'd use if you were trying to solve a scientific problem.
00:14:38.020It's more like, it's more something that needs to be embedded in action rather than in statable belief.
00:14:44.600And the way that you fortify your faith in life is to assume the best, something like that, and then to act courageously in relationship to that.
00:14:53.360And, and that's, that's tantamount to expressing your faith in the highest possible good.
00:14:58.260It's tantamount to expressing your faith in God.
00:15:00.480And it's not a matter of stating, well, I believe in the existence of a transcendent, that deity, because in some sense, who cares, who cares what you believe?
00:15:08.880I mean, you might in all that, but, but that's not the issue.
00:15:12.020That's not the issue. The issue, it seems to me, is how you act.
00:15:15.560And I was thinking about this intensely when I was thinking about Nietzsche and Dostoevsky.
00:15:20.280Because, of course, you know that Nietzsche was the philosopher who announced the death of God, right?
00:15:24.880And who was a great, great critic of Christianity, a vicious critic of institutional Christianity, in the best sense, you know?
00:15:31.760And he announced the death of God, and he said that we'd never find enough water to wash away the blood.
00:15:37.200It wasn't a triumphant proclamation, even though it's often read that way.
00:15:40.640And Nietzsche's conclusion from that, from the death of God, the fact that our ethical systems were going to collapse when the foundation was pulled out from underneath them,
00:15:50.920he believed that human beings would have to find their own values, to create their own values.
00:15:55.340And there's a problem with that, because it doesn't seem, this is something Carl Jung was very thorough in investigating,
00:16:01.360it doesn't really look like people are capable of creating their own values.
00:16:04.900Because you're not really capable of moulding yourself just any old way you want to be.
00:16:09.680Like, you have a nature that you have to contend with.
00:16:12.480And so, it isn't a matter of creating our own values, because we don't have that capacity.
00:16:17.380It might be a matter of rediscovering those values, which is what Jung was attempting to do.
00:16:22.020Now, and so I think Nietzsche was actually profoundly wrong in that recommendation.
01:37:19.740It's so amazing that the story of Cain and Abel segues into the story of the flood.
01:37:24.480Because it is the case that the catastrophes that beset society can best be conceptualized as the spread of individual pathology into the social world.
01:37:35.840And the, what would you call, the magnification of that pathology to the point where everything comes apart.
01:37:43.220And I truly believe that if you familiarize yourself with the last hundred years of history.
01:37:47.460That that's the conclusion that you would derive.
01:37:49.140And the people who are most wise that I've read who commented on that say the same thing over and over.
01:37:54.760Which is the, the key to the prevention of the horrors of Auschwitz and the Gulag in the future.
01:38:06.960Is the reconstruction of the individual soul at the level of each individual.
01:38:13.140And that's a terrible message because it puts the burden on you.
01:38:19.160But it's an amazing message because it also means that you could be the source of the process.
01:38:25.560That stops that catastrophe and malevolence from ever emerging again.
01:38:31.640And you know, it's hard for me to imagine that you have anything that could possibly be better to do with the time that you have left.
01:38:39.880Well, then we see Noah who walks with God and whose generations are in order, right?
01:38:47.300Which means that he's entered this contract with the good, let's say.
01:38:51.900That has the protective function of the ark.
01:38:55.800He's put his family together and he can ride out the worst catastrophe.
01:39:01.920It's that these people who get their act together properly and make a contract with the good are constantly presented as the genuine ancestors of mankind.
01:39:11.820And that's a really positive element of the story as well.
01:39:15.080And it's one I believe because, well, it hasn't been easy for us to get here, you know?
01:39:19.300We are the descendants of the great heroes of the past.
01:39:21.960And if you took all those heroes and you told their stories and you distilled their stories into a single story,
01:39:30.380maybe you'd have a story like the story of Noah or the story of Abraham.
01:39:34.420You know, the story of the successful, the story of our forefathers, you know?
01:39:38.820And not the cancer on the planet that certain people tend to think that we are.
01:39:43.620And so the goal is to be one of the people like that.
01:39:46.840And there isn't anything better that can possibly be done.
01:39:49.640And the alternative is something like hell.
01:40:36.320He bumps himself up against all the horrors of existence.
01:40:40.220And yet the story is told in such a manner that reveals that his primary ethical commitment to the overarching good is sufficient to protect him against the vicissitudes of existence.
01:41:43.980And I can't see how it can not be true.
01:41:48.380And I can't see that it's not stamped on the soul of everyone who's conscious.
01:41:53.060I think we all know this perfectly well.
01:41:55.720Although the stories remind us, you know, Plato, Socrates believed that all knowledge was remembering.
01:42:06.200You know, he believed that the soul before birth had all knowledge and lost it at birth.
01:42:12.220And then experience reminded the soul of what it already knew.
01:42:16.720And there's something about that that's really true.
01:42:20.560Because you're not just a creature that emerged 30 years ago or 40 years ago.
01:42:27.740You're the inheritor of 3.5 billion years worth of biological engineering, right?
01:42:34.000You have your nature stamped deeply inside of you.
01:42:37.760Far more deeply than any of us realize.
01:42:40.820And when you come across these great stories, these reminders, they're a reminder of how to be properly.
01:42:46.720And they echo in your soul because the structure's already there.
01:42:49.760The external stories are manifestations of the internal reality.
01:42:56.820And then they're a call to that internal reality to reveal itself.
01:43:00.600Well, and then we come to the end of the Abrahamic stories, at least this section of them, with Sarah's death.
01:43:12.280And Abraham is called upon to make the supreme sacrifice.
01:43:15.660And interestingly enough, because he's willing to make the supreme sacrifice, he actually doesn't have to.
01:43:20.760And that's an interesting thing as well, because I believe that it's reasonable from a psychological perspective to point out that the more willing you are, for example, to face death, perhaps,
01:43:37.220the less likely it is that you're going to have to face it, at least in an ignoble manner.
01:43:43.520And so with that, then we'll bring this 12-part series to a close.
01:43:58.760You know, I think that applause is for everyone.
01:44:01.480And I hate to say that because it sounds so new-agey.
01:44:06.960But, you know, it really does seem to me that this is a participatory exercise, you know.
01:44:13.520And that it would not be possible for me to go through these stories without having you here to listen.
01:44:19.440And so, and I always think, when talking to a crowd, that it's a dialogue, you know.
01:44:40.400And for me to be able to craft what I'm saying so that it has an impact on all of you here also means that I can simultaneously craft it so that it has an impact that, in principle, can reach far beyond this place.
01:44:51.620And so, you know, I'm hoping that, I'm really hoping that one of the things that can start to happen with this, at least, is that we can put our culture back on its firm foundation.
01:46:04.160It appears to me from this series and from the biblical stories themselves that the emphasis of the stories is the utmost importance of the fool for the maintenance and adaptation of being or society.
01:46:15.040The figure who will lunge headfirst into uncharted territory, explicitly aware of the danger and risk of loss in confronting what cannot be understood, but unafraid and with zeal.
01:46:23.420And that the dangers of ideological possession are just as much of a concern as that individuals are unwilling and perhaps unable to form an opinion and take a stance one way or another when confronted with a fork in the road or a decision that must be made.
01:46:38.980You've seen this apathy throughout the universities, as I have, too, in the public schooling system.
01:46:44.080My question is, how can one model being the fool to plunge into the unknown and publicly fall on your face in pursuit of learning in a way that clearly demonstrates the urgency and utility of the fool?
01:46:55.120Well, there isn't any difference between the fool and someone who's courageous, right, from an archetypal perspective.
01:47:05.100And, I mean, Abraham is a fool, obviously, when he starts his adventures.
01:47:09.840I mean, the story lays it out in that manner.
01:47:12.080He's far too old to be leaving home, for example.
01:47:16.960You know, and then he has a lot of catastrophic adventures along the way.
01:47:21.300And certainly, you could imagine that had you encountered him when he first encountered the famine in the land of strangers when he first went out, that the idea that he had followed his misguided intuitions would have been self-evident.
01:47:36.660But in the Abrahamic stories, there is this call to get out and do.
01:47:43.240And the thing is, is that, you know, one of the things I've learned, to put it, to make it concretely, is that, like, I've done a lot of different things in my life.
01:47:49.640And every time I did a new thing, I was a fool.
01:50:27.220Now, everyone knows that critical thinking is a great thing to develop.
01:50:30.280You have to be able to, I guess, think about your ideas.
01:50:35.200If information is presented to you, you have to decide if it's legitimate or if there's some sort of deceit behind it.
01:50:40.640But when it's taken to its extreme, no matter how great or noble somebody is, you can always find a crack in the armor and try to figure out how they're covering up something that's not great about them.
01:50:54.440And you might then discredit everything they do as just a facade.
01:51:51.080But people are fallible and they make mistakes.
01:51:54.020And so it's reasonable to apply that to yourself.
01:51:56.900You know, there's an idea that's been developed by psychologists over the last few decades that people are basically narcissistic and that they generally feel that they're better at most things than other people.
01:52:10.540I don't think the experimental evidence for that is very strong.
01:52:13.180And I certainly haven't seen that, for example, in my clinical practice where I've seen that people are generally far harder on themselves than they are on other people.
01:52:20.480One example of that, I've written about this in my new book, too, is that, you know, if you have a pet that's sick and you take it to the vet and you get medication, you're very likely to give the pet the entire course of medication.
01:52:32.620To go to the pharmacy to get the prescription filled, to give the pet the medication, to follow it through.
01:52:38.900But if you are the person who has the problem, yeah, you all laugh because you know the story.
01:52:43.620It's like, a third of you won't even go fill the prescription and of the remaining two-thirds of you, half won't take it to completion.
01:52:51.580And you think, well, why are people like that?
01:52:53.600And I think it's because they know themselves, they have contempt for themselves because of their flaws, and then they come to despise themselves.
01:53:29.540What it means is that you should, you should treat your neighbor as if he or she is someone that you wish to encourage and develop.
01:53:38.220But that you should also have exactly the same attitude towards yourself, which is sort of, in some sense, regardless of what your opinion is of yourself.
01:54:10.460You know, you detach yourself from yourself.
01:54:12.640And you think, okay, well, if I was going to construct a mode of being that was optimal for this person that I happen to be, what would that look like?
01:54:22.980And that's sort of independent of whether or not you think you deserve it.
01:54:26.540It's like, maybe you deserve it, maybe you don't.
01:54:28.740Innocent until proven guilty, that's a pretty good policy.
01:54:32.000But you should come to lay out a mode of being for yourself that gives you some credit.
01:54:38.760You know, and that will also help you in your dealings with other people.
01:54:42.220But it's often very difficult for people to do that to themselves.
01:54:44.980Okay, so that's the first part of that.
01:54:51.320So it starts out with this hypercritical thinking.
01:54:54.600And you talk a lot about Nietzsche's assertion about the death of God.
01:54:59.300But I see it sort of more like a willful destruction of the heroic ideal.
01:55:05.040And I guess several months ago, I had occasion to look up a definition or explanation for the zeitgeist of modern victimhood outrage culture.
01:55:17.000And I saw it in this particular case, and I found.
01:55:20.700And this paragraph, okay, this has what you call the rhythmic cadence that just made my hair stand up on its ends.
01:55:28.080And if you could look at it and read this, this is better than the last one.
01:55:37.200The image of man that dominates in modern literature, in visual arts, cinema, and theater is primarily a gloomy image.
01:55:44.060The great and the noble are suspect from the outset.
01:55:47.060They must be torn from their pedestals so that one can see through them.
01:55:50.700Morality counts as hypocrisy, and joy as self-deception.
01:55:53.780Anyone who simply puts trust in the beautiful and the good is either inexcusably ingenuous or acting with evil intent.
01:56:01.520The truly moral attitude is suspicion, and its greatest success is in exposing.
01:56:09.200It is impossible to find words lurid and brutal enough to describe the dangers that threaten us.
01:56:14.720This delight in the negative is not, however, unlimited.
01:56:17.740There exists at the same time an obligation to be optimistic, and the failure to observe this obligation does not go unpunished.
01:56:26.160For example, anyone who expresses the view that not everything in the intellectual development of the modern period has been correct,
01:56:32.280that it is necessary in some essential areas to reflect on the shared wisdom of the great cultures,
01:56:37.240has chosen to make the wrong kind of criticism.
01:56:39.440He finds himself suddenly confronted with a resolute apologia for the fundamental decisions of the modern age.
01:56:46.700No matter how much delight one may take in negation,
01:56:49.360he is not permitted to call into question the view that the fundamental trajectory of historical development is progress,
01:56:55.000and that the good lies in the future and nowhere else.
01:56:57.240You know, I thought a lot about nihilism, let's say, and its justification.
01:57:05.680And I think that a very powerful justification for nihilism can be found in the mere observation that life is rife with tragedy and malevolence,
01:59:14.680And so, and then you discussed how you're not exactly sure what your role is in all of this and that you don't want to be in a war and you don't want to be using war-like language.
01:59:26.400And I think what you want to be doing is you're trying to restore order but not have conflict.
01:59:40.660And so, after the lecture two weeks ago, I asked you, like, maybe I should do some sales work for your postmodern lexicon website.
01:59:56.140But I think I've found a better niche for someone of my temperament to help this cause.
02:00:04.860So, I think I, so I go to Dalhousie University and because so many students are dropping out, especially men and especially ethnic minorities,
02:00:17.500they've created this team called the Student Success Team or something, or Student Success Advisors.
02:00:25.840And you've been incredibly successful crowdfunding for your research and on your Patreon.
02:00:35.740And I think, like, how much does it cost for a single person to do the self-authoring program?
02:00:43.280Well, it's two for one, so it's about $15.
02:00:45.840Okay, so, okay, so nothing then, basically.
02:00:50.360But I was thinking that we could, somehow we could incorporate the self-authoring program into this, into this new advisor committee at Dalhousie so that students can figure it.
02:01:07.940Like, the data for the future authoring program is quite clear.
02:01:10.940If students even do it for an hour before they go to university, they have a 30, about a 30% less chance of dropping out in the first semester.
02:01:19.460So, you know, and, and it would really be nice to see some student organizations that were seriously devoted to facilitating student success.
02:01:27.280You might think that's what student organizations should do, in fact.
02:01:31.420Well, it seems rather self-evident when you think about it.
02:01:34.300But, you know, so I would say, like, if you're oriented in that direction, get at her.
02:01:38.720So, it's a fine plan and it's, I like the emphasis of it because you're directing yourself towards the facilitation of individual accomplishment.
02:01:48.240And you're at least going to do very little harm that way.
02:01:52.080And that's a really good start, man, you know.
02:01:54.060That's, that, because that's, that's what you should think about when you're setting out to make things better.
02:01:59.260The first thing you should think is, I'm not so sure I know what I'm doing.
02:02:03.420So, why don't I first attempt to do the least amount of harm possible?
02:02:08.460And by concentrating on helping someone develop their own plan and, and, and implement that into the future.
02:02:14.180And encouraging them with regards to whatever success they would like defined their way.
02:02:19.520There's a pretty low probability that you're going to act the tyrant and, and, and play a detrimental role.
02:02:48.160And I've been trying to think up this question since basically the first lecture because I'm a seminary student at an evangelical seminary.
02:02:58.380And a lot of what you've been saying has really been resonating and it's, and it's really been fascinating to listen to.
02:03:05.620And, you know, there's been many people who've been asking you questions like, what do you believe about the resurrection?
02:03:13.180And, you know, I've been listening very closely to all your answers and have groups of friends on Facebook who are following very closely saying, oh, you hear what Peterson said this time?
02:03:21.400Maybe he's one of us finally or something like that.
02:03:23.440But at the same time, other ways that you explain some of the stories sound very close to what we call theological liberalism.
02:03:33.220You know, in the 19th century, the idea that, you know, using historical critical methods of reading and interpreting the Bible and understanding Jesus more as a moral figure than as a literal historical figure whose atonement provides satisfaction for man.
02:03:46.280So, I tried to figure out what the question was because I could interpret what some of your answers were.
02:03:52.240So, I'm going to put it in a more of a general way.
02:03:54.400Where exactly do you see yourself differing from traditional, orthodox, evangelical Christianity and why would you differ there given how much you seem to understand the importance of the biblical stories in Western history?
02:04:49.360Okay, and how, so, that's one major, because I'm coming at this from a scientific, I really am coming at this from a scientific perspective.
02:04:56.540You know, like I try to make sure that everything that I talk about is commensurate with current scientific knowledge.
02:05:02.780Now, current scientific knowledge, no doubt, is erring in all sorts of ways.
02:05:05.800Like, I think our notion about exactly how evolution progresses is flawed in many, many ways.
02:05:10.920And the recent discoveries in the field of epigenetics, which show that you can actually transmit acquired characteristics, you know, has really put a whole, real serious stick in the spokes of the evolutionary bicycle, let's say.
02:05:24.580But, but then, I also think the question is mis-asked in some sense, because I gave this lecture series a specific title for a specific reason.
02:05:35.680And the lecture series is the psychological significance of the biblical stories.
02:05:39.920Now, I'm not claiming that my psychological analysis exhausts the significance of the biblical stories.
02:05:46.960You know, they, they have multitudes, let's say, layers of meaning.
02:05:52.460And some of those layers are metaphysical, and some of them are more specifically religious.
02:05:56.200And I'm trying the best I can not to wander into those domains like I do, because it's impossible to keep yourself bounded, you know, when you're a discursive speaker, let's say.
02:06:06.400But I'm trying to, what I'm trying to do is the sort of thing that Jung did, essentially, is to take a look at these old stories and say,
02:06:12.480okay, well, let's look at this from the perspective of the human psyche, and let's see what the significance can be.
02:06:19.960And not to say, that's all the significance there is.
02:06:25.540One thing I have learned about the biblical stories is that, no matter how deep you go into them, you are not at the bottom.
02:06:32.080And so, that's been very, very interesting to me.
02:06:34.680And God only knows about the metaphysical substructure of reality, because human beings certainly don't.
02:06:40.880So, I don't, I don't want to claim that what I'm doing is a religious interpretation, although, you know, it drifts into that direction.
02:06:49.400I want to stay within the purview of my expertise, such as it is, and to say, well, if you look at this psychologically, here's what you can extract as, as pragmatically, existentially, and clinically meaningful.
02:07:02.960And the rest of it, well, the rest of it has to be left in abeyance, and, because I don't have the capacity to investigate claims that go beyond that.
02:07:14.960That does not mean that I'm saying that what I'm doing is reducing these stories to their psychological significance, even though the psyche is a grand thing.
02:08:03.420Yeah, so, subsequently, I looked up some of the recently published literature, and one of the studies I found extremely striking was one that was published less than a year ago in the Lancet, which is a very high-impact, well-respected journal.
02:08:17.380And what they looked at was efficacy in patients with severe treatment-resistant depression, and what they found is that in 11 out of 12 of the patients, they showed significant remittance following just a single dose of the substance up to three months following the single dose without additional dosing.
02:08:40.200So, this not only substantiates, I suppose, my own experiences, but when you read some of the commentary or review articles surrounding these types of topics, not with respects to depression, but things like post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, they'll unequivocally state that these types of results are completely unprecedented in the realm of psychiatric medicine.
02:09:08.540So, I was wondering if you could comment as to whether or not that type of, I guess, rhetoric is overblown, and if not, do you see these being more mainstream in the near future, or suspect that they'll fall victim to something along the lines of regulatory capture?
02:09:23.540No, I don't, well, I don't think they're overstatements, and I know some of the people who are engaged in this research, and they're actually very conservative people.
02:09:31.980Like, they're brave people, but I mean conservative in the best sense, you know, they're not, they're not Timothy Leary, and I'm not trying to put down Timothy Leary, I'm really not.
02:09:40.320But, you know, some caution would have been a good thing, although, you know, when something like, when the psychedelics burst onto the scene, no one had any idea what to do with them, right?
02:09:53.160So, and we still really don't, but the new research is being conducted very, very carefully, but it is really remarkable that those epithets are used, or those terms are used to describe the results,
02:10:04.240because those are, the Lancet, for example, it's one of the top-end medical journals, you don't see grand claims in the Lancet, right?
02:10:11.820Scientists don't write that way, they're trained from the very beginning to downplay their results, but they're quite struck by the fact that these effects occur with single doses.
02:10:22.500Now, I think that what we don't know about psychedelics could fill many, many, many thick volumes, and they're absolutely mysterious in their function, purpose,
02:10:33.440effect, consequence, all of that, and I've always thought that it was really appalling that we stopped investigating them back in the 1960s, although it's not been that long, you know,
02:10:43.56020 years, historically speaking, it's really nothing, but, and no, I don't think that there'll be, that the research will be stopped by regulatory capture,
02:10:54.420because the people who are doing it now, I think, learned their lesson from what happened in the 60s, and are doing it pretty damn carefully,
02:11:01.580so we can hope that more results like this are produced, and that they're replicable, and that perhaps they'll prove helpful, with any luck.
02:11:28.740If I try to explain that, I don't have time for the question.
02:11:30.780Yeah, well, that's okay, I'll let you get to the question, but I'm curious, like, what, why do you think that is?
02:11:37.460Because it's a strange thing to have happen, like, it's a lecture on the Bible, for God's sake, you know, it's like, it's not something you'd go to a venture capitalist with a business plan for.
02:11:48.400So, like, what, what, what is it about it, do you think, that's been, that, that's had that effect on you?
02:18:19.500Basically, I used to use that, you know, to kind of deflate a lot of the, it comes from the left wing.
02:18:24.460This utopia we're going towards with the universal income and there's going to be AI and suddenly the whole population is going to become insanely creative and with no incentive.
02:18:33.740But it's not, the utopia is not there.
02:18:35.900It's not like this thing that hasn't happened yet.
02:18:55.480So, we have this beautiful thing and people are trying to take it down at all costs and now we go into the dark phase of my, into my question here, which is, and it actually goes into, Charlottesville had, you know, with the initial purpose of protecting the statue was a good thing.
02:19:22.300I don't, I'm not, I'm not, I don't know about confederacy except for the big thing, but honestly, it's a, it's a slippery, slippery slope and the confused souls who, and the bad, like, just darkened souls for sure, not good.
02:19:38.000They screwed it up big time because the purpose behind it is so important because it's going to be founding fathers next.
02:19:45.340Anyone who ever contributed anything to Western civilization as we know it is already being, it's already being done.
02:19:50.560James Madison High School in the States is getting renamed because some girl, some random, one student felt unsafe.
02:19:58.100And so, yeah, this is a serious issue and I want to, like, I feel like we're really up against the wall now because now they found their Nazis, man.
02:20:06.480The Nazis are flooding the streets now, so how do we, how do we possibly, you know, kind of save our cakes?
02:20:25.080Well, having the right degenerate into identity politics does not seem to be a positive solution.
02:20:39.460So one of the things I would say is that, like, I understand why the identity politics that has been practiced so assiduously and so devastatingly by the left has been co-opted by the right.
02:20:52.140I understand that, but then here's what I would say to the people on the right who are playing that game.
02:20:59.100If you play the game of your enemies and you win, you win their game.
02:25:51.460But the only result is that some get narcissistic.
02:25:55.020The reason why I'm interested in that is about standing up for yourself.
02:25:59.160And it is, when I try to, you know, do it, I see that rational arguments, faith in rationality doesn't get the best results in negotiations.
02:26:17.640That's why you learn how to be socialized by playing rough and tumble.
02:26:23.920It's not an intellectual conversation that gets you socialized.
02:26:28.360So, I'm also reading that book suggested by Stephen Hicks explaining postmodernism.
02:26:34.520Because I wasn't really familiar and I've been listening to a lot from you.
02:26:37.480I'm going to talk to him later this week so that might be fun.
02:26:39.800And I'm trying to read with fresh eyes because I've been indoctrinated by you, of course, so I'm very critical.
02:26:47.340And there's one more point that I have to agree with the postmodernists and that is the world seems to me, as I observe it, a place where powers are at play.
02:27:02.640So, when I'm in a weak position and I want to fight back, not to get resentful, I find that it's not a rational argument that will get me there.
02:27:12.680There's something else that I don't do and that I should be doing and I don't know what it is.
02:27:17.580So, you see the relation with self-esteem.
02:27:30.800So, the first thing is, is there's a problem with the measurement of self-esteem and that actually matters because self-esteem is a psychological concept, a scientific concept, if you like, and you have to get the measurement right.
02:27:43.640And you can predict self-esteem almost perfectly by measuring someone's extroversion and subtracting from that their negative emotionality or neuroticism.
02:27:52.780So, it's actually just a combination of big five traits.
02:27:55.100And so, people who are extroverted, who feel a lot of positive emotion, and who are, and who don't feel a lot of negative emotion, score high on scales of self-esteem.
02:28:40.000You can, so they're basically kids who are high in neuroticism, probably low in extroversion.
02:28:44.880And he found that if those children, and you can identify them as early as six months, right?
02:28:49.540Very, very inculcated in their temperament.
02:28:53.020He found that if you encouraged them in the world, you could shift them into a more stable personality configuration.
02:28:59.520And what you basically did was, when they were manifesting signs of distress, instead of encouraging them to withdraw and retreat, which is what they might be attempting to do, you encourage them to go out and explore.
02:29:13.320So, for example, if you have a temperamentally inhibited child, and you go to a playground, and there's kids out there.
02:29:18.060Like, if you have an extroverted, emotionally stable kid, three years old, as you put them on the ground, their feet are already moving, right?
02:29:26.280Like a puppy over water, and you let them go, and they just run to the kids.
02:29:56.000And if you continually expose your inhibited child to the things that make them anxious in measured doses, then you can transform their psychophysiological temperament.
02:30:06.260Now, you're probably not going to shift them way the hell out onto the extroverted, emotionally stable end.