The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Toxic Masculinity

00:00:00.960 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:57.420 Welcome to episode 52 of the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

00:01:01.420 I'm Mikayla Peterson, Jordan's daughter.

00:01:03.440 I hope you enjoy this episode. It's called Toxic Masculinity, recorded on February 21st, 2019 from Wellington, New Zealand.

00:01:11.120 We're not splitting the podcast into two anymore, by the way.

00:01:14.520 So I don't forget to mention, Dad's personality course is on sale right now at 50% off.

00:01:19.540 Indefinitely until this coronavirus crisis is over to give people things to do at home that don't involve scrolling aimlessly through Instagram or, God forbid, TikTok.

00:01:30.000 I'm actually guilty of being on TikTok.

00:01:32.400 I may get Dad into it too when he's better. He'll never do it, but maybe.

00:01:36.260 But yes, the personality course at jordanbpeterson.com slash personality is on sale now at 50% off.

00:01:42.680 If you complete it, tag Jordan or I on Instagram to let us know.

00:01:46.100 As for the updates, not a lot. Dad is busy writing his book and is feeling well enough to accomplish that.

00:01:51.880 We're just taking it easy in the sun and we're lucky enough to be in Florida.

00:01:55.220 I'm particularly lucky to be here instead of being stuck in a one-bedroom condo with no balcony in Toronto.

00:02:00.900 Hope you out there listening are doing okay. Try not to worry too much.

00:02:04.200 I have faith in the world. Talk to you next week.

00:02:06.500 Season 2, Episode 52, Toxic Masculinity.

00:02:14.320 A Jordan B. Peterson 12 Rules for Life Lecture.

00:02:26.880 Thank you.

00:02:28.840 It's nice to see you on your feet getting some exercise.

00:02:32.040 Guys, so I think what I'm going to talk about tonight, I always have a problem that I'm trying to address when I come on stage.

00:02:46.900 You know, and I have to sit backstage and then I have to think about what the problem is.

00:02:51.820 It has to be something focused, you know, that I can kind of get my grip on.

00:02:56.440 It's something useful to know if you ever want to do a presentation or if you want to write something.

00:03:03.180 You know, your teachers always told you, well, you have to have a topic.

00:03:07.360 It's just kind of a bland way of putting it.

00:03:11.260 What you need to have is a problem.

00:03:14.380 And it has to be a problem that, well, that bothers you because otherwise it's actually not a problem, right?

00:03:21.000 It's sort of the definition of a problem is something that bothers you.

00:03:24.760 And then when you have a problem, which is not that much different than having a life, by the way,

00:03:32.040 then you want to state the problem as clearly as you can.

00:03:38.080 And then you want to move towards solving it.

00:03:41.500 And one of the things that's really always struck me about the way that we teach people to write in universities

00:03:47.080 is that that's never, it's amazing how often that's not explained to students.

00:03:52.660 You know, like I spent, I have this writing rubric online on my website at jordanbpeterson.com.

00:04:01.660 You can go and download it if you want.

00:04:03.680 It's only a few pages long, but it tells you how to write.

00:04:06.220 Write, not everything about how to write, you know, but more like how to have the right attitude about how to write an essay, let's say.

00:04:15.420 And if you are going to write anything, but if you're going to write an essay, for example,

00:04:21.740 well, first of all, you need to have a problem.

00:04:24.240 And it needs to be one that bothers you because otherwise, what the hell are you doing?

00:04:29.820 Like you haven't picked something that's worthy of your time and attention.

00:04:33.480 There's no association between your intellectual effort and the conditions of your life.

00:04:41.240 And so, like if you've picked a topic, some random topic, students often ask me,

00:04:47.100 well, can you pick a topic?

00:04:48.380 It's like, well, no, actually, because that's the hard part of doing the whole exercise is picking the topic.

00:04:56.360 Why?

00:04:57.620 Well, because it has to be something that bothers you and that's relevant to you and that you care about

00:05:04.040 because otherwise, why in the world would you write the essay?

00:05:07.300 Well, maybe it's because you need to write the essay for the class and for the grade and, you know,

00:05:11.940 and that's all expediency as far as I'm concerned.

00:05:15.120 That's rule seven is do what is meaningful, not what is expedient.

00:05:20.360 You don't write the essay for the class, you write the essay because you have a problem.

00:05:26.160 And then you want to formulate the problem so you know what the problem is and what it isn't

00:05:30.640 because if you have a problem and it's not precisely formulated,

00:05:34.620 then it sort of bleeds out beyond its boundaries

00:05:37.680 and then you end up being upset about far more things than you should be upset about

00:05:42.180 instead of being precisely upset about the precise thing that you should be upset about.

00:05:46.260 And then if you don't specify, you know how that is, if you're in a bad mood

00:05:51.400 and your partner's sort of needling you because of it and you deserve it roundly,

00:05:56.060 you know, the first thing you'll do is deny that you're in a bad mood at all,

00:05:59.940 usually in a very, in a way that indicates clearly that you're in a bad mood.

00:06:05.160 And then it will also indicate that you really don't want to talk about it, you know,

00:06:10.160 in another way that indicates that you're in a bad mood.

00:06:12.940 And then maybe if you get prodded enough by someone who's persistent,

00:06:17.720 then you'll start talking about what maybe your problem is

00:06:22.140 and you'll cover a bunch of territory and guess at some things that might be bothering you.

00:06:26.920 And as you do that, you kind of zero in on, and you don't really want to,

00:06:32.000 but you zero in on what the problem actually is.

00:06:34.780 And then it's kind of sharp and painful,

00:06:37.260 but at least it's well formulated and precise, right?

00:06:41.960 And so now you've got it in your hand.

00:06:44.640 And that's something, right?

00:06:46.020 That's a precursor to a solution.

00:06:48.540 Because, well, if you don't know what the damn problem is,

00:06:51.620 how in the world can you possibly work on a solution?

00:06:55.520 And then if you're writing an essay,

00:06:57.940 then that's what you're doing is you're writing a solution.

00:07:01.280 Now, you might not come to the solution,

00:07:04.000 because sometimes the problem is very complicated,

00:07:06.240 but at least you can survey the territory that the solution might constitute

00:07:12.860 and move your thinking forward.

00:07:15.720 And that's something, assuming that you think thinking is worthwhile.

00:07:19.620 And another thing that I try to lay out in this writing document is,

00:07:25.520 well, you know, first of all, pick a problem that has some heart,

00:07:28.720 because otherwise it's a lie,

00:07:30.280 because you're devoting your intellectual energy

00:07:33.160 to something that doesn't matter to you.

00:07:35.100 And then if it doesn't matter to you,

00:07:37.240 well, why do it?

00:07:38.660 And if it doesn't matter to you,

00:07:39.840 well, then what makes you think it'll matter to anyone else?

00:07:42.300 You can be certain,

00:07:43.320 and it's something I let my students know.

00:07:45.420 Look, man, if your essay bores you,

00:07:48.400 you just bloody well imagine what it's doing to me, you know?

00:07:52.560 So it should grip you.

00:07:54.980 It should grip you, you know?

00:07:56.780 And then you can start working through it,

00:08:00.560 and maybe, if you're lucky, you can think through it a little bit.

00:08:04.380 And then think through something is kind of an interesting phrase, you know?

00:08:08.880 Because it implies that there's some impediment in front of you

00:08:14.680 that you can move through, right?

00:08:17.740 So it's not impenetrable.

00:08:19.180 It might be difficult, but you can think through it.

00:08:22.220 And then if you think through it,

00:08:24.100 well, maybe you can come to a solution.

00:08:25.840 And solution is interesting, too,

00:08:27.940 because solution implies that there was something there to begin with

00:08:31.100 that was solid that had to dissolve

00:08:34.080 before a solution could be reached.

00:08:37.540 And that's an extremely interesting idea.

00:08:40.480 And reflecting on that actually tells you

00:08:42.860 why people don't like to think,

00:08:45.180 apart from the fact that it's difficult.

00:08:47.080 But it's almost always the case that if you have a problem,

00:08:49.920 and then you have to think through it

00:08:51.620 to come up with a solution,

00:08:53.200 what it means is that you had a bunch of old ideas

00:08:56.100 about what the problem was or what the solutions were,

00:08:59.340 and they're wrong.

00:09:00.780 But you're clinging to them because, well,

00:09:03.060 they orient you, and maybe you put a lot of work into them,

00:09:05.620 and your ego invested in them,

00:09:07.500 and who knows, maybe people you admired thought them,

00:09:10.720 or they're part of your ideology,

00:09:12.640 or God only knows why you're in love with them,

00:09:15.080 but you are.

00:09:15.900 But they're not working because that's why you have the problem.

00:09:19.660 And so then, in order to solve the problem,

00:09:22.260 that has to dissolve.

00:09:24.040 And so, you know, part of solving a problem,

00:09:26.840 there's always a dissolution.

00:09:29.280 And it's not pleasant to let what you already have go,

00:09:34.360 even if it's in the service of a higher ideal.

00:09:37.940 Right?

00:09:38.180 It puts you into the realm of chaos, essentially.

00:09:43.080 Well, when you admit that you have a problem,

00:09:45.240 you enter the realm of chaos to begin with,

00:09:47.240 especially if it's a serious problem,

00:09:49.060 because the realm of chaos is the realm of problems.

00:09:53.060 And so, like, I always have a moment of distress

00:09:56.280 that lasts a few minutes

00:09:58.560 before coming out to do these talks,

00:10:01.000 because I have to think about what the problem is,

00:10:03.120 and then I have to let things

00:10:05.280 that I've put together in my mind fall apart.

00:10:08.420 And then it feels like,

00:10:10.040 God, now this has fallen apart,

00:10:11.600 and I don't have a story,

00:10:12.840 and it isn't necessarily clear

00:10:14.480 that I'm going to come up with one.

00:10:16.120 And that's an unpleasant precursor

00:10:18.780 to generating the new order.

00:10:22.420 And that's a standard pattern, you know.

00:10:24.420 You have an old order.

00:10:25.900 It doesn't work.

00:10:27.900 And then, in order to fix that,

00:10:30.360 you don't just go from the new old order

00:10:32.840 to a new and better order,

00:10:34.920 because that would be lovely, man.

00:10:36.480 That'd be easy.

00:10:37.440 It's just like, oh, it's just from better to better.

00:10:40.580 That's life.

00:10:41.400 It's like, that's not life at all.

00:10:43.920 It's, you have your current mode of being,

00:10:47.600 and there's something wrong with it,

00:10:49.380 and then it has to fall apart,

00:10:51.280 decompose, fall into solution.

00:10:54.640 And then that's very uncomfortable,

00:10:56.500 because it makes you anxious,

00:10:58.080 and frustrated, and disappointed,

00:10:59.700 and concerned that perhaps

00:11:01.820 you'll end up staying there permanently,

00:11:03.840 and sometimes people do.

00:11:05.020 They get depressed, and suicidal, and nihilistic,

00:11:07.600 because things fall apart,

00:11:08.860 and they never get out of that.

00:11:10.180 And sometimes that kills them.

00:11:12.020 You know, it's no joke to let things go.

00:11:14.760 But if you go into that place

00:11:16.780 where everything has fallen apart,

00:11:18.900 it's a watery, chaotic place,

00:11:21.220 that's one way of thinking about it poetically,

00:11:23.560 then sometimes you can gather together

00:11:26.040 things that haven't been gathered together before,

00:11:28.740 and then you can reconstitute a new order.

00:11:31.760 And with any luck,

00:11:32.960 the new order accounts for everything

00:11:35.280 the old order did,

00:11:36.700 plus some additional things,

00:11:38.800 which constitutes progress.

00:11:41.420 And that's, well, that's the purpose.

00:11:44.700 That's the purpose of thinking.

00:11:47.740 Right?

00:11:48.300 And the reason that you would think

00:11:50.680 is because, well,

00:11:51.740 if you have a problem,

00:11:53.880 and you think it through,

00:11:55.580 and you lay out a solution,

00:11:57.560 and then you act out the solution,

00:11:59.640 then you don't have to have the problem.

00:12:02.360 And so that's why you think.

00:12:03.780 And so that's why you write.

00:12:05.920 And so when you go to university,

00:12:07.500 and you write essays,

00:12:08.680 and you learn to write,

00:12:10.080 the reason that you learn to write

00:12:11.460 is so that you can learn to think,

00:12:13.700 and the reason that you can learn to think

00:12:15.240 is so that your life isn't as wretched and horrible

00:12:17.640 as it might otherwise be.

00:12:19.660 And it's really very, very useful to know that.

00:12:23.120 And so I tell my students,

00:12:24.640 it's a very important thing to know.

00:12:26.060 And all of you should know this

00:12:27.340 when you're writing,

00:12:28.400 or when you're thinking.

00:12:29.880 It's like, well, first of all,

00:12:31.120 don't waste time thinking about things

00:12:33.240 that aren't problems,

00:12:34.480 because how much time do you have?

00:12:36.980 You know?

00:12:37.240 And if it's just absolutely,

00:12:40.560 what would you call,

00:12:42.020 soul-deadening dull

00:12:44.500 to do whatever it is that you're doing,

00:12:47.800 then you might notice

00:12:48.900 that you're deadening your soul

00:12:50.800 while you're doing it.

00:12:52.140 And that could be like a clue

00:12:53.780 that you shouldn't be doing it,

00:12:55.260 unless you want to have a dead soul.

00:12:57.680 And so, well, it's worth thinking about, right?

00:13:00.300 If what you're doing lacks meaning,

00:13:02.560 and it's painful,

00:13:04.000 and I'm assuming that you have

00:13:05.500 a bit of discipline, right?

00:13:07.140 Because, you know,

00:13:08.320 there can be all sorts of excuses

00:13:09.760 for not wanting to do things

00:13:11.340 that are just laziness

00:13:14.440 and lack of discipline.

00:13:16.040 That isn't what I mean.

00:13:17.140 It's just that you just have to

00:13:18.600 drag yourself through the exercise.

00:13:20.880 And every bit of you

00:13:22.160 is rebelling against having to do it.

00:13:24.740 Think, well,

00:13:25.500 maybe there's a reason for that.

00:13:27.120 Maybe you're not pursuing something

00:13:28.600 that's actually worth pursuing.

00:13:30.540 You're not tackling

00:13:31.580 the real problems of your life.

00:13:34.000 And like huge parts of you

00:13:35.660 who are signaling to that

00:13:37.360 by distracting you

00:13:38.920 and boring you

00:13:39.720 and making you angry

00:13:40.720 and resentful and bitter

00:13:42.040 and unable to concentrate

00:13:44.340 and very likely to do a poor job

00:13:47.000 and, you know,

00:13:47.920 unable to remember what you read

00:13:50.900 when you're reading about the topic

00:13:52.480 that we're studying in any way

00:13:53.860 about the topic

00:13:54.500 that you're supposed to be studying

00:13:55.740 about.

00:13:56.120 All of you is rebelling.

00:13:57.800 Well, some of that might be

00:13:59.060 because you're undisciplined.

00:14:00.320 And that's really worth thinking out,

00:14:02.660 thinking through.

00:14:03.640 But it also might be that,

00:14:05.340 man, you're just not on the right track.

00:14:07.580 You're just not solving the right problem.

00:14:09.940 Because, well,

00:14:11.060 my experience has been that

00:14:12.520 if I'm writing about

00:14:13.880 what I should be writing about

00:14:15.360 or talking about

00:14:16.720 what I should be talking about,

00:14:19.060 then it's unbearably interesting.

00:14:21.640 And like maybe that's too interesting,

00:14:23.780 you know,

00:14:24.080 unbearably interesting.

00:14:25.240 But it beats the hell out of

00:14:27.000 soul-deadeningly dull.

00:14:29.420 That's for sure.

00:14:31.360 So anyways,

00:14:32.200 I'm sitting in the back

00:14:33.700 before these talks all the time

00:14:35.680 thinking, okay.

00:14:36.580 And I don't like doing this.

00:14:38.220 It's always the part I'm resistant to.

00:14:40.820 It's like, okay,

00:14:41.480 what's the problem?

00:14:43.280 And I think, well,

00:14:43.840 I could just go through the rules

00:14:45.280 and I could just talk about

00:14:46.800 some things I've already talked about.

00:14:48.820 And I can do that.

00:14:50.100 Like, I can lay out a talk that way

00:14:52.560 because I've done enough talks.

00:14:53.760 But I know that it's not going to have

00:14:55.840 the centrality of soul

00:14:58.840 that it should have

00:15:00.160 if I've formulated a problem

00:15:02.420 that I don't know the answer to

00:15:05.260 and then try to address that.

00:15:08.000 And that's the risk too, right?

00:15:09.760 Like I could come out here

00:15:10.700 and tell you something

00:15:11.580 that I think I know.

00:15:13.120 And I might be wrong

00:15:14.240 because maybe I don't know it.

00:15:15.600 But at least I think,

00:15:17.120 at least I think I know it.

00:15:19.020 And there's some comfort in that.

00:15:21.000 And that's a lot different

00:15:21.840 than coming out here

00:15:22.640 and telling you something

00:15:23.920 that I don't think I know

00:15:26.180 and that I have to figure out.

00:15:28.300 But then, you know,

00:15:29.860 there's something compelling

00:15:31.560 about sharing the experience

00:15:36.300 of thinking through something

00:15:38.120 with people.

00:15:39.000 And I think part of the reason

00:15:40.360 that this lecture series,

00:15:42.280 such as it is,

00:15:43.460 and maybe my YouTube videos as well,

00:15:45.520 have been successful

00:15:47.100 insofar as they have been

00:15:48.720 is because, well,

00:15:50.440 people like to see problems

00:15:52.440 being addressed

00:15:53.740 sort of in real time

00:15:55.280 because, hey man,

00:15:56.780 you've got problems, you know?

00:15:58.600 And so maybe it wouldn't be so bad

00:16:00.500 to see how they might be addressed

00:16:02.120 in real time

00:16:03.000 to see if that can happen.

00:16:05.060 And maybe even if it's not

00:16:06.420 a complete success,

00:16:07.800 it's at least a noble attempt.

00:16:10.420 And so,

00:16:11.740 and it's definitely,

00:16:12.960 it's definitely interesting.

00:16:15.900 Partly because it might succeed,

00:16:17.740 that makes it interesting.

00:16:19.480 And then partly because it might fail,

00:16:21.880 which also makes it interesting.

00:16:23.540 And so there's a kind of

00:16:24.420 high wire act about it always

00:16:26.920 in a good lecture

00:16:28.580 as far as I'm concerned

00:16:29.580 because it isn't obvious

00:16:31.060 that you're going to get

00:16:31.980 to where you want to go.

00:16:33.160 It's one of the dangers

00:16:33.960 of like technologies

00:16:35.180 like PowerPoint,

00:16:36.720 you know,

00:16:37.060 because the thing is

00:16:38.500 if you use PowerPoint,

00:16:39.700 it's not like I have anything

00:16:40.680 against PowerPoint.

00:16:42.060 But you can,

00:16:43.160 you can not fail

00:16:44.660 with PowerPoint

00:16:45.340 because you can just

00:16:46.580 lay out your talk

00:16:47.740 and then you can read it

00:16:49.200 and point to it.

00:16:50.720 And people could point

00:16:51.760 to it themselves

00:16:52.500 and also read it themselves.

00:16:54.260 But you can stand there

00:16:55.480 and you can point to it

00:16:56.920 and read it.

00:16:58.180 And, well,

00:16:59.460 which makes you wonder

00:17:00.320 why you're there.

00:17:01.580 And also,

00:17:02.200 also, by the way,

00:17:03.760 makes your audience wonder

00:17:05.120 why you're there.

00:17:07.060 And they think,

00:17:08.140 why didn't you just

00:17:08.780 give us the PowerPoint

00:17:09.660 and we could have

00:17:10.360 gone to work.

00:17:12.400 And, but you,

00:17:13.520 you won't fail

00:17:14.760 because you'll be able

00:17:16.520 to read what's there

00:17:17.420 and you'll get through it

00:17:18.460 and it'll be okay.

00:17:20.740 But, you know,

00:17:23.920 okay.

00:17:25.120 I don't know if okay

00:17:26.200 is good enough

00:17:26.760 to get you out of bed

00:17:27.680 and it's probably

00:17:28.340 not good enough

00:17:29.040 to make you excited

00:17:29.920 about your,

00:17:31.080 your,

00:17:31.820 let's call it,

00:17:32.540 your presentation.

00:17:34.060 You know,

00:17:34.420 it's better

00:17:35.320 to have a problem.

00:17:37.940 And so,

00:17:38.720 what's the problem?

00:17:41.240 Well,

00:17:41.480 tonight I thought

00:17:42.040 I'd talk about

00:17:42.780 toxic masculinity

00:17:43.980 since everyone

00:17:45.540 seems to be talking

00:17:46.640 about toxic masculinity.

00:17:48.180 going online

00:17:56.800 without ExpressVPN

00:17:57.780 is like not

00:17:58.640 paying attention

00:17:59.200 to the safety

00:17:59.740 demonstration

00:18:00.280 on a flight.

00:18:01.480 Most of the time

00:18:02.060 you'll probably be fine,

00:18:03.480 but what if one day

00:18:04.600 that weird yellow mask

00:18:05.820 drops down from overhead

00:18:06.840 and you have

00:18:07.760 no idea what to do?

00:18:09.140 In our hyper-connected world,

00:18:10.620 your digital privacy

00:18:11.560 isn't just a luxury,

00:18:12.920 it's a fundamental right.

00:18:14.260 Every time you connect

00:18:15.040 to an unsecured network

00:18:16.220 in a cafe,

00:18:17.160 hotel,

00:18:17.700 or airport,

00:18:18.520 you're essentially

00:18:19.080 broadcasting

00:18:19.700 your personal information

00:18:20.800 to anyone

00:18:21.520 with a technical know-how

00:18:22.660 to intercept it.

00:18:23.580 And let's be clear,

00:18:24.440 it doesn't take

00:18:25.200 a genius hacker

00:18:25.840 to do this.

00:18:26.780 With some off-the-shelf

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00:22:02.440 And so, you know,

00:22:03.700 I want to give the devil his due

00:22:05.200 because they always want

00:22:07.060 to do that, you know.

00:22:08.020 If there's something

00:22:09.780 up in the air,

00:22:12.660 let's say,

00:22:13.300 you've got to assume

00:22:14.440 there's a reason for it

00:22:15.540 and it's not like

00:22:16.500 there's any shortage of,

00:22:18.460 well, it's the kind of phrase

00:22:21.220 that really annoys me,

00:22:22.820 toxic masculinity.

00:22:24.200 There's some

00:22:24.600 self-righteousness to it

00:22:27.680 and I think the essential

00:22:29.240 self-righteousness

00:22:30.720 isn't the toxic part

00:22:32.720 or that it's

00:22:34.580 the masculinity part.

00:22:36.440 It's that it's toxic masculinity

00:22:39.660 in combination

00:22:41.020 without any indication

00:22:42.880 that it's toxic humanity

00:22:44.800 that's really the problem.

00:22:46.440 And so there's this

00:22:47.380 one-sided element

00:22:48.420 that's toxic masculinity.

00:22:50.360 It's like,

00:22:52.160 well, that's the whole story

00:22:55.100 really, is it?

00:22:56.240 It's half of the human race

00:22:59.620 is the problem.

00:23:01.340 And they're just toxic.

00:23:04.360 That's all.

00:23:05.700 And, well,

00:23:07.740 what about what they do

00:23:08.800 that isn't toxic?

00:23:09.900 Well, there's damn little of that,

00:23:11.420 I can tell you.

00:23:13.060 And then, well,

00:23:14.540 what about femininity?

00:23:17.680 It's like, well,

00:23:18.920 that's not,

00:23:19.540 if that's toxic,

00:23:20.980 well, why don't we talk about that?

00:23:22.140 Is there toxic femininity?

00:23:24.000 I don't know.

00:23:24.700 We don't seem to talk about it.

00:23:27.900 There is,

00:23:29.000 by the way.

00:23:31.700 There's,

00:23:32.380 let's say,

00:23:33.580 just as good

00:23:34.760 gender,

00:23:36.560 let's call ourselves

00:23:38.140 good gender egalitarians.

00:23:40.600 How about we do that?

00:23:42.880 Then there's just as much

00:23:44.220 toxic femininity.

00:23:48.180 Now, maybe that's the part

00:23:49.220 of the toxic,

00:23:50.420 maybe that's the fault

00:23:51.600 of the toxic males,

00:23:53.240 you know,

00:23:53.760 females being intrinsically perfect

00:23:56.020 and only corrupted

00:23:57.160 by masculine society.

00:24:00.000 Well, there are theories

00:24:00.800 of that sort, right?

00:24:02.260 Rousseau's theory,

00:24:03.420 it's not precisely of that sort,

00:24:04.920 is that human beings

00:24:05.740 are basically good

00:24:06.800 and that we're corrupted

00:24:07.980 by society.

00:24:08.900 And then if society

00:24:10.280 is fundamentally

00:24:11.100 a patriarchy

00:24:12.200 and an oppressive one

00:24:13.200 at that,

00:24:13.880 then it's easy to derive

00:24:15.140 the conclusion

00:24:16.080 that the reason

00:24:16.820 that we're corrupt,

00:24:18.120 men and women,

00:24:18.900 is because of the corruption

00:24:20.000 of male-dominated society.

00:24:22.180 And that theory,

00:24:23.520 there's a technical word

00:24:24.520 for a theory like that.

00:24:25.980 I think it's stupid,

00:24:28.320 I think is the technical word

00:24:29.840 for that.

00:24:30.300 It's either that

00:24:35.560 or just wrong.

00:24:37.100 But, I mean,

00:24:37.660 you have to be naive

00:24:40.080 and frightened

00:24:41.000 in a particular way,

00:24:43.080 naive, willfully blind

00:24:45.080 and frightened

00:24:45.720 in a particular way

00:24:46.740 to actually believe

00:24:48.200 that the problems

00:24:49.320 that human beings have

00:24:50.560 are a consequence

00:24:51.880 of society.

00:24:53.000 Now, you can be convinced

00:24:55.340 that some of the problems

00:24:57.120 that human beings have

00:24:58.880 are a consequence

00:24:59.960 of society.

00:25:01.140 That's a perfectly reasonable

00:25:02.620 thing to believe.

00:25:04.160 But, like,

00:25:04.940 there are other problems

00:25:06.040 that people have.

00:25:07.120 Like, well,

00:25:08.040 we have problems

00:25:08.640 with nature,

00:25:09.620 for example,

00:25:10.380 which doesn't seem

00:25:11.380 to be associated

00:25:12.400 with society.

00:25:13.340 It's just nature

00:25:14.400 and it's trying

00:25:15.360 to kill us

00:25:16.060 all the time.

00:25:17.500 It's trying to make us sick,

00:25:18.840 it's mentally and physically,

00:25:20.200 and it does,

00:25:21.920 and it's trying

00:25:22.440 to make us old,

00:25:23.940 which it manages,

00:25:25.400 and then it's trying

00:25:26.140 to put us in our grave,

00:25:27.600 which it does

00:25:28.180 with 100% certainty

00:25:31.460 and always has

00:25:33.060 to everyone.

00:25:34.780 Well, at least

00:25:35.340 that's the theory.

00:25:36.860 And so,

00:25:37.600 that's a problem

00:25:38.640 which seems to be

00:25:39.720 somewhat independent

00:25:40.960 of society.

00:25:42.340 Now, you might say,

00:25:43.400 well, if we got ourselves

00:25:44.320 together and society

00:25:45.700 was everything

00:25:46.280 it could be,

00:25:47.260 then nature wouldn't be

00:25:48.500 quite as terrible

00:25:49.360 as it is.

00:25:50.200 But I would say

00:25:51.080 we've actually not done

00:25:52.340 too bad a job of that

00:25:54.140 now compared to,

00:25:56.380 say, 100 years ago

00:25:57.200 or 500 years ago

00:25:58.420 or 2,000 years ago

00:26:00.360 or virtually everywhere

00:26:01.960 else in the world.

00:26:03.160 We've done a pretty

00:26:03.880 good job of that

00:26:04.860 and it's not as good

00:26:05.900 as it could be,

00:26:06.760 but, you know,

00:26:08.300 I'm not all that thrilled

00:26:09.760 with the idea

00:26:11.340 of going back

00:26:12.040 150 years

00:26:13.100 when there was raw sewage

00:26:14.360 running in the streets

00:26:15.260 and, you know,

00:26:16.140 the probability

00:26:16.820 that you were going to,

00:26:18.040 that your children

00:26:18.740 were going to die

00:26:19.460 before they were

00:26:20.080 one years old

00:26:20.960 was extraordinarily high

00:26:22.220 and that, you know,

00:26:23.140 you were pretty damn

00:26:23.960 old and blind

00:26:25.480 by the time you were

00:26:26.440 40, etc, etc.

00:26:28.280 It's like,

00:26:28.840 if you want to go

00:26:29.420 live like that,

00:26:30.520 well, you can.

00:26:31.720 You can just go back

00:26:32.600 in the bush

00:26:33.040 and live like that.

00:26:33.940 But people don't.

00:26:35.880 They flock to the terrible cities

00:26:38.180 where the terrible patriarchy rules

00:26:40.700 because it's actually

00:26:41.940 a lot better there

00:26:43.040 than most other places.

00:26:45.240 And so,

00:26:46.360 and so,

00:26:47.140 well, back to toxic masculinity.

00:26:49.620 I thought I would tell you

00:26:51.220 this story

00:26:52.000 about a friend of mine

00:26:53.840 and I haven't told this story.

00:26:55.860 I've told it in my book

00:26:56.740 a little bit.

00:26:57.780 In Maps of Meaning,

00:26:58.740 I told a little bit

00:26:59.540 about his story

00:27:00.280 and then in Twelve Rules,

00:27:01.620 but I've never discussed it

00:27:03.600 in one of these lectures

00:27:05.240 and I've never really

00:27:06.540 figured out how.

00:27:08.100 And I'm going to call

00:27:09.080 my friend Chris

00:27:10.420 and I'm going to

00:27:11.340 tell you a little bit

00:27:12.280 about him

00:27:12.780 because he was

00:27:14.320 possessed

00:27:15.800 by the idea

00:27:16.700 of toxic masculinity.

00:27:18.500 You might say,

00:27:19.500 taking a page

00:27:20.360 from the feminists,

00:27:21.720 that, you know,

00:27:22.260 how you can internalize

00:27:23.520 your misogyny?

00:27:24.720 You've heard that term.

00:27:26.500 So then you're

00:27:27.020 a self-hating woman.

00:27:28.460 Well, he was someone

00:27:29.300 who had internalized

00:27:30.620 internalized his misandry

00:27:32.200 or maybe misanthropy even

00:27:35.860 in that he hated

00:27:37.200 human beings,

00:27:38.300 not only men.

00:27:41.220 And it didn't do him

00:27:42.760 a lot of good.

00:27:44.140 And it doesn't do people

00:27:45.340 in general

00:27:46.420 a lot of good.

00:27:48.240 And I'll tell you

00:27:49.140 a little bit about that.

00:27:50.560 And I want to explain

00:27:51.560 why those ideas come up

00:27:53.820 in the deepest way I can

00:27:55.920 if I can get to that.

00:27:56.980 But so I met

00:27:58.440 this gentleman

00:27:59.700 that I'll call Chris

00:28:00.760 when I was in grade 8.

00:28:03.060 And I wasn't very happy

00:28:04.600 in grade 8.

00:28:06.380 Not that that's

00:28:07.580 like

00:28:08.020 particularly unique.

00:28:10.720 You know,

00:28:11.200 older people

00:28:12.380 remember back

00:28:13.760 when they were young,

00:28:14.900 13, 14,

00:28:15.900 and they think,

00:28:16.440 those were the best days

00:28:17.420 of our life.

00:28:18.120 And I remember

00:28:19.080 hearing adults say that

00:28:20.600 when I was that old.

00:28:21.660 And then I remember

00:28:23.060 looking at my friends

00:28:24.280 and I was thinking

00:28:25.020 two things.

00:28:27.200 God,

00:28:27.680 if this is as good

00:28:28.600 as it gets, man,

00:28:29.560 this is not good.

00:28:30.820 And second,

00:28:31.720 I am never going

00:28:33.160 to forget

00:28:34.180 what my friends

00:28:35.860 are actually

00:28:36.760 feeling like

00:28:38.120 right now.

00:28:38.800 So that when I'm

00:28:39.560 56,

00:28:40.840 which is how old

00:28:41.560 I am now,

00:28:42.220 I'm not going to say,

00:28:43.940 oh, it was so wonderful

00:28:44.780 back when we were

00:28:45.620 13 and 14.

00:28:46.780 It's like,

00:28:47.300 no.

00:28:49.080 11's pretty good age,

00:28:50.440 you know?

00:28:50.720 11,

00:28:51.780 7,

00:28:52.240 that's a nice age

00:28:53.180 if you have good parents.

00:28:54.600 Like,

00:28:54.960 that whole time

00:28:55.600 from about 4

00:28:56.660 till about 11,

00:28:58.040 that can be really nice.

00:28:59.420 12 even's not so bad.

00:29:01.280 13,

00:29:02.600 mmm,

00:29:03.680 not so good.

00:29:05.460 And 14,

00:29:06.560 it's definitely

00:29:07.260 a low point.

00:29:08.680 And so,

00:29:09.280 and so I met,

00:29:11.080 I met Chris

00:29:11.880 when he was 14.

00:29:13.940 And,

00:29:14.280 and I lived

00:29:17.080 in this small town

00:29:18.020 and I was

00:29:19.120 a rather

00:29:19.600 intellectually

00:29:20.500 interested kid

00:29:21.840 which made me

00:29:22.840 somewhat unique.

00:29:24.240 It made me unique

00:29:25.000 in a couple

00:29:25.480 of ways

00:29:26.420 because I was

00:29:27.480 an intellectually

00:29:28.340 interested kid

00:29:29.860 but I wasn't

00:29:30.780 particularly obedient.

00:29:32.440 And so,

00:29:32.900 the teachers

00:29:33.300 didn't know

00:29:33.700 what the hell

00:29:34.080 to do with me

00:29:34.820 because most

00:29:35.940 of the kids

00:29:36.560 who were

00:29:37.020 intellectually interested

00:29:38.400 were obedient

00:29:39.340 and they were

00:29:40.120 really easy

00:29:40.620 to deal with

00:29:41.300 because while

00:29:42.460 they were

00:29:42.760 intellectually interested

00:29:43.760 they would do

00:29:44.220 their homework

00:29:44.720 and so forth

00:29:45.420 and they were

00:29:46.640 obedient.

00:29:47.000 Maybe they

00:29:47.680 weren't even

00:29:48.180 intellectually

00:29:48.700 interested.

00:29:49.660 Maybe they

00:29:50.000 were just

00:29:50.360 obedient

00:29:50.760 but at least

00:29:51.160 they did

00:29:51.500 their damn

00:29:51.900 homework.

00:29:52.960 But I was

00:29:53.720 mouthy

00:29:54.220 and I kind

00:29:56.880 of hung around

00:29:57.360 with the delinquent

00:29:58.040 kids and there

00:29:58.980 was quite a lot

00:29:59.600 of them in

00:30:00.360 this little town

00:30:01.100 but I was

00:30:03.700 definitely

00:30:04.700 intellectually

00:30:05.400 interested.

00:30:06.680 And there

00:30:07.140 weren't that many

00:30:07.700 other people

00:30:08.300 around in my

00:30:09.240 little town

00:30:09.720 like that.

00:30:10.540 There was like

00:30:11.060 30 people in

00:30:11.900 my grade 8

00:30:12.580 class and I

00:30:13.440 think we had

00:30:13.840 two classes

00:30:14.500 like that.

00:30:15.040 So maybe

00:30:15.260 there was 50

00:30:15.900 in total.

00:30:17.120 And you know

00:30:17.520 there was a

00:30:17.820 wide range

00:30:18.480 of kids

00:30:19.020 but there

00:30:19.780 weren't that

00:30:20.140 many that

00:30:20.540 were interested

00:30:21.080 in, well

00:30:22.140 interested in

00:30:22.820 reading for

00:30:23.360 that matter.

00:30:24.480 And his

00:30:25.440 kid walked

00:30:25.980 in one day

00:30:26.640 I was about

00:30:28.120 4 foot 9

00:30:30.000 I think

00:30:30.940 when I was

00:30:31.380 14.

00:30:32.680 And I was

00:30:33.800 one year

00:30:34.220 behind my

00:30:34.780 classmates

00:30:35.380 because I

00:30:36.520 had skipped

00:30:36.860 a grade.

00:30:37.660 And that

00:30:37.920 wasn't that

00:30:38.500 helpful being

00:30:39.880 4 foot 9

00:30:41.280 when you're

00:30:41.600 14.

00:30:42.360 You know

00:30:42.500 there were

00:30:42.960 a lot of

00:30:43.260 big farm

00:30:43.800 kids in

00:30:44.360 my town

00:30:44.780 and they

00:30:45.040 used to

00:30:45.300 like play

00:30:45.660 catch with

00:30:46.220 me on

00:30:46.540 the stairs

00:30:47.020 and things

00:30:47.580 and so

00:30:48.640 especially

00:30:49.860 because I

00:30:50.720 was also

00:30:51.140 mouthy

00:30:51.600 and probably

00:30:52.280 deserved it

00:30:53.040 and this

00:30:55.540 kid wandered

00:30:56.200 in one day

00:30:56.880 and he was

00:30:57.560 like 6 foot

00:30:58.320 7 and

00:30:59.600 really thin

00:31:00.400 and he's

00:31:01.400 dressed in

00:31:01.900 this kind

00:31:02.260 of ratty

00:31:02.840 jean jacket

00:31:05.380 and he

00:31:06.420 sat down

00:31:07.420 and he

00:31:07.720 looked you

00:31:08.160 know like

00:31:08.540 out of place

00:31:09.820 like you

00:31:10.400 would look

00:31:10.720 out of place

00:31:11.160 if you were

00:31:11.660 14 and

00:31:12.680 coming into

00:31:13.140 a new

00:31:13.440 class.

00:31:14.360 Of course

00:31:14.800 and he

00:31:15.100 moved a

00:31:15.600 lot

00:31:15.780 and he

00:31:16.340 sat down

00:31:16.760 in front

00:31:17.080 of me

00:31:17.340 and I

00:31:18.580 thought he

00:31:18.940 was kind

00:31:19.260 of an

00:31:19.420 interesting

00:31:19.840 looking

00:31:20.200 character

00:31:20.620 and you

00:31:21.200 know how

00:31:21.540 in junior

00:31:22.040 high

00:31:22.380 everybody

00:31:23.360 sizes up

00:31:24.080 the new

00:31:24.460 kid and

00:31:24.940 you decide

00:31:25.580 pretty quickly

00:31:26.260 whether he's

00:31:27.740 an acceptable

00:31:28.300 person or

00:31:29.460 going to be

00:31:30.540 shunned along

00:31:31.320 with the other

00:31:31.780 people that are

00:31:32.420 shunned.

00:31:32.900 He's going to

00:31:33.520 fit somewhere in

00:31:34.440 the hierarchy

00:31:35.080 of shunned

00:31:35.940 to popular

00:31:36.720 and it doesn't

00:31:37.580 take very

00:31:38.060 he usually

00:31:38.680 starts out

00:31:39.540 shunned and

00:31:40.340 then sort of

00:31:41.160 moves up the

00:31:41.880 popularity hierarchy

00:31:42.980 until he hits

00:31:43.720 his pinnacle

00:31:44.340 and then that's

00:31:45.100 it.

00:31:45.540 And so I know

00:31:47.400 that's kind of

00:31:48.000 brutal but bloody

00:31:49.160 well that's what

00:31:50.140 happens in junior

00:31:50.960 high so brutal or

00:31:52.240 not that's how it

00:31:53.080 works.

00:31:53.420 And I started to

00:31:56.960 get to know him

00:31:57.600 and it turned out

00:31:58.240 that he's actually

00:31:58.820 kind of a bright

00:31:59.460 guy which was

00:32:01.080 nice.

00:32:01.740 He's interested in

00:32:02.880 engineering.

00:32:03.800 He had some

00:32:04.280 engineering kits

00:32:05.180 of old kind that

00:32:06.280 used to be able to

00:32:07.120 buy where you

00:32:07.620 could make radios

00:32:08.700 and that sort of

00:32:09.900 thing by wiring

00:32:10.800 different things

00:32:11.440 together and I

00:32:13.280 got to know him a

00:32:13.980 little bit and I

00:32:14.640 went out to his

00:32:16.100 place to stay at

00:32:17.500 one point which

00:32:18.260 was really the first

00:32:19.020 time I got to know

00:32:19.860 him and we got

00:32:22.480 along pretty good.

00:32:23.640 We were, he had a

00:32:26.060 .22 rifle and we

00:32:27.280 were out shooting

00:32:27.800 the .22 rifle and

00:32:29.540 doing the sorts of

00:32:31.360 things you do out

00:32:32.020 on a farm on the

00:32:33.540 prairie.

00:32:34.580 And then we had a

00:32:35.800 scrap about something.

00:32:36.940 I don't remember

00:32:37.480 what the hell it was

00:32:38.400 about but he really

00:32:39.560 turned dark you know

00:32:41.020 and I ended up

00:32:42.280 sitting on top of

00:32:43.100 this greenery while

00:32:45.280 he was wandering

00:32:45.940 around being dark

00:32:46.920 and wondering what

00:32:49.160 the hell I was doing

00:32:50.020 there because I was

00:32:50.700 several miles from

00:32:52.460 my home and I

00:32:54.000 didn't really know

00:32:54.580 what to do about

00:32:55.320 that and anyways

00:32:58.120 he climbed up on

00:32:59.580 the greenery and

00:33:00.140 apologized and you

00:33:01.580 know the way we

00:33:02.400 went and we were

00:33:03.320 friends for a very

00:33:04.140 long time, years and

00:33:06.980 years as it turned

00:33:07.920 out.

00:33:09.200 And so I kind of

00:33:09.840 saw both of them.

00:33:10.700 I saw this smart

00:33:11.440 kid, really liked

00:33:12.400 him, charming, could

00:33:13.620 be a real charming

00:33:14.340 kid.

00:33:15.200 You know a little

00:33:15.640 awkward because he

00:33:16.280 was so tall, six

00:33:17.700 foot seven at 14,

00:33:19.160 you know that's

00:33:19.660 that's kind of

00:33:20.460 awkward but it

00:33:21.220 wasn't much worse

00:33:21.840 than four foot nine

00:33:22.940 I can tell you

00:33:23.800 that.

00:33:24.740 He hit his head

00:33:25.460 more often on

00:33:26.300 things than I did

00:33:27.500 but that was about

00:33:28.220 the only positive

00:33:29.380 advantage that I

00:33:30.280 could see to being

00:33:32.060 small.

00:33:34.220 And you know we

00:33:35.160 spent a fair bit of

00:33:36.040 time talking about

00:33:37.080 the books we were

00:33:38.640 reading, mostly

00:33:39.340 science fiction books

00:33:40.400 and that sort of

00:33:41.620 thing.

00:33:42.740 But there was that

00:33:45.220 darkness that was

00:33:46.120 sort of about him

00:33:47.360 and well, he got

00:33:50.700 a truck when he

00:33:51.520 was, okay so now

00:33:53.480 let's see if I can

00:33:54.240 get this part of

00:33:55.700 the story right.

00:33:56.580 There was something

00:33:57.040 wrong with his

00:33:57.660 relationship with his

00:33:58.620 father.

00:34:00.400 And this was

00:34:00.840 actually something

00:34:01.420 that characterized a

00:34:02.500 lot of my friends.

00:34:03.680 I lived in a

00:34:04.260 working class

00:34:04.820 community.

00:34:06.040 And my father

00:34:07.400 was, especially

00:34:08.440 when I was in

00:34:09.280 junior high, he was

00:34:10.260 kind of a rough

00:34:10.860 guy.

00:34:12.540 He had a bit of a

00:34:13.480 proclivity towards

00:34:14.300 depression and I

00:34:15.460 wouldn't call him

00:34:16.520 the sort of

00:34:17.300 person that was

00:34:17.980 easily, that would

00:34:19.640 easily forgive you.

00:34:21.540 You know, if you

00:34:22.120 made a mistake, then

00:34:23.600 he let you know that

00:34:25.480 you'd made a mistake

00:34:26.380 for perhaps somewhat

00:34:28.660 longer than it was

00:34:29.600 actually necessary to

00:34:30.780 let you know that

00:34:31.460 you'd made a mistake.

00:34:32.480 But you definitely

00:34:33.220 knew that you made

00:34:34.260 one and you

00:34:34.680 definitely remembered.

00:34:35.860 And he had high

00:34:36.420 standards and I often

00:34:37.640 thought the standards

00:34:38.420 were unfair.

00:34:39.340 You know, I'd come

00:34:40.360 home from school with

00:34:41.360 some grade, 85% or

00:34:43.520 something, which I was

00:34:44.460 reasonably happy about

00:34:45.620 thinking at that

00:34:46.660 point that 85% was a

00:34:48.340 good grade, which it

00:34:49.400 really isn't.

00:34:50.440 And he would say,

00:34:51.980 well, what about the

00:34:52.880 other 15%?

00:34:54.220 And I'd think, God,

00:34:55.720 you know, like, yeah,

00:34:57.960 yeah, but the 85% is

00:34:59.840 not bad.

00:35:00.620 And in comparison to

00:35:02.400 what the other boys my

00:35:05.320 age are doing, I was

00:35:06.860 doing just fine.

00:35:07.920 So that used to annoy

00:35:08.920 me, you know, to some

00:35:10.800 degree.

00:35:11.980 But my father, you

00:35:15.700 see, this is something

00:35:17.220 that made him

00:35:17.820 different, is that, first

00:35:20.860 of all, he was a good

00:35:21.600 guy, fundamentally, you

00:35:23.880 know, like he's a

00:35:24.560 respectable person.

00:35:26.520 And by that I meant he

00:35:28.380 was competent in many

00:35:30.440 things.

00:35:31.400 He was a gunsmith, so

00:35:32.680 he could make guns from

00:35:33.660 nothing, which was

00:35:34.500 quite a, well, not

00:35:35.400 nothing.

00:35:36.280 He needed metal, you

00:35:37.720 know, I couldn't

00:35:39.300 just conjure them out

00:35:42.780 of air.

00:35:44.120 But, and he carved

00:35:46.560 canoe paddles, and he

00:35:47.600 was pretty good at

00:35:48.280 painting, and he was

00:35:49.560 a good carpenter.

00:35:51.280 His place where he did

00:35:53.280 carpentry was an

00:35:54.140 absolute bloody mess,

00:35:55.420 and it was always hell

00:35:56.380 to go down there when

00:35:57.700 he asked me to find a

00:35:58.740 tool, because it was

00:36:00.160 like, there was 3,000

00:36:04.620 tools spread on this

00:36:06.440 table.

00:36:06.820 people, and he knew

00:36:08.320 where they, all they

00:36:08.960 were, they were, but I

00:36:10.540 had no idea where they

00:36:11.540 were, so I never liked

00:36:12.940 to do that.

00:36:13.740 But in any case, he was

00:36:14.960 a competent guy, and he

00:36:16.420 did a lot of things with

00:36:17.400 me, taught me a fair bit

00:36:18.700 about carpentry, and we

00:36:20.060 used to build birdhouses

00:36:21.020 together, and that sort

00:36:22.720 of thing, and work in the

00:36:25.000 yard, and like, he cared

00:36:26.300 about me.

00:36:26.860 people, and that was

00:36:31.040 really evident when I was

00:36:34.260 a little kid, because one

00:36:38.260 of the things that he did

00:36:39.560 was, and I can remember

00:36:43.100 this very fondly, and I

00:36:45.760 think it's of crucial, a

00:36:48.740 couple of things of crucial

00:36:49.880 importance.

00:36:50.760 I've been reading about the

00:36:52.000 effects of fatherlessness.

00:36:53.260 You know, we have this idea

00:36:54.640 in our culture, because we're

00:36:56.080 really not very bright, that

00:36:58.300 all families are the same, and

00:37:01.160 that's complete bloody, blind

00:37:04.180 nonsense, and all the

00:37:06.460 psychological evidence

00:37:07.520 suggests that, that

00:37:08.520 fatherlessness, for example,

00:37:09.980 is a complete bloody

00:37:11.320 catastrophe, and if you want

00:37:13.340 to doom children to a bad

00:37:15.260 outcome, that's a really

00:37:16.760 effective way of doing it, but

00:37:18.460 we like to smooth that

00:37:19.820 over.

00:37:25.900 You know, we like to smooth

00:37:27.120 that over, because we don't

00:37:28.200 want to make judgments, and

00:37:29.500 you know, it's not like there

00:37:30.760 aren't single mothers, for

00:37:32.180 example, desperately striving

00:37:34.640 in every possible way, with

00:37:36.440 their ridiculous 40-hour

00:37:38.400 work weeks at work, often

00:37:40.480 underpaid, and then another

00:37:41.940 30 hours at home, trying to

00:37:43.600 take care of their kids, doing

00:37:45.200 everything they can to provide

00:37:47.320 properly for their children,

00:37:49.440 I'm certainly not saying

00:37:50.640 that, but, you know, like,

00:37:53.040 it's a two-person job to have

00:37:54.940 kids, and that's that, and

00:37:57.320 it's definitely the case that

00:37:59.140 fatherless children do far

00:38:00.640 worse, and so I've thought a

00:38:02.300 lot about why that might be,

00:38:04.280 you know, apart from the fact

00:38:05.520 that it's difficult to raise

00:38:06.760 children, and it might be

00:38:08.220 particularly that it's bad for

00:38:10.660 boys, but it's also bad for

00:38:12.380 girls.

00:38:12.880 You know that girls that don't

00:38:14.420 have fathers hit puberty

00:38:15.720 earlier.

00:38:17.320 So isn't that something, eh?

00:38:18.780 I mean, the effect of

00:38:20.020 fatherlessness is so profound

00:38:21.940 that it has a neuro-hormonal

00:38:25.180 effect, and, you know, maybe

00:38:27.520 that's because evolutionarily

00:38:29.260 we've decided as a species that

00:38:31.800 if there isn't a father around,

00:38:33.780 there probably aren't enough

00:38:35.040 people, because otherwise why

00:38:36.940 wouldn't there be a man there,

00:38:38.320 and maybe we could use some more

00:38:39.960 people, and so the girls get

00:38:41.920 hit puberty earlier so that we

00:38:44.040 can have some more people.

00:38:45.080 Maybe it's an adaptation to

00:38:46.580 wartime.

00:38:47.360 I don't know what the hell it

00:38:48.340 is.

00:38:48.920 It's not a bad theory, but it's

00:38:50.920 definitely the case that young

00:38:52.940 women without fathers hit puberty

00:38:54.520 earlier, and the experiment with

00:38:56.080 sexuality earlier, and it's also

00:38:57.820 the case, by the way, that early

00:38:59.440 experimentation with sexuality

00:39:01.120 turns out to be a bad thing.

00:39:03.480 It's associated with childhood

00:39:05.680 conduct disorder, antisocial

00:39:07.400 personality, and criminal conduct.

00:39:08.940 And I'm not saying that it's

00:39:10.480 because early sexual experimentation

00:39:12.520 is criminal conduct.

00:39:14.780 That's not my point.

00:39:16.300 My point is that in that mix of

00:39:18.980 things that perhaps you shouldn't

00:39:21.080 be up to when you're 12, early

00:39:23.700 sexual experimentation is one of

00:39:25.740 them, and perhaps it indicates

00:39:27.240 lack of, well, maybe it indicates

00:39:30.940 desperation for attention.

00:39:33.040 How would that be?

00:39:33.940 I think you could certainly make

00:39:35.300 that the case for young, very young

00:39:37.360 women who are experimenting

00:39:38.800 sexually, you know, who are 12 and

00:39:40.860 13, as they're desperate for

00:39:42.700 attention, and maybe it indicates

00:39:44.120 insufficient supervision.

00:39:46.800 That might be another, or confusion

00:39:49.000 about sexual morality.

00:39:51.340 I don't know, but those are all

00:39:53.220 possibilities, but still, that's how

00:39:55.080 the literature lays itself out.

00:39:57.480 So anyways, when I was a kid, my

00:40:00.300 father and I got along extremely well

00:40:02.080 when I was a kid, even though he was

00:40:04.460 rather harsh taskmaster at that

00:40:06.780 point, too, and I'm not complaining

00:40:08.420 about that, you know, because it

00:40:10.180 isn't obvious exactly how harsh, so

00:40:14.300 to speak, someone should be, because

00:40:16.060 you know, if someone sets standards

00:40:18.040 for you, then they're kind of harsh.

00:40:20.640 You know, there's this old idea that

00:40:22.880 God rules the world with two hands,

00:40:25.900 mercy and justice, and he couldn't

00:40:28.960 just use mercy, because if it was

00:40:30.520 mercy, it's like, hey man, whatever

00:40:32.440 you do is fine, you know, and it's

00:40:35.200 like, well, that's kind of easy, it's

00:40:37.520 like, whatever you do is fine, but

00:40:39.580 it's not that great, because really?

00:40:42.140 Whatever you do is fine?

00:40:43.840 I mean, first of all, you know it

00:40:45.000 isn't, and second of all, if

00:40:48.160 whatever you do is fine, then why do

00:40:50.440 anything? Because whatever you do is

00:40:52.240 fine, so you might as well just sit

00:40:53.600 there and do nothing, because that's

00:40:56.140 fine. And so, and to be let off the

00:40:58.980 hook that easily, so that that's that

00:41:01.100 all-encompassing mercy, isn't an

00:41:03.820 indication of care. Like, if you care

00:41:05.880 for someone, you think, get the hell

00:41:08.120 up, and get at it, straighten up for

00:41:10.560 Christ's sake. You've got some

00:41:12.140 discipline to develop, you've got some

00:41:14.260 responsibilities to undertake, you've

00:41:16.300 got an important place to take in the

00:41:17.960 world, it's like, straighten the hell up,

00:41:20.260 and how about no excuses, or the minimal

00:41:23.060 necessary, and maybe, you know, if you

00:41:25.500 don't manage it, you deserve a bit of a

00:41:28.820 tap, it says, clue the hell in, and it's a

00:41:33.260 lighter tap than the world will give you.

00:41:36.100 And so, the fact that someone sets high

00:41:37.900 standards is not necessarily an indication

00:41:40.740 that they're cruel, it's an indication

00:41:43.300 that maybe they actually care for who you

00:41:45.440 could be. And that's another thing, if

00:41:47.400 someone loves you, you've got to ask

00:41:48.860 yourself, like, do they care for who you

00:41:50.960 are? Or do they care for who you could

00:41:54.440 be? And I would say, and maybe this is a

00:41:57.840 sexist thing to say, but I think it's

00:41:59.820 true, that women tend to tilt towards

00:42:03.020 caring for you for who you are. And now

00:42:05.740 that's lovely, especially when you're a

00:42:07.320 young child, and that men tilt to caring

00:42:09.700 for you for who you could be. And that's

00:42:11.900 actually not a bad division of labor. And

00:42:15.380 you might disagree with that, and I'm

00:42:17.320 sure there are situations where that's

00:42:19.420 reversed, you know. It's not like this is a

00:42:21.780 universal truth, but I'm struggling with

00:42:25.720 hypotheses and general tendencies, and

00:42:28.240 I'm going to lay out what I think to be

00:42:30.480 the case. Anyways, when I was about three

00:42:33.220 or four, my father used to come home from

00:42:35.040 work, and he'd lay with me and read. And

00:42:39.420 he was a teacher, and he'd made this

00:42:41.320 little book of phonics, which is, by the

00:42:43.960 way, how you teach children to read. You

00:42:46.060 don't use whole word learning unless

00:42:47.840 you're absolutely bloody clueless, and you

00:42:50.980 think that, like, the invention of the

00:42:53.140 alphabet was just irrelevant in some

00:42:55.180 sense, which it wasn't. It was as big an

00:42:57.460 invention as the wheel, let's say. Anyways,

00:43:00.100 you can teach children to read very

00:43:01.560 effectively with phonics, and he sat down

00:43:03.800 with me for half an hour, an hour every

00:43:06.080 night, reading, and taught me to read when

00:43:08.920 I was very young. And I remember I had a

00:43:12.680 subscription to Dr. Seuss books, and one

00:43:16.300 would arrive every two weeks or so, and I

00:43:18.260 was pretty damn thrilled about that. First of

00:43:20.140 all, that I got some mail coming to me, and

00:43:22.060 that it was this book, and Dr. Seuss books

00:43:24.060 Dr. Seuss books were fun, and we'd spend

00:43:27.200 this time together reading, and that was a big

00:43:34.340 deal to me. More, as I thought about it a lot in

00:43:38.880 recent years, the memories have become more

00:43:41.700 clear of that time for, probably because I've

00:43:44.120 been thinking about the things that I'm talking to

00:43:46.340 to you about, but I was always very excited for

00:43:51.840 him to come home, so that we could spend this

00:43:57.620 time together, and see, the reason this is making

00:44:07.060 me emotional is because of the friends I had who

00:44:09.620 didn't have this, and what the consequence was

00:44:12.400 for them. So, there's, there's, it's really

00:44:15.780 something for you to, when you're a child, to

00:44:21.280 have time marked out by a parent, particularly one

00:44:26.480 that you respect, for you, right? Because it

00:44:30.660 indicates that either who you are, or who you

00:44:34.900 might become, is of sufficient value, so that

00:44:39.100 someone who has things to do, you know, like

00:44:41.520 adult things to do, people to take care of, who

00:44:44.960 would take time out of that schedule, and devote

00:44:49.600 it to you. So, well, that happened a lot, and I

00:44:54.400 learned to read when I was very young, and I got

00:44:56.240 very good at it, and, you know, that's made a

00:44:59.200 huge difference to me. And so, and then my

00:45:02.400 father, too, he was always doing things with me. We

00:45:09.680 would go canoeing, and hunting. I wasn't much into

00:45:14.880 hunting, because I'm too tender-hearted, really, to be a

00:45:18.320 good hunter. I don't have that kind of, well, I don't have that

00:45:23.120 hunting spirit, I suppose, because I'm, I'm fairly high in

00:45:27.120 compassion, which, by the way, is a feminine trait. I'm fairly

00:45:31.600 high in compassion. And hunting was hard on me, although I

00:45:36.160 did go with him. And I enjoyed being out in the woods, and he

00:45:39.040 liked that a lot. And fishing was fine, and canoeing was

00:45:42.560 good, and we went camping a lot. And, you know, we did things

00:45:48.000 together. And trapping, we also did that

00:45:52.080 together. And, and cross-country skiing, a lot of

00:45:55.600 individual things together. And so, that also indicated that

00:46:01.520 he presumed that I was worth spending time with. Now, my

00:46:08.720 friends, most of them were very angry with their

00:46:13.760 fathers. They almost all had fathers, though, at this time,

00:46:17.840 because the divorce rate was still fairly low. They almost all

00:46:20.560 had fathers, but, and this was more in junior high, but they

00:46:23.800 weren't very happy with their fathers, most of the time. They

00:46:26.680 were fighting with them. I had one friend who had a terrible

00:46:29.200 fight with his father when he was about 14. I remember seeing

00:46:32.180 him, it was at noon, was walking home from high school, and

00:46:35.340 they were having a fist fight, and they were yelling, and like

00:46:39.300 mad, and, and, and he, my friend, basically got kicked out of

00:46:42.980 the house permanently. And he was a pretty good guy, actually. I

00:46:46.280 liked him. He was a fundamentally okay kid, you know. Fairly

00:46:51.020 mature, pretty solid, didn't deserve what was coming to him.

00:46:54.400 He ended up living with another friend of mine. Their family

00:46:57.020 took him in. And my friend across the street had a father, and

00:47:02.500 he was all right guy when he was sober, but he wasn't sober that

00:47:05.900 much. He was a bad alcoholic, and when he was an alcoholic, when he

00:47:10.660 was drinking, it was good to avoid him. And that's not surprising,

00:47:14.500 because generally, if someone drinks too much, especially if

00:47:17.340 they've been doing it for a long time, it's best to avoid them. And

00:47:21.360 so that was sort of my friend's experience, and he actually started

00:47:24.740 to drink very early, as we all did, and became an alcoholic at a very

00:47:29.800 young age, which was a trap that many, many people around me fell

00:47:36.640 into. Small, isolated, northern community, you know, not a lot to do.

00:47:41.720 Very, very, very, very, very long winters, you know. Six months, eight

00:47:48.840 months. Cold, like you can hardly bloody about. How cold does it get here?

00:47:53.000 What's the coldest it ever gets? Oh, God. See, cold, cold is when you go

00:48:01.480 outside, and then ten minutes later, you die. That's cold. I'm not

00:48:07.680 kidding. Like, we didn't have town drunks, and the reason for that was

00:48:12.820 that we'd have them for a while, but then they'd drink until two in the

00:48:21.860 morning, and then they'd walk home, and then they'd, you know, pass out,

00:48:25.020 and then that was that, because two hours later, they were frozen

00:48:28.440 solid, and then someone else would be next year's town drunk, and so

00:48:34.060 anyways, it was very cold there, and the winters were long and dark, and so

00:48:38.460 there was a lot of drinking to be done, and many of my friends were well on

00:48:43.780 the road to alcoholism by the time they were 16 or 17. Anyways, my, and you

00:48:50.600 know, this gave, this disequilibration with their fathers gave my friends a

00:48:59.800 kind of cynicism, I would say, about masculinity. Like, I can remember it

00:49:04.640 manifesting itself in a lot of ways, and I think this was, I don't know if this

00:49:08.400 was particularly characteristic of the 1970s, because what the hell do I know?

00:49:13.120 I was a teenager in the 1970s, and I don't know what it was like in other

00:49:16.760 decades, but I know this is what it was like in the 70s. You know, we had Cub

00:49:21.260 Scouts, and Scouts, and, and Cadets, Air Cadets, and, you know, there were

00:49:26.020 things that the community had tried to arrange for young people to do, but we

00:49:30.260 were really cynical about those sorts of things, especially if we were cool, and

00:49:34.000 we were trying to be cool, and so by the time you were 11, 12, being a Scout, that

00:49:39.960 was, that wasn't cool anymore. So you pretty much stopped doing that, and a

00:49:44.860 couple of us tried Air Cadets for a while, and there was a lot of shoe

00:49:48.620 polishing, and a lot of marching around, and, and, you know, it was early 70s

00:49:53.200 then, and the anti-war movement was still fairly popular, and the whole thing, the

00:49:58.100 whole cadet idea seemed to be somehow too much associated with the man, and so we

00:50:05.060 didn't really stick to that very well either, and some of us played sports in, in

00:50:10.140 school, and, and that was good for a set number of us, but most of the time we

00:50:14.200 didn't do much of anything, and part of the, organized, and part of the reason for

00:50:18.680 that was that doing anything that was organized wasn't cool, and there was, and

00:50:24.440 I think that was part of that 60s, you know, ethos, tune in, turn on, drop out, and what

00:50:31.380 I saw was a hell of a lot of dropping out, and not a lot of tuning in, and so, because

00:50:37.960 the tuning in part turned out to be difficult, whereas the dropping out part

00:50:42.500 turned out to be very easy, and so that was kind of the problem with Timothy Leary's

00:50:46.980 idea, um, enlightenment in a pill, it's like, I'm afraid it's somewhat more complicated

00:50:54.580 than that, but, so, my friends had problems with their fathers, for, for a variety of

00:51:00.980 reasons, generally because they weren't attended to enough by them, or because their fathers

00:51:05.420 had problems of one sort or another, but then there was a more generic problem, sort

00:51:10.060 of with a cynicism about society at large, and it made it very difficult for us to participate

00:51:17.540 avidly in the sorts of social endeavors that might have provided a certain amount of, well,

00:51:24.880 activity, and also a certain amount of community, and like, I don't know, maybe in the 1950s

00:51:29.760 people were just as bloody cynical about Boy Scouts as they were in the 1970s, although

00:51:34.860 I doubt it, but, but it's possible, it's possible, because what do I know, but, um, they certainly

00:51:41.900 were that cynical by the time I was that age, and so, a lot of the time we spent wandering

00:51:47.580 around, stealing cigarettes from the local convenience stores, and finding alcohol if

00:51:52.740 we could find it, and sitting behind the fences of our neighbors, drinking it, and driving

00:51:57.000 out on dark country roads at night, trying to escape from the police, which, which was fairly

00:52:03.140 straightforward, because where I lived was laid out in these, it was a huge prairie, you

00:52:07.620 know, it just went for literally like 3,000 miles, you know, and it was all laid out in

00:52:14.420 a grid, road every mile, and a road every two miles, everywhere, that whole area, and so

00:52:21.920 you could just go out in the country, and drive, and drive, and drive, and drive, and drive, and

00:52:26.680 drink, and drive, and that's basically what we did, and some of us died, but not, not as

00:52:35.500 many as you'd think, although we definitely had our fair share of car accidents, and near

00:52:40.300 deaths, and the near deaths would usually occur when you would drive off the road into

00:52:45.860 a ditch, because it was icy, and, and, and you were drunk, and then you were in the ditch,

00:52:51.280 and it was full of snow, and you couldn't get your car out, and it was like 40 below, and

00:52:55.920 so that's not good, because things freeze when they're 40 below, and so you don't want to

00:53:03.380 be there for too long, and so, but fewer of my friends died than, than deserved to, I would

00:53:10.100 say, given what they were up to, my friend Chris, he had this truck that his father bought

00:53:19.340 for him, and he didn't, he didn't get along with his father either, and I thought his

00:53:23.260 father was alright, he, he was a bit passive, but he had a, he had a good job, he, he was

00:53:29.500 a manager in the school system, and he was a good job, and he seemed like a kind man, but

00:53:34.420 there wasn't a lot of spirit to him, and he was older, and turned out that he had a vitamin

00:53:39.640 B12 deficiency, quite a chronic one, and that wasn't so good for him, and so he was kind

00:53:45.080 unwell, and that can complicate things, but whatever, it didn't matter, there was something

00:53:50.460 had gone wrong between my friend Rob and his father, and also my, or my friend Chris, and,

00:53:55.840 and, and, it's Chris, and his father, and he was very resentful about his father, and very

00:54:08.620 angry about him, and I think it was because his father was too merciful, as far as I could

00:54:14.680 tell, that, that, that, and that, that destroyed my friend Chris's respect for him, and the reason

00:54:22.300 I kind of figured this out was because Chris got a lot of things purchased for him, like

00:54:27.580 he had a dirt bike, which is a cool thing to have when you're 14, and, and he had this,

00:54:33.220 his, his father bought him this van one year to, to go around to different fairgrounds,

00:54:38.540 and so forth, and sell ice cream, you know, to make some money, it had a, a freezer in

00:54:42.800 it, and of course that wasn't cool either, well, it was, because it was a freezer, but

00:54:47.020 it wasn't cool, you know, in the social sort of sense, and so we used to drive around in

00:54:51.380 that van, but we never turned the freezer on, and we never stocked it with any, you know,

00:54:56.160 things that people might buy, because, well, then we would have had to, like, go earn some

00:54:59.920 money, or do something like that, and I don't know, maybe that was part of toxic masculinity,

00:55:05.120 right, having a bit of financial ambition, that was, that was, like, playing into the

00:55:09.960 system, and no one cool would do that, so we drove around with, like, two dollars worth

00:55:15.660 of gas in the tank, because that's all we could afford, and never really clued into the fact

00:55:19.380 that, you know, we were driving around in a machine that would actually make money if

00:55:23.860 we had the wherewithal to manage it, which we didn't, but, and then he was also, I think

00:55:31.240 he crashed that van, because he crashed a lot of vehicles, man, like, like, I don't know

00:55:36.700 how many accidents Chris had, but I would say probably a hundred, maybe not, it's okay,

00:55:43.380 it wasn't a hundred, it wasn't two, I can tell you that, and it was certainly more than

00:55:48.180 fifty, so it was a lot, and so he had this truck, which we all laughed about, but drove

00:55:54.360 around in all the time, listening to Led Zeppelin, and over and over, and it had dents everywhere,

00:56:03.760 absolutely everywhere there could be a dent in that truck, there was a dent, there were

00:56:08.260 dents inside the truck, and the reason there were dents inside the truck, because he'd hit

00:56:13.860 the ditch, or something else, and then the person inside the truck would make a dent in

00:56:19.180 the truck, you know, and so it was, it was just every quarter panel had a dent, it was

00:56:24.460 like a, he was having, like having a contest to see if he could put a dent on every square

00:56:28.760 inch of the truck, and, and he did, and he had this bumper sticker on his truck that said

00:56:36.220 be alert, which I just loved, the world needs more alerts, and it was, it was like, you just

00:56:42.740 could not have possibly come up with a more surrealistically inappropriate bumper sticker

00:56:50.380 for that truck, because it was just a mobile manifestation of someone who was not being

00:56:58.800 alert, you know, and so, and he knew that, and that's part of the reason the bumper sticker

00:57:03.580 was on there, and so there was this dark joke about it that was really quite funny, in a really

00:57:08.820 not funny way, and, um, at about the same time that he had this truck, I started working

00:57:16.540 as a kid, and I started working in restaurants, you know, when I was about 13 or 14, something

00:57:22.580 like that, I started working as a dishwasher, and, uh, the first dishwashing job I had was

00:57:28.680 with this old German chef, and he was a harsh guy too, man, it was like, well, he was used

00:57:33.300 to tremendous turnover in restaurants, because, because there is tremendous turnover, and,

00:57:38.640 uh, so he didn't have, he didn't care much for you when you first came into work, because

00:57:43.960 he thought, yeah, yeah, you'll be gone in a week, so, you know, I'm not going to spend

00:57:48.860 any attention on you, or maybe we'll put you through the gears a bit, and see if there's

00:57:53.140 anything to you, and if there is, well, then I'll spend a little bit of time paying attention

00:57:57.080 to you, which is something that men do to each other, um, which is not all bad, um, by

00:58:02.880 any stretch of the imagination, because maybe you should test someone a little bit before

00:58:07.460 you put some time into them, because, you know, how much time do you have, and, uh, anyways,

00:58:13.280 I was trying to wash these damn dishes, and there were a lot of them, big pots, and, you

00:58:17.660 know, plates, and you know, you know what dishes are, you've seen them, most of you've seen

00:58:21.000 them, some of you've washed them, um, and Christ, I was working, like, I'd go to work,

00:58:27.080 after school, five o'clock, or whatever, and then I was there till, like, three in the

00:58:31.100 morning, trying to wash all these damn dishes, I thought, well, this is impossible, it was

00:58:35.300 only supposed to be, I think, a five-hour shift, or something like that, I was, like, in there,

00:58:39.960 three in the morning, scrubbing pots, thinking, there's a huge stack of dishes, thinking, well,

00:58:46.400 this is impossible, how can anyone do this job, and that was rather disheartening, because

00:58:50.920 you'd think, dishwashing is actually rather low on the job status hierarchy, and if you're

00:58:59.640 not good at that, you, you gotta kind of wonder about yourself, you know, a little bit, and

00:59:04.860 so, I remember coming home and talking to my dad, and him saying, I said, dad, I don't,

00:59:09.420 I don't know if I can do this, man, I'm in there, like, scrubbing stuff like mad, and I'm

00:59:14.620 way behind, and so, I don't know, but I stuck it out for, like, three weeks or so, torturing

00:59:22.240 myself with these bloody dishes, I didn't even know how clean they should be, you know,

00:59:26.560 because old pots in restaurants, they're all covered with kind of varnish, you know, because

00:59:31.580 they've been used forever, and so I'd get this dirty pot, and I'd think, well, how clean

00:59:35.780 should this be, is it supposed to be, like, gleaming silver, or is it supposed to be somewhat

00:59:41.640 hygienic, I had no idea what clean meant, and so I had to learn that, it was somewhat

00:59:47.460 hygienic, by the way, was the rule, and that was good enough, and so, anyways, after about

00:59:57.200 two and a half weeks or three weeks, this old German chef, who is probably, like, 20 years

01:00:03.140 younger than I am now, decided, and his wife decided that I was probably going to stick around,

01:00:09.020 and then they showed me how to do the job, and actually, you actually had to think a bit

01:00:13.380 to do the job, so when all the plates came in, you stacked up all the plates by size, you

01:00:19.740 know, and you stacked up all the bowls by size, and you put the pots aside, and then you rinsed

01:00:26.160 all the plates while they were standing there, so most of the food came off, and you did the

01:00:30.500 same with the bowls and the smaller plates, and then you had a tray, and you filled that

01:00:35.300 all with the same kind of plate, then you ran it through the dishwasher, and when you

01:00:39.480 took it out, you could stack them all up, and put them where they belonged, instead of

01:00:42.580 having, like, one of every kind of dish on each tray, and running around like a confused

01:00:48.640 weasel in the kitchen consistently, and so he showed me how to do that, and he said, you

01:00:54.900 put the pots aside, and then when you have a bit of time, you just go and do them, and

01:00:58.900 I thought, oh, that's how you do it, it's good, you know, so I had some guidance, right,

01:01:03.020 and so that was good, and then all of a sudden, hey, it was, I wouldn't say it was an easy

01:01:06.980 job, because it was hot, and wet, and dirty, and kitchen is a fast place, and, but man,

01:01:13.100 I could do it in half the time that I had to work, you know, and so the rest of the time

01:01:18.520 I could go cause trouble with the chefs, which was quite fun, because we had food fights,

01:01:22.560 and did all the sorts of things that you do in a kitchen when you have some extra time,

01:01:26.680 and then they taught me how to cook, so I became a short order cook, and so that was a

01:01:32.160 good thing, it was a really good thing, and my friends, the same friends I'm telling you

01:01:38.980 about, ones that had various problems with their fathers, also generally came to work

01:01:45.380 as dishwashers, because there was a chronic shortage of them, and they all lasted like

01:01:48.740 three days, and then they'd leave, and so, you know, that was embarrassing for me, and

01:01:54.080 also not very good for them, but there was something different, and I don't know exactly

01:01:58.980 what it was, but that I stuck it out, and I worked in restaurants for like five years,

01:02:04.940 and had all sorts of jobs when I was a kid, for lengthy periods of time, and when I went

01:02:09.520 to college, and I always stuck with them, and that was partly because, you know, there was

01:02:13.880 an ethos in my family that I would say came both from my mother and my father, probably

01:02:20.240 my father more harshly, but my mother could be a pretty vicious judge of useless foolishness

01:02:26.060 as well, and so we weren't very much rewarded for giving up easily, and so, well, so then

01:02:32.400 I was employed, and that was good, it kept me out of trouble, and I had some money, and

01:02:36.360 I learned some useful things, and I got to be treated as like an adult, which I really,

01:02:41.340 really liked, because it wasn't the case at school, that's for sure, you know, where

01:02:44.900 you still had to put your hand up to go to the bathroom, but once I could work at these

01:02:48.940 restaurants, and was useful, because that's something else I learned, is if you don't want

01:02:53.640 to be fired, I learned that you had to be at least more useful than the next least useful

01:02:59.480 person, you're always safe then, right, because someone had to be cut, it wasn't going to be

01:03:05.320 you, and that was a joke, but, you know, I did learn to be useful, and then I got treated

01:03:10.660 like an adult, which I loved, I really, really, really loved that, that was a great thing,

01:03:15.640 and so, anyways, one day I was off to my job at, as a short order cook, at six in the

01:03:21.860 morning, winter, because it was always bloody winter there, so, and it was dark, if I remember,

01:03:27.100 just starting to get light, I was off to downtown, to this hotel called The Grand, which is on

01:03:32.300 the main street, and I was going to work my shift as a short order cook, and I looked up

01:03:38.060 the street about four blocks, very wide streets in the town that I grew up in, it was a western

01:03:42.840 town, and the streets were like, oh God, six lanes wide, God only knows why, there were

01:03:48.280 like 2,000 people in our town, you could have put all the cars in the town on the street,

01:03:53.060 but they were very wide, and now and then, kids, including my friends, would go out on

01:03:59.080 main street, and whip donuts in their trucks, which was, you could do when you had rear wheel

01:04:05.960 drive vehicles, because you could get the wheels spinning, and then the truck would zip around

01:04:09.920 like this, and that was really quite entertaining, make you a little dizzy, and so is the possibility

01:04:15.360 of running into something, but, you know, it was fun, but it also taught you how to control

01:04:20.520 the damn vehicle if it ever went into a spin, and they often did on icy roads, and so learning

01:04:26.400 how to handle your vehicle when it was spinning was actually useful, despite the fact that maybe

01:04:32.640 practicing it on, like, main street wasn't the world's most intelligent strategy, parking

01:04:39.720 lots were a better idea, or lakes, we used to do it on frozen lakes as well, which could

01:04:44.320 be quite fun unless you fell through, which you usually didn't, because they were frozen

01:04:49.700 like eight feet deep, so, anyways, I looked up the street, and there was a convenience store

01:04:58.060 up the street, and there was a big tarp out in the front of the convenience store, and it was

01:05:03.580 covering half a truck, and it was a white truck, and it had a lot of dents on it, and I thought,

01:05:13.220 oh, Jesus, my friend, Chris, he was out last night spinning donuts on Main Street, and he crashed

01:05:21.260 into the convenience store, and I went to work, and then later, that's what I found out happened,

01:05:28.740 and he phoned the police from inside the convenience store, which was convenient, and said what had

01:05:41.460 happened, and so, and I think that was pretty much the end of that truck, although I'm not

01:05:46.800 absolutely certain, because one of the problems was that whenever Rob crashed his truck, his dad

01:05:52.040 was just fix it, and then he'd have the truck again, and you know, it's kind of nice, because

01:05:56.880 well, then your dad likes you enough to give you a truck, but then on the other hand, if you've had

01:06:02.540 50 accidents with it, your dad might be thinking, Jesus, you know, maybe you're trying to kill

01:06:08.400 yourself, and buying you another truck, or fixing it, is possibly, possibly not in your best interest,

01:06:20.180 and you know, that's a good indication of Freudian dynamics in a household, you know, like,

01:06:25.340 modern people don't like Freud much, they make fun of him in all sorts of ways, and that's because

01:06:29.540 everything wise that Freud figured out, we now take for granted, and all that's left is what he didn't

01:06:35.900 get right, and so we blame him for that, we're not very, what would you call it, grateful, everyone

01:06:42.520 believes in the unconscious, you know, everybody believes in unconscious motivations, we all believe

01:06:48.260 that we're ruled internally by forces that we can't completely understand or control, you know,

01:06:54.220 that's all, not all of it, but a huge part of that's due to Freud, and you can see these very complex

01:06:59.500 motivations emerge in families, and so on the one hand, you have this merciful gesture, which is,

01:07:05.500 whatever you want, son, it's yours, and on the other hand, you have, well, it doesn't matter how

01:07:10.440 you treat it, I'm just going to replace it, even if what you do with it constantly is nearly fatal,

01:07:15.460 and you know, a lot of these accidents weren't, they weren't jokes, they were accidents, and it was

01:07:19.680 amazing that people weren't killed, including, let's say, putting your car through a convenience

01:07:25.840 store at three in the morning, and that probably doesn't really call for forgiveness, you know, like,

01:07:31.140 compassion, the virtue that seems to have overtaken everything, it's like, is that your response when

01:07:36.420 your kid drives his 50 dent truck through a convenience store at three in the morning, it's

01:07:42.060 like, oh, it's okay, kid, like, no problem, you're good the way you are, it's like, how about no, you

01:07:48.660 bloody idiot, you damn near killed yourself, it's like, what the hell's wrong with you, you know, like,

01:07:53.520 you might not care if you're alive, but we actually happen to, and you're only 16, and like, how about you

01:07:59.180 don't get a truck for, like, three months, and, and here's some other hard things to deal with, because

01:08:04.660 you need, obviously, you're not smart enough to bloody well take care of your own life, you know,

01:08:09.940 and, and, and to care for yourself properly, you need a bit of scaffolding, and that's when something

01:08:15.360 that's, that, that's a firm hand might be just what you're bloody well praying for, you know, deep

01:08:21.800 inside, you know, and at the same time, my friend had this dream, and I was interested in dreams at a

01:08:27.220 very early age, and had a pretty good knack for interpreting them this, although this one wasn't

01:08:31.200 particularly difficult to interpret, and my friend Chris was deteriorating, I would say, and it was

01:08:36.540 really worrying me, at about the same time, he was starting to smoke pot, and pot is okay for some

01:08:42.680 people, I had another friend who worked on the oil rigs, he was a rough guy, physically rough guy,

01:08:48.340 and he had rough brothers, and they, kind of a poor family, and I liked him, he was smart, and he was

01:08:52.960 witty, and, and, but he was a tough kid, and you didn't mess with him, and he started smoking pot,

01:08:57.820 and he was way better, everybody, it was just way easier to get along with when he smoked pot, he

01:09:02.540 mellowed right out, you know, didn't seem to hurt him a bit, but there were other kids in town, they

01:09:08.600 started to smoke pot, and for a lot of them, it was a disaster, they just, there's a syndrome that goes

01:09:13.840 along with marijuana smoking, the name of which I don't remember, but it, it brings about a kind of

01:09:19.140 passivity, you know, and a lot of the people I saw starting to smoke pot fell down that pathway,

01:09:26.980 they just became sort of detached from reality, and weren't engaged anymore, and it wasn't good

01:09:32.680 for them, they dulled them, and, and I would say that was maybe true for about 10% of the kids who

01:09:38.620 smoked pot, and then there was another small percentage that it really wasn't good for, and

01:09:43.220 there's evidence for that too, maybe a bit of a tendency towards psychosis.

01:09:47.300 Marijuana might not be all that advisable. Now, the evidence isn't crystal clear, but it's

01:09:54.040 suggestive, and so, um, I think that was my friend, Chris, I think he had, if he was going to tilt

01:10:03.260 towards some mental illness, that was going to be it, and so he started smoking pot, and that wasn't so

01:10:09.240 good, and then he told me a dream that he had at one point, and he said that he was really upset

01:10:15.360 about the dream, he was walking down the road, and as he was walking it, it was crumbling underneath

01:10:20.440 him, and there was nothing below it, you know, just chaos, and the void, and like, he was a smart kid,

01:10:27.360 he'd read a bit, he kind of knew what that meant, you know, in a sort of baby philosophical way,

01:10:35.960 and he was very concerned about that, and I could see him fragmenting in some sense, and I wanted to go

01:10:41.540 talk to his father, but I didn't know what the hell was I going to say, I was like 15, I didn't know

01:10:45.540 what the hell to say to his father, your son's falling apart, you know, and here's the evidence,

01:10:50.320 and it doesn't seem like you're doing anything about it, and maybe you should, it's like, I didn't

01:10:54.420 know what to do, so I didn't do anything, and then we, we, uh, we went on a trip after that, a bunch of

01:11:03.120 friends of mine, I made some new friends, because most of mine dropped out of school,

01:11:06.520 went to work on the oil rigs, they had a rather truncated sense of the future, which I also think

01:11:12.260 had something to do with their dis-regulated relationships with their fathers, like, they

01:11:19.500 didn't seem to have an, there wasn't an ambition built into them for a long-term productive future,

01:11:27.220 you know, and I don't know who provides that exactly in a family, but I suspect that either

01:11:33.720 parent can, but that fathers often do, and I, again, I think that's part and parcel of that

01:11:40.020 harshness, because, you know, to impose a long-term disciplinary structure on someone is no simple

01:11:46.980 thing, it's like, you know, maybe I want you to go to university, I want you to have a decent life,

01:11:52.360 it means I'm not going to put up with a lot of crap in junior high and high school, because

01:11:55.580 you're going to do stupid things, and then you're going to ruin your life, and I'm not going to let you

01:11:59.280 ruin your damn life, because, you know, you've got your whole life, and that's a battle, it's not,

01:12:04.760 you can't just tell a kid that, kids are stubborn and tough, and they push back, especially when

01:12:10.620 they're adolescents, especially when they're surrounded by their stupid friends, and unless

01:12:14.580 there's someone around to sort of put the hammer down a little bit and say, no, you don't get it,

01:12:19.620 you're not getting away with this, why should the kid even think it's important? Because, like,

01:12:24.840 how do you convince someone that something is important? You say, this is important? It's like,

01:12:30.580 oh, yeah, that really works, you want to change a habit you have, so you have, you sit down on the

01:12:35.260 side of your bed, and you say, hey, this is important, change, next day, man, you're a new man,

01:12:41.400 it's like, no, no, that doesn't happen. If you're going to convince someone that something's important,

01:12:47.480 you have to go to war with them, like, it's a battle, including yourself, because there's all sorts

01:12:52.360 of things that might be important, and to impose the idea that one thing is important rather than

01:12:57.460 another, it's like, it's a battle of wills, and it's the wills that make up destiny, and if you want

01:13:03.980 your kid to have a vision for the long run, let's say, of who they might be across the entire adult

01:13:10.500 spectrum, then there are impositions on their behavior that you have to impose when they're young,

01:13:15.980 and they're not trivial, and they have to be enforced. It's not a game, because kids are really

01:13:23.020 good at pushing boundaries and pushing thresholds, and they'll get away with whatever they can get

01:13:27.660 away with, because they assume that if they can get away with it, then it doesn't matter, because if

01:13:32.780 it was important, then someone would stop them, and actually stop them, not just talk about how

01:13:38.480 important it might be if they were stopped, which is not the same thing at all. It's not even in the

01:13:45.780 same conceptual universe. So anyways, most of my friends dropped out by the time they were in

01:13:51.020 grade 8 or 9. They went to work on the oil rigs, which wasn't a bad choice, except all they did was

01:13:55.020 spend all their money on expensive vehicles, and then get impaired driving tickets, and lose their

01:14:00.920 vehicles, and crash them, and spend all their money, and like, it didn't work out well as a long-term

01:14:05.920 strategy, even though they were making, like, ridiculous amounts of money. You know, certainly salary is

01:14:12.660 equivalent to $150,000, $160,000 today when they were 16 years old. That was hard work. It's no joke

01:14:19.560 being a roughneck out in an oil patch for two weeks at a time when it's 40 below. It's dangerous. You

01:14:26.120 lose fingers. You lose toes. Like, you freeze your digits. It's dangerous work, but it was

01:14:31.780 extraordinarily lucrative, and it was a hell of a lot better than doing nothing. So that was fine,

01:14:36.480 and I met some new friends who came in from a town called Bear Canyon, which was even smaller

01:14:42.320 than Fairview, which is hard to believe. We were way the hell out on the edge of the northern prairie.

01:14:48.220 There was only one town north of us, and then it was like Siberia. It's like you could walk 3,000 miles

01:14:54.600 north, and then you'd run into some Russian, you know, on this step, and that was that, and these

01:15:01.920 kids came from even farther north, and there wasn't west, northwest, and there wasn't even a high

01:15:07.660 school there, so they moved in. They were kind of ambitious, and so as my friends disappeared,

01:15:13.320 because they were pursuing their shorter-term interests, let's say, I made these new friends,

01:15:18.500 and they were better. They'd had good relationships with their fathers, so that was one thing. All three

01:15:25.260 of them had good relationships with their fathers. They actually had some ambition despite coming from

01:15:29.820 this little town, and they were off to college, and they were willing to do well in school, well enough

01:15:35.080 anyways, to ensure that their futures weren't compromised, and they weren't, what would you call

01:15:42.320 it, spinelessly obedient. You know, they managed that nice balance between having a clue and doing

01:15:48.580 something useful, and also being cool. So that was good. That was really good, and we went on a trip

01:15:54.940 with them, a long trip, 1,500 miles, something like that, and took along Rob and Chris. Jesus.

01:16:08.120 And Chris just wasn't interested in anything on the trip. You know, we drove through the Rocky

01:16:16.900 Mountains, and we drove to lots of interesting places, and we had some good adventures on little

01:16:21.340 beaches there, and like, we had a good time. He wasn't interested. He was mostly interested in

01:16:26.120 smoking cigarettes and pot, and buying soft drinks, and we just, we were kind of laughing at him, because

01:16:32.480 he was so under-motivated, you know, and bugging him about it, and, but he was unhappy and miserable,

01:16:38.060 and it wasn't going anywhere, and so that sucked. And then we went off to college, and he came,

01:16:43.220 but he dropped out after like three months, and then, and then he did a bunch of desultory jobs that

01:16:48.180 were really good for nothing, and then that wasn't good either. And then I went through

01:16:54.740 college, and, and got my bachelor's degree, and I moved to Montreal, and I went to graduate school,

01:16:59.680 and one day Chris announced that he was coming to visit, and I hadn't seen him for a long time,

01:17:07.060 and so he came to visit, and he still had, he still had his truck. So I guess it did actually

01:17:13.320 survive the convenience store episode, and he, and I was kind of happy to see him, but he wasn't,

01:17:20.780 I would say he wasn't in good shape. I was about 27 or 28 at that point, and you know, my, my life was

01:17:27.520 going upward in a pretty decent direction, and his wasn't, and so he was more like 40-year-old,

01:17:33.840 27-year-old, you know, and he'd been smoking too much. His fingers were yellow, and, you know,

01:17:38.520 and he was too thin, and, and he was a lot more cynical than he used to be. Oh, before that, I

01:17:43.720 remember one episode with him. I was walking down the street with him in a town called Edmonton,

01:17:48.820 which was where I had been going to college, and he had come out to visit, and we were walking down

01:17:53.200 the street, it was winter, and he was snapping off the rear-view mirrors of cars, you know, the side-view

01:18:00.100 mirrors of cars, one after another, and this was irritating the hell out of me, because it seemed

01:18:05.840 pointless, and I said, well, what are you doing? And he said, well, all these people, they're just

01:18:09.000 driving these cars, they're just, all their activity is just ruining the planet, and they

01:18:13.960 deserve whatever punishment can be meted out to them, and, and this is the toxic masculinity thing.

01:18:20.220 See, one of the things that had happened to him was that he had deeply incorporated this idea for

01:18:26.720 one reason or another, and a reason I can't quite understand, that any ambitious activity on the part

01:18:34.680 of someone, perhaps someone at all, but certainly on the part of someone who was male, was wrong,

01:18:41.460 and the reason it was wrong was because, well, look what we were, look at what we were doing to

01:18:45.680 the planet, we were polluting the damn thing in 50 different ways, and, you know, there was the

01:18:50.180 omnipresent threat of thermonuclear war, and we weren't concerned about global warming at that point,

01:18:56.020 I think it was global cooling instead, because that was a big deal for a while in the 70s, but

01:19:00.660 in any case, you know, Owen, we were overpopulating the damn planet to the point where by the year

01:19:05.940 2000, there was going to be mass starvation, you know, and, and we were going to run out of fossil

01:19:10.440 fuel, and, like, there are more fossil fuel reserves now, by the way, than there has been

01:19:15.420 ever, just so you know, which is quite curious, so we're, we haven't run out yet, um, and we're not

01:19:21.740 likely to, and we're not going to overpopulate the goddamn planet, we're going to hit 9 billion in

01:19:27.020 about 20 years, and then the population is going to precipitously decline, and so all

01:19:32.020 of that turned out to be utter, utter anti-human nonsense, which he imbibed thoroughly, and

01:19:40.560 used, I think, in part to justify his unwillingness to participate in the world, but also because

01:19:46.340 there was some general moral, genuine moral concern on his part, that participating in

01:19:51.100 the world, let's call it the oppressive patriarchy, was somehow negative in and of itself, and so,

01:19:58.820 and that people were a cancer on the, on the face of the earth, which I think is how we were

01:20:03.960 described by the Club of Rome, which is not exactly a description I'm particularly happy about,

01:20:09.940 um, because you know what you do with cancer, you try to eradicate it, and, and so he had these very

01:20:14.960 lofty ideas about why he wasn't participating in sort of an active Buddhist, in some sense,

01:20:21.100 an active, a passive pseudo-Buddhist, in some sense, and could justify his lack of involvement

01:20:28.460 in the world, by making reference to the fact that any sort of masculine ambition was only

01:20:34.960 contributing to the destruction of everything good, and so he never really got a girlfriend,

01:20:41.480 and he never really got a job, and never really had a life, and, you know, that's not so good,

01:20:47.220 that's not a real recipe for, uh, anything but bloody, profound misery and bitterness, and

01:20:55.660 by the time he came to visit me in Montreal, that was there in spades, man, it was there in spades,

01:21:02.200 and he, the darkness that was in him was a lot deeper, and a lot more dangerous, and I would sit

01:21:07.700 and analyze his dreams now and then, and he had dreams that were quite similar, one of them was,

01:21:13.700 he, he was in a spaceship way out in space alone, and, uh, he was the only person on it,

01:21:20.600 so it was this mechanical, dead mechanical entity floating out in the chaotic void, and he was the

01:21:27.180 only person that inhabited it, and, you know, that's just not, that's just not a good dream,

01:21:32.920 it's, it's not a good dream, and, and, uh, I was living with my wife at that point,

01:21:38.400 and, uh, her and Rob used to get into entanglements quite a bit, because he, he actually liked her

01:21:45.640 quite a lot, and, but, um, so there was some rivalry between us in high school, uh, with regards

01:21:52.300 to her, but more importantly, she really doesn't have any patience with useless men, and so when he

01:21:58.520 was being useless, she would call him on it in a pretty straightforward way, and that just didn't

01:22:05.300 make him happy, one time, this is exactly what he was like, um, he was sort of, we, we'd made

01:22:13.580 arrangements, you know, because he, he moved in with us, he, we made a rate, domestic arrangements

01:22:17.720 about who was supposed to do what, and he, he would take care of our daughter a bit, and do some work

01:22:22.000 around the house, and he actually got a job, which was a good thing, but he was very resentful about

01:22:27.280 what he had to do, generally speaking, especially domestic duties, even though, hypothetically,

01:22:33.180 he was an egalitarian, and one day, we came home, and he was fixing the stove, which sounds

01:22:38.780 like a good, like it was wobbly, you know, and it sounds like a pretty good thing to fix

01:22:42.980 the stove, that's a good thing, except that dinner was on the top of the stove, and it

01:22:47.640 was like burning, and not, not just a little bit, like it was burning like a statement,

01:22:52.960 you know, and so we walked in there, and the bloody kitchen was full of smoke, and Rob was

01:22:57.860 down on the floor, Chris, um, Jesus, definitely gonna get in trouble for this, and he was shimming

01:23:10.580 the stove, and it was so interesting to watch, because on the one hand, what he wanted was

01:23:15.300 a pat on the head for being mechanically epped enough to fix the stove, and on the other hand,

01:23:22.660 he wanted to burn the hell out of dinner, and fill the entire apartment with smoke, to indicate

01:23:27.720 that he was above that sort of domestic necessity, and so both of the, and then, of course, he

01:23:33.840 also thought, because there was a deep arrogance that was associated with whatever was going

01:23:38.520 on with him, that we would be too stupid to notice what was going on, and we actually

01:23:44.060 weren't that stupid, particularly my wife, who wasn't very stupid about that sort of thing

01:23:49.420 at all, and she just tore him a new skin, and it was brutal, man, and I was worried, because

01:23:59.440 like, she really enraged him, because he was very angry at women, because, of course, women

01:24:03.480 didn't want to have anything to do with him at that point, because he was completely good

01:24:06.540 for nothing, and so he was very mad about women, even though, you know, he decided that,

01:24:12.140 he had decided a long time ago that, you know, having a relationship, and getting married,

01:24:16.000 and having children, and all that was just contributing to the downfall of the planet,

01:24:20.580 it's like, yeah, yeah, sure, you know, you still want a mate, you still want companionship,

01:24:27.240 that's all complete bloody ideological bullshit, and you know it, and it's just covering up your

01:24:32.300 inadequacy, and it's making you vengeful, and it's filling you with hatred, and that really

01:24:37.740 came out, and there was a vicious, vicious fight, and I was, like, making sure that it didn't

01:24:42.600 get out of hand, and it sort of did, and, but not too bad, and then we went, we had this

01:24:50.440 weird experience, I don't know how to explain this, but it happened, so I'm going to tell

01:24:55.000 you this story anyways, the next day, I think it was the day after that, I believe it was

01:25:03.080 the day after that, my wife and I, she was pretty upset about this, for a good reason,

01:25:09.360 we went, walked, we lived in a poor part of Montreal, but you could go underneath the railway

01:25:13.700 tracks, and then you could get into a rich part of Montreal, where there was a nice park,

01:25:18.540 and so we went for a walk in this park, and then don't be thinking that it was fun, because it

01:25:22.740 wasn't, it was like 28 below, and it was really windy, because Montreal's brutal wind along with

01:25:28.580 its brutal winters, and it was like, no, no one with any sense at all, except for people with

01:25:35.480 homicidal roommates, were out in the park, and so we were out in the park, and she was thinking

01:25:41.800 maybe she'd go to Ottawa City a ways away to get away for a while, and we walked into the park,

01:25:47.200 it was an uncanny day, because it was so brutal at our house, because of what was going on, and we knew

01:25:52.000 what was happening with Chris, and how dark it was, and how unlikely it was to be fixed, and we went

01:25:59.200 into the park, and god, the strangest thing, there were black squirrels in Montreal, and squirrels

01:26:05.840 hibernate, basically, not exactly, because they'll come out when it's warm in the winter, which isn't

01:26:10.400 that often in Montreal, but basically, when it's cold, they go in their little squirrel burrows, which

01:26:16.500 are all packed with nice warm material, and they stay the hell in there, because it's 40 below, you know,

01:26:23.040 and you die if you go out, as I already mentioned, and we walked into the park, we were the only

01:26:27.880 people there, and it was foggy, and windy, and there was all these bloody squirrels all over

01:26:34.160 the place, and they had mange, and mangy squirrels lose a lot of their fur, so there were tailless

01:26:39.240 squirrels, and squirrels without hair on the back of their bodies, and they were all over

01:26:44.340 the place, there must have been like 40 of them, like clinging to the trees, shivering

01:26:48.160 away, and it was like, it was like a stage set, you know, it's like, what the hell, what the

01:26:55.280 hell are these squirrels, it was like, it was, it was like the place was full of ravens,

01:26:59.700 or crows, or vultures, or something like that, we don't have vultures in Canada, because it's

01:27:04.220 too cold, and they die, and it was per, it was perfect in this weird metaphorical way,

01:27:11.620 it was like, it was the stage was set for the conversation we had to have, and there was

01:27:16.560 all these poor, furry, cute little animals that were out there in the cold, being insane

01:27:21.240 for reasons we couldn't understand, like freezing to death, and so that, that added

01:27:25.940 a real, I don't know what you'd call, real nice undertone of surrealism to the entire

01:27:31.200 sequence of events, and so she went off to Ottawa for a few days, and then a little while

01:27:36.520 later, my, my brother came with his wife, and Chris wasn't very happy about that, either,

01:27:44.000 because my brother had got married, and was doing alright, not, not perfectly, but pretty

01:27:49.860 alright, and then he had a girlfriend, which was alright, and, but he was also taking

01:27:53.700 attention away from Chris, they were taking attention away from Chris, and that was making

01:27:58.960 him angry, and you know, they decided they were going to go out for a walk, and Chris

01:28:04.020 got dressed up in this, like, black, long black coat he had, and this, like, dark toque,

01:28:09.900 and my brother got dressed up, and so did his wife, and we looked at, at Chris, and I think

01:28:15.960 my brother laughed, said, Chris, you look like a serial killer, and he's, ha, ha, ha,

01:28:20.220 I said, serial killer, you know how funny they are, and, and so they went for a walk, and

01:28:25.860 then they came back, and Chris wasn't any happier when he came back, and, and he had

01:28:29.720 his bedroom, and my brother and his wife were sleeping in their bed, and I was sleeping in

01:28:34.660 my bed, and with my wife, and I was, it was like 2 in the morning, and I wasn't sleeping

01:28:39.380 at all, and then it was like 2.30 in the morning, and I wasn't sleeping, and it was like

01:28:43.800 3 in the morning, and I wasn't sleeping, and I was thinking, man, there is something

01:28:46.960 in this house going on that is, like, not good, and I knew what it was, and so I got

01:28:55.260 up, and I walked over to Chris's door, and I knocked, and I came in, and then he was sitting

01:29:00.860 up in bed, not looking happy at all, and I had a chat with him about how resentful he

01:29:07.120 was feeling about everything, and just exactly what the hell he thought he was up to, and if

01:29:11.760 he really thought that was a good idea, and talked him back down into something vaguely

01:29:17.880 resembling sanity, and I don't know why I was awake, I think it was probably a smell, because

01:29:25.420 you can smell things that you don't know you can smell, and that's part of what keeps you

01:29:29.780 alive when you need to, but there was no doubt that some plot of bloody murder was being

01:29:34.660 hatched in the imagination of my erstwhile friend, and I knew him well enough to know that

01:29:39.160 he was capable of going extraordinarily dark places, and certainly had gone there that

01:29:44.160 night, and anyways, we talked, and that was that, and it was settled, at least for that

01:29:52.080 evening, and he went to bed, and I went to bed, and I went to sleep, but my brother woke

01:29:56.880 up the next morning, you know, and he said to me, he said, I don't know what the hell was

01:30:00.160 going on here last night, but I really couldn't sleep, I don't know what was wrong, and I didn't

01:30:04.880 really tell him what was going wrong, but that was what was going wrong, and well, so

01:30:11.460 we lived with Rob Chris for about another six months after that, and he actually made

01:30:20.060 some progress, you know, he got a job, it wasn't much of a job, he was working in a

01:30:24.120 parts warehouse, which by the way is a fine job, I'm not complaining about that, and you

01:30:28.640 know, I was trying to convince him that he could try to do a good job at his parts warehouse

01:30:32.280 job, it was below his intelligence, because he was a very smart person, you know, and

01:30:36.600 he could have been anything, really, I think, and you know, I said, well, you can help, you

01:30:41.660 can try to work hard there, and there are people running a business, and you can try to help

01:30:45.440 them run the business better, and you know, maybe you could get good at it, and be helpful,

01:30:49.860 and find a bit of a community, and straighten things out in the business to the degree that

01:30:53.600 you can, and you know, you'd have something, which would be a lot better than having nothing,

01:30:57.760 and he did try that for a while, and we finally moved to Boston, and he didn't come along, and

01:31:03.520 he visited us about a year later, and he wasn't doing too bad at that point, he'd moved back

01:31:08.620 to Alberta, and he had a job there, and it was okay, it was okay, and he'd started to

01:31:13.300 write, and he wrote some nice stories, and he took some good photographs, too, he was quite

01:31:16.900 talented, actually, at both of those things, but then, you know, old habits reasserted themselves,

01:31:23.780 or maybe his underlying illness reasserted himself, and he drifted back off into unemployment,

01:31:29.300 moved back with his parents, and things just went from bad to worse, and he phoned me on

01:31:34.720 his 40th birthday, and he was quite happy, in a melancholy way, and he said that these

01:31:43.340 short stories that he had been writing, and he'd been sending to me, which he'd made into

01:31:47.760 about three quarters of a novel, and actually quite a good novel, he had a good eye for detail,

01:31:52.400 you know, and he could tell a story, and I'd liked his stories quite a bit, anyways, they'd

01:31:57.780 been compiled into a sequence of stories, and they'd been published by a small press in

01:32:03.340 northern Alberta, which was quite an accomplishment, you know, for him, and so he was very happy

01:32:08.100 about that, and so we had that conversation, and said goodbye, and then, a week later, I heard

01:32:17.940 from his father, he'd taken that goddamn truck out into the Rocky Mountains, and hooked up a pipe

01:32:33.280 from the exhaust to the cab, and sat there smoking cigarettes, until he died, and you know,

01:32:46.060 they found him, I don't know, a couple of weeks later, which I don't imagine was particularly

01:32:50.680 pleasant, and that was that, it was one less, it was one less manifestation of toxic masculinity.

01:33:09.500 We're playing a stupid game in our society, you know, with young men, young women too,

01:33:15.460 failing to encourage them properly, and allowing them to believe that something intrinsically wrong

01:33:26.540 with human beings, and our activity, you know, I mean, we cause trouble, we have a hard time

01:33:34.320 regulating what we're doing, life's tough, man, you know, the world's out trying to kill us, and we're

01:33:40.340 doing our best to survive, and we make a fair bit of mess while we're doing it, and we've done that

01:33:45.380 forever, you know, there's lots of blood and horror in history, there's no doubt about that, just like

01:33:50.720 there is in the natural world, we've made our fair share of mistakes, that's for sure, men and women

01:33:56.160 alike, well, we've been building whatever we've been building, but you know, we had our reasons, it's not

01:34:02.500 like it's a bloody cakewalk, we are trying to straighten things out, you know, and it's good to separate the

01:34:08.200 wheat from the chaff, I've seen this with lots of young men, lots of them, lots of the ones who come

01:34:14.720 to see my talks, all they've heard their whole goddamn life, is that there's something toxic and

01:34:21.360 oppressive about our patriarchal society, and that's the fundamental way of looking at it, and that the

01:34:27.400 right way of construing the relationship between men and women through history is one of unbridled

01:34:32.780 oppression on the part of men in relationship to women, what the hell are they supposed to derive

01:34:37.200 from that, what kind of message are they supposed to derive from that, hey, that there's something

01:34:41.780 good about ambition, there's something good about getting up in the morning and wanting to take your

01:34:45.820 place in society, it's like, no, society, it's an oppressive patriarch, it's responsible for

01:34:50.600 everything that's hell in the world, it's like, oh, so what are you supposed to do as a man, let's say,

01:34:56.260 withdraw, it's like, well, I'm not going to participate in that, because it's all pathological, it's like,

01:35:01.400 that's not helpful, I mean, then you don't have a life, right, you've got nothing to do, and it's not like

01:35:06.660 there's no problems to solve, and you can rationalize it with this notion that, well, if I can't be good,

01:35:12.500 and I can't, because, you know, toxic masculinity, then at least I can be harmless, it's like, well,

01:35:20.920 harmless isn't good, harmless is pathetic, you've got no respect for yourself if all you are is harmless,

01:35:28.720 I mean, you're like, trust and put in a corner, you're harmless, you know, and besides, you're not here to be

01:35:36.840 harmless, you know, you're here to be dangerous in a useful way, that would be good.

01:35:43.280 So that was Chris, he couldn't figure out how to be dangerous in a useful way,

01:35:58.620 so he became dangerous in a useless way, and that's another thing to think about, is that all

01:36:03.420 these young men that we're teaching about toxic masculinity, while we're trying to dampen down

01:36:09.360 the oppressive patriarchy, we're going to teach them to be, let's say, harmless, let's say, useless,

01:36:16.820 all of those things, and what's going to happen? You think that danger is going to go away?

01:36:22.520 You're an absolute bloody fool if you think that you're going to reduce a human being, a man,

01:36:28.880 to something harmless, and that that's going to work. All you're going to do by failing to channel

01:36:35.780 that unbelievable ambition, and ability to move forward into the world, into a, like a self-restrained

01:36:45.240 hopelessness, is to produce someone bitter, and resentful, and then cruel, and then dangerous.

01:36:53.940 And I would recommend strongly against that, unless that's what you want. And it isn't that I only saw

01:37:03.840 that in my friend Chris. You know, I talked to this kid, just, I'm going to stop just after this,

01:37:09.640 I talked to this kid, just before I left Toronto, and his family was fragmented, and his relationship

01:37:18.060 with his father was fragmented, and I like this kid, man, he's a good-looking kid, you know? You see him,

01:37:24.360 and you think, man, there you are, do something with your life. And Christ, he'd spent most of the

01:37:33.620 last six months in bed, and he was suicidal three quarters of the time, and he had this, he was kind

01:37:38.360 of interested in biology, it was about the only interest he had, it was sort of what was keeping

01:37:42.240 him alive, and he had this damn fish, some weird fish, a couple of them in an aquarium, and he, his

01:37:48.160 room was a complete bloody disaster, by his own admission, but his aquarium was pristine and clean,

01:37:54.340 and he was raising these fish, and he said forthrightly, the only reason I'm still alive is because of

01:37:59.460 those damn fish, you know? And, I mean, that's blackly comical on the one hand, but it's pretty

01:38:05.600 damn sad on the other, you know? And there's nothing fun about spending six months in bed,

01:38:10.820 you drag yourself out when you have to get something to eat, you know? And that's about

01:38:14.680 it, and everything's degenerating around you, and you're 24 years old when you should be out

01:38:19.180 there in the world, like, trying something. And I talked to him about his plans, and what he

01:38:24.580 should be doing, and, you know, it went fine, we were doing all right, and I was kind of

01:38:28.500 coming up with a plan with him, because I thought I might be able to help him a little

01:38:31.740 bit, and then we started having this conversation about, you know, the nature of the oppressive

01:38:38.500 patriarch, and how human beings were a cancer on the earth, and that we were headed for

01:38:42.940 environmental disaster, and that there was no goddamn point doing anything anyways, and

01:38:46.980 it was like, I just couldn't talk to, as soon as that came up, it was like, I don't know

01:38:52.080 what I was talking to, whatever I was talking to did not like human beings, I can bloody

01:38:57.020 well tell you that, and it certainly didn't like men. And then I was talking to that, and

01:39:02.540 there was no talking to that, like, even though he was only 24, and what the hell does he know

01:39:08.300 about anything, having never done anything in his life, with no real knowledge, he was

01:39:13.780 certainly 100% committed to his cynicism about the apocalyptic outcome, all awaiting us

01:39:20.800 because of the pathological actions of the human race. It's like, well, if you believe

01:39:25.800 that, well, what are you going to do? You're going to get out of bed? You're going to get

01:39:28.440 at it? Especially if you've got six other things wrong with you? No, at least you're

01:39:33.320 going to use that as an excuse, at least as an excuse to not engage in the world, because

01:39:38.300 it's actually hard, right, to get up and do the small things you have to do to start climbing

01:39:42.980 up the damn hierarchy, and struggle your way back into the middle class. And if you've got

01:39:47.940 this extra ideological excuse that, well, after all, the whole damn culture is corrupt,

01:39:53.820 oppressive patriarchy, it's done nothing but rape the planet and destroy, it's like, well,

01:40:01.040 not only do you have every reason to not get out of bed because it's so easy just to lay

01:40:06.460 there anyways and maybe smoke a joint too and play a video game and watch some porn, but

01:40:11.700 then you can also be moral about it, because, hey, at least I'm not taking my active part

01:40:16.980 despoiling the world. And so then not only are you worthless and helpless and resentful

01:40:22.600 and bitter and unhappy and useless and aging and all of that, but you're also virtuous.

01:40:30.280 I've talked to about 350,000 people in the last year. It's a lot of people. And I've met

01:40:51.440 afterwards, 15,000, something like that, and then another, God, I don't know how many people

01:41:01.400 on the street, because I meet people on the street all the time now, because wherever I

01:41:04.620 go, people stop me on the street, you know, like three or four times an hour or something

01:41:10.380 like that. And it's actually really good. They're really polite. They're almost always

01:41:16.780 men. They're really polite. My wife is stunned. She said, I didn't know that's what men were

01:41:21.180 like. You know, and my wife likes men, by the way, except me sometimes. But she said,

01:41:30.580 I didn't know what that was, what men were like. And I said, well, yeah, that's, that they

01:41:34.340 can be like that. And they're not always like that, but they're apologetic. And, you know,

01:41:38.860 they come up and they say, well, they ask me if I'm who I am, and I say yes. And they say,

01:41:44.160 you know, I was in this miserable place of one form or another. It's a general story. And

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01:43:04.820 senior or military discount. One discount per household. Trying to get my act together in various

01:43:10.880 ways, trying to tell the truth, trying to take on a little bit more responsibility. Married my

01:43:15.260 girlfriend that I'd been living with for five years, you know, decided to start having a family. Decided to

01:43:20.440 put some of my dreams into action, you know, and to get rid of some of the things that I'm doing that

01:43:24.560 are stupid and miserable and destructive and just out of curiosity and things are way better.

01:43:32.240 And so it's lovely, right? It's a lovely thing to go all over the place and have people come up to

01:43:36.140 you and say, well, you know, I was having kind of a rough time and here's a bunch of reasons why and

01:43:40.520 now things are way better. And that the heartbreaking thing about that is that so many people, it took so

01:43:47.480 little encouragement for that to happen. You know, it's like I've got YouTube channel and podcasts

01:43:53.900 in my book, but it's not like I'm in their family or something. I'm not directly there speaking with

01:43:59.280 them. I'm not a father or an uncle or someone close. I'm this sort of distant abstract figure

01:44:04.940 saying, you know, you're not for all your flaws and they're manifold just like mine are. It's like,

01:44:11.280 Jesus, man, there's something to you. You got a destiny. You know, it's important that you get your act

01:44:16.640 together and they don't generate any excess hell around you and the hell out of bed in the morning

01:44:22.040 and clean up your room and straighten yourself out because who the hell knows who you could be and

01:44:27.040 your family's suffering and maybe you could fix that a little bit. And then if you're concerned

01:44:31.360 about the state of the world, why don't you practice a little bit and get good at something

01:44:35.140 and try fixing it? Because you could. That's what you're like. You could certainly make it worse.

01:44:42.360 No one debates that. You could stop doing that. That'd be something. And then you could, and that'd

01:44:48.380 be something, you know. God only knows how good the planet would be if we just stopped actually trying

01:44:53.680 to make it worse out of spite. And then you could take the next step and actually try to do something

01:45:01.880 good. And then it turns out that, well, that works. Your life's better because you're doing something

01:45:07.100 good. It's sort of like the definition of having a better life. And then it turns out that things

01:45:12.000 around you do get better because you could take care of yourself a little more and you could take

01:45:16.620 care of your family a little more and you do have something to offer the community. And so then all

01:45:21.320 these people come up to me and say, well, you know, hey, I've decided enough hell for a while.

01:45:28.540 Maybe I'll give that a chance. And then they say, guess what? It works. It's like, it's a shock.

01:45:39.420 And the shock is that why didn't they know that it worked? Why didn't anybody tell them in some way

01:45:47.120 that was coherent? Like, I don't understand it. Well, I do understand it. It's this deep animus,

01:45:53.240 you know, this guilt that I can't explain fully tonight. This guilt we have about being human and

01:45:59.960 about our activities and all of that and about our inadequacies and our malevolence and our ignorance

01:46:05.380 and our biases and all the things that are wrong with us. And there are plenty of them. But there's

01:46:09.760 no excuse, man. It's like, bad as you are, you're also something remarkable. You know, truly remarkable.

01:46:17.480 The notion that there's a spark of the divine in each of us, that's a hell of an idea. And it's worth

01:46:24.180 investigating just for the possibility that it might be true. You know, you feel guilty as hell

01:46:29.760 when you're not living up to your potential. You know, you're not who you could be. You know,

01:46:34.320 you're doing things you shouldn't be doing. It's like, who's calling you on that? If it was just you,

01:46:40.240 you'd think, well, why not just let yourself off the hook? I mean, that'd be a hell of a lot easier.

01:46:44.280 You just wake up in the morning and it doesn't matter what sort of situation you're in. It's

01:46:48.060 like you're completely satisfied with your life because, after all, it's just you and you're

01:46:52.840 responsible to you and nothing else and no one else. There's no transcendent meaning. It's like,

01:46:58.560 well, then where's the source of the guilt and the shame and the self-recrimination and the

01:47:03.820 knowledge that you're wasting your goddamn time? Where's that coming from? Well, maybe it's the

01:47:10.400 oppressive patriarchy, you know, active within you, but I don't think so. I think it's the call

01:47:14.720 of conscience, you know, and you can follow that and it can lead you somewhere useful and then you

01:47:19.880 don't end up in the Rocky Mountains. You know, when you're 40, after having 25 pretty goddamn miserable

01:47:31.900 years, hooking a exhaust pipe, a pipe to your exhaust so that you can kill yourself quietly and alone out in the

01:47:41.900 middle of nowhere. So, that's what I have to say about talked masculinity. Thank you.

01:47:53.900 Thank you.

01:48:24.460 It's a rough story, man.

01:48:29.800 Okay. Well, we're going to reset the clock. I talked a little longer than I should have, so the

01:48:35.420 Q&A is going to be a little shorter than it might have been. So, John, if you can let me know

01:48:41.520 what time I have left, I can decide to continue. Well, here's the first question. What's the difference

01:48:50.460 between toxic masculinity and non-toxic masculinity? Well, we covered that to some degree. So,

01:48:57.480 non-toxic masculinity builds things.

01:49:01.500 look around. You know, there's this book. I love this book called Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman

01:49:13.020 who by all rights should be a hero of every feminist on the planet. She is really something, that woman.

01:49:20.680 And she's not, you know, she's an enemy of, of, I would say, the majority of, of the radical feminist

01:49:29.940 types. And it's amazing to me because she's such a heroine in every sense of the word and had such an

01:49:35.580 impossible and amazing life, which, which is still continuing. She's so brave. It's just unbelievable.

01:49:42.600 You know, and, and she, she went to, she went from Somalia, if I remember correctly, to

01:49:50.080 the Netherlands. And, and it was so cool reading her book because now and then, you know, one of the

01:49:56.700 advantages of reading something written by an outsider is you get to see what the outsider sees

01:50:02.720 that you always see, but to see it in a new way. And she said that when she got to the Netherlands,

01:50:08.000 which is a hell of a place, man. I mean, I love the Netherlands. It's a great country. And they're

01:50:13.860 ashamed of their, their country, by the way. The, the, the people in the Netherlands are deeply ashamed

01:50:18.960 of their civilization. It's endemic there. And for the same reasons we talked about tonight. And I go

01:50:24.680 there and I think, okay, let's think about this country. Well, first of all, it should be underwater.

01:50:32.720 And it's not. Like, that's pretty good, you know? Like, it's, it actually should be underwater.

01:50:39.400 And, and the, the Dutch, they built these dikes. When the, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

01:50:44.680 built the levees in New Orleans, they built them to withstand, in principle, the worst storm in a hundred

01:50:50.520 years. And, and that's not so good because there's a one in two chance that the worst storm in a hundred

01:50:55.660 years will come within 50 years. And that, and a one in four chance, say, in 25 years. That's just not

01:51:01.160 very good. Plus, they never did quite make it up to those standards anyways, because of endemic

01:51:06.820 corruption. And so, we know what happened to New Orleans. We think, well, that was a natural disaster.

01:51:11.800 A hurricane hit. It's like, yeah, yeah. It wasn't a natural disaster. It was the inevitable consequence

01:51:17.400 of decades of corruption. And so, you can blame that on God if you want. But, you know, storms happen,

01:51:22.700 and they happened in New Orleans, and everyone knew it. The Dutch, they built their dikes to withstand

01:51:29.660 the worst storm in 10,000 years. Right. And, you know, you might think about that as overkill,

01:51:36.560 because you're probably not going to be here in, like, 9,900 years or something like that.

01:51:40.740 And so, who cares? But, you know, they're serious about having their country not be underwater.

01:51:46.820 And you can kind of tell that everywhere you go, because it's really organized and orderly

01:51:52.140 and beautiful all at the same time. And it's a really free place, you know. So, you can go

01:51:57.200 to the Red Light District, for example, in the Netherlands. And it's a strange place, because

01:52:02.760 it's a pretty straight-laced country. But, you know, the laws are pretty loose. And it's

01:52:08.780 like the Dutch have figured out that, well, you want to make things orderly, so your country

01:52:14.060 doesn't become flooded by chaos. But you've got to leave some space for disorder, because

01:52:20.500 if you tighten it up too much, then you go too far in the other direction. And so, they

01:52:25.620 really got it right. And they built this amazing civilization there, like the civilization that

01:52:33.640 you've built here, you know, like the civilization that characterizes Australia and the United

01:52:38.600 States and Canada and most of Europe and almost all the countries where anyone with any sense

01:52:43.680 wants to move to, if they can. And a tremendous amount of blood and catastrophe and malevolence

01:52:50.340 went into the building of those civilizations, right? And we're constantly having fingers wagged

01:52:56.860 in our faces about that. And fair enough, you know. It's like, there's no doubt that human history is a

01:53:02.560 bloody nightmare. But, you know, you've got to separate the wheat from the chaff. And you've got to

01:53:07.080 think, well, what's worth preserving out of all of that? And there's lots worth preserving.

01:53:12.400 I mean, these are pretty good places. You have a nice city here. It's unlikely, this city. It's

01:53:17.820 like, you go out, you can go out and no one mugs you, you know? Well, that's something, you know? And

01:53:24.780 it isn't something to be taken for granted. And the probability that someone's going to break into

01:53:29.080 your house is like, zero, really. And you're not going to be the victim of a violent crime unless you

01:53:37.440 party too much with drunk family members. And then that's your own fault. Because drunk family

01:53:44.140 members happen to be more dangerous than any other people, you know? And no one here is starving,

01:53:51.100 with the exception of a tiny minority of people, for very complex reasons. And, you know,

01:53:56.920 it's pretty good. And it's way better than it was 150 years ago. And there's every bit of evidence that

01:54:03.140 it's actually getting better. And there's also every bit of evidence that as the core Western

01:54:08.420 values of individual sovereignty and private property rights and free enterprise spread around

01:54:13.960 the world, relatively untrammeled by the Soviets, by the communists, like it was for so long, that

01:54:20.200 other countries are starting to get rich, you know? China's pretty rich. India's pretty rich.

01:54:26.840 Southeast Asia's not doing too bad. There's more middle-class people in India than there is in the

01:54:30.840 United States. There's still plenty of poor people there. But like, it's, they're, they're getting

01:54:35.440 better off at a very rapid rate. The whole damn country now is just about electrified. That was

01:54:40.220 announced last week. It's like, wow, India's on the electrical grid. You know, and the fastest growing

01:54:46.700 economies in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa. It's like, there's good things happening. So what's

01:54:52.820 the difference between toxic masculinity and non-toxic masculinity? Well, I would say from the

01:54:58.960 perspective of the questioner, one of the differences would be, how about a little gratitude?

01:55:05.080 That'd be nice for everything that you have. I think about these university professors, you know,

01:55:10.380 that are in these critical disciplines that are describing Western civilization in the way they

01:55:15.520 describe it. I think you people are so protected from the terror of nature and the terror of culture

01:55:22.640 that, that, that, that you can't even imagine it. It's like, you have the most secure job in the

01:55:28.560 world at a reasonable amount of pay. Because if you're in the West and you're a tenured professor,

01:55:34.000 it's like, you have an optimal combination of security and freedom. You can pretty much do what

01:55:40.220 you want. And you're not going to get fired. And so, and that's pretty good. And it's your whole

01:55:46.960 life. Plus you have a pension. It's like, wow, this horrible, oppressive, patriarchal organization has

01:55:55.740 gifted you this amazing privilege. And then, you know, and you're safe on campus. I mean,

01:56:03.700 compared to most places that you could be anywhere in the world or in the entire span of history.

01:56:10.100 And you're reasonably well respected. And so you're in the university and that's pretty protected. And

01:56:14.980 you're in a town and that's got a good governance structure and it's pretty protected. And you have

01:56:19.280 a police force that you can trust. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she said when she came to Amsterdam, one of the

01:56:23.880 things that shocked her to death was that she could go up to police officers, which she didn't like to

01:56:29.180 do, and they would help her. She said she never really recovered from that. She, she couldn't believe

01:56:36.140 that police officers helped people because where she came from, they were just thugs, fundamentally.

01:56:43.560 And their job was to take bribes and make your life wretched. So they would help you. And it wasn't a

01:56:51.520 trick to take money from you later. It was, they were actually helping. And you know, she could see

01:56:58.160 that that was a miracle. Because it is a miracle to arm a section of society and have them behave in

01:57:05.460 the main as civilized and decent people. Well, there's some non-toxic masculinity. The other thing she

01:57:11.340 couldn't believe, she said, she would, I was in Morocco decades ago. And when you go to Morocco

01:57:17.340 and you take a bus, the first thing you do is you, you get in a line and then you pay for your bus

01:57:21.120 ticket. But whoever you're paying has nothing to do with the bus. You just pay them. And then when

01:57:28.060 you get on the bus, then they come and have you pay for the ticket. And so after a while, you learn

01:57:33.000 that you just get on the bus. And there's a timetable for the bus, but it bears no relationship

01:57:38.840 whatsoever to when the bus is going to be leaving or arriving. So the timetable is like a, it's like

01:57:46.420 a little mystery play that hasn't, well, Ellie went to Amsterdam and, you know, she was standing

01:57:53.360 waiting for public transportation. And there was a digital sign there and the sign said, train will

01:57:59.260 be arriving in 27.6 seconds. And so she was watching this sign and then the train showed up

01:58:06.620 in 27.6 seconds. And she thought, what the hell? It's like, how did that happen? And of course,

01:58:16.780 we just take that for granted because those things happen here all the time. The power stays on all the

01:58:25.680 time. Your houses, I don't know, do you heat them with natural gas? We do in Canada. They don't

01:58:31.140 explode. Hardly ever. And there's like millions of houses and they're all full of natural gas

01:58:37.000 and they don't explode. And that's pretty amazing. And the natural gas doesn't stop coming, which is

01:58:44.280 really good because in the winter, then you die, right? So it's good. And there isn't fighting

01:58:51.180 on the streets. And the firemen come when there's a fire and the ambulance comes when you're sick and

01:58:57.000 the doctors take care of you when you go to the hospital. And none of that works perfectly, but I can

01:59:02.040 tell you, man, it works a hell of a lot better than any other system that's ever been devised. And so

01:59:06.880 how about, how about that for a bit of non-toxic masculinity? That. And, and the desire,

01:59:13.580 and the desire to do more of that, to do more of that, you know, that's the thing, is to take that

01:59:25.500 aggression and ambition that characterizes you as someone who wants to move ahead in the, into the

01:59:31.380 world and to discipline yourself into someone who can play reciprocal games and cooperate and compete

01:59:36.860 in a civilized manner and who can aim to tame nature further in, let's say, a sustainable way. And who can

01:59:44.480 work to keep society awake and articulate and who can constrain the malevolence in their own heart and take

01:59:52.200 care of themselves properly and do a good job for their family and all of that, right? And to live a purposeful

01:59:58.600 and meaningful and honest and courageous life. How about that? And how about the fact that lots of people

02:00:04.320 already do that? You know, I knew this guy, this is a crazy story, this guy had a motorcycle accident

02:00:10.300 and it really ruined him. And he was a line, line worker, which is not an easy job, especially in the

02:00:16.700 winter. And he wasn't much good at it because the motorcycle accident ruined him. And so they paired

02:00:22.340 him up with this guy with Parkinson's disease. And you know, that's no joke, Parkinson's disease.

02:00:27.660 By the time you have your first symptoms, 95% of the relevant neurological tissue is already

02:00:32.760 destroyed. And it's degenerative, you know? And there are these two guys. Neither of them could

02:00:37.360 be linesmen, but together, you know, their disabilities were sufficiently different so

02:00:43.980 they could work as a linesman together. And so that's what they did. Despite being three quarters

02:00:49.260 bloody well destroyed, there'd be a terrible storm and the lines would go down and out they'd go and

02:00:54.500 help each other out and put the power back together. And I thought that was a pretty goddamn good

02:01:00.060 example of non-toxic masculinity myself. And I also see that, you know, people are like that.

02:01:06.900 Lots of people have difficult, demanding, harsh, and often intrinsically unrewarding jobs, you know?

02:01:15.660 And they do the best they can and they get the hell up at six in the morning when it's cold

02:01:19.580 and they make themselves lunch or maybe they're lucky and they have someone make it for them.

02:01:23.540 And they go out there and they do their duty and they keep the lights on and they keep the power

02:01:27.700 going and they keep this unbelievably amazing society for which we are so ungrateful. It's a sin.

02:01:37.060 They keep it moving forward. And it'd be nice to see, you know, just an iota of appreciation for that

02:01:43.520 now and then. So.

02:01:57.880 Here's a rough one.

02:02:03.960 I postpone my suicide to see you.

02:02:06.620 I've watched your video on suicide and hurting my abusive family motivates me further to kill

02:02:15.040 myself. Why should I live?

02:02:22.280 Well, the first question you might ask is, why do you postpone your suicide to come and see me?

02:02:26.580 I mean, I'm serious about this. It's a serious answer to a serious question.

02:02:32.560 You did that because you thought, you thought, obviously, and I'm not making any claims of any

02:02:37.820 sort, that this was of sufficient utility to justify your miserable existence one day further.

02:02:47.480 Well, so, you know, if there's one thing like that, maybe there's more.

02:02:52.220 You know, and maybe you need to discover them. And maybe you can discover them. And so I would say,

02:02:59.900 I don't, this old professor, you know, he worked at the University of Toronto, Alberta, and he worked

02:03:05.620 with criminals at the maximum security ward. And he was a strange guy. And he took me out there a

02:03:11.280 couple of times, which was a very weird experience. And he said something to me about suicide once that

02:03:16.560 I thought was really helpful. He said, you can always put it off till tomorrow.

02:03:23.780 And, you know, that's, that's actually a very helpful thought, if you're feeling suicidal and

02:03:28.540 desperate. Because, you know, the time collapses in on you, and you think, oh, this is absolutely

02:03:33.400 hopeless. I can't stand one more moment. It's like, no, that's probably not true. You probably can

02:03:38.500 stand one more moment. You can probably stand one more hour. You can probably stand one more day.

02:03:44.300 You know, and at some point, you get to the point when you're desperate and you're depressed,

02:03:49.280 where maybe that's what you're doing is you're enduring. That's what you've got. You're enduring.

02:03:54.640 And you think, God, it's just, and depression can be unbelievably awful. I'll give you a quick

02:04:00.840 example of that. My daughter, because it's very difficult to understand if you've never experienced

02:04:05.700 it. My daughter had polyarticular arthritis and affected 40 of her joints. And just having one

02:04:12.260 arthritic joint is no joke. It makes people's lives quite miserable. And 40, that's a lot. And

02:04:19.040 it was degenerative. And so, when she was a teenager, she had to have her hip replaced and

02:04:24.360 her ankle replaced. And she was walking around for two years, basically on two broken legs,

02:04:29.200 while we were waiting for the surgery procedures to sort themselves out. And she was on extremely

02:04:35.660 high doses of opiates to control the pain and Ritalin to keep her awake to the degree that she

02:04:41.800 could be kept awake. And she was also extremely depressed. It was an autoimmune condition. A lot

02:04:48.200 of depression, and this is good to know for the person who's feeling suicidal, is there actually

02:04:52.040 might be something wrong with you. Like, you might be ill in a way that would be worth investigating for

02:04:57.940 about four years, because maybe you can figure out what's wrong. You know, now you did say that as

02:05:02.920 well, that you have an abusive family, which is also not helping. But I asked her at one point,

02:05:09.160 because I was curious. I've suffered from depression, and it's no bloody picnic, can tell you that.

02:05:15.780 I said, okay, kid, here's your choice. You can have your arthritis, you can get rid of your arthritis,

02:05:23.440 or you can get rid of your depression. Which one would you get rid of? And she said, like,

02:05:28.280 instantly, I'd get rid of the depression. And so, like, that's something to think about, man.

02:05:34.120 And then, another thing she told me, we were talking about the feeling of this depression,

02:05:39.380 and she said, well, you know, it's kind of like you wake up, and you have this dog, and you really

02:05:44.740 love this dog, and it died. And it just died, and that's what it's like all the time. And so,

02:05:49.820 I thought, that was pretty good, because she got the grieving part of it right, that sort of sense

02:05:54.120 of continual, overwhelming grief that's part and parcel, but not the whole hell of depression.

02:06:00.940 And then, like, two years ago, she had this dog named Seiko, who was a pretty good dog,

02:06:06.160 far as dogs go, and she really loved that dog. And he died. And she said,

02:06:12.860 this is nowhere near as bad as having depression. And so, look, whoever you are out there in the

02:06:21.320 audience, like, I feel for you, and your proclivity for self-destruction. Like, you might be in one

02:06:27.940 hell of a dark place. And there are dark places, and there are certainly places that are so dark

02:06:33.300 that they make death look preferable. If you're more, if you think that being afraid of death is

02:06:39.980 the ultimate fear, all that means is that there are things that you have not yet encountered,

02:06:45.360 because death is not the thing to be ultimately afraid of. And so, I can imagine that you're in

02:06:52.040 a desperate place, but I would say a variety of things. First of all, you've got to ask yourself

02:06:57.520 if you've done everything you can to get out of it. You know, like, have you tried an array of

02:07:02.060 antidepressants? Have you tried them at different doses? You might say, well, I don't trust them,

02:07:06.840 or I want to do this on my own. It's like, no, no, wrong. You have a high probability of mortality.

02:07:14.640 You don't mess with it. If you're dead, you're not going to get better. If you took an SSRI at the

02:07:19.700 right dose, that's an antidepressant, try it for a month. You should know in a week if it makes you

02:07:24.800 tired. That's a good sign. You should know in a month if it makes you feel somewhat better.

02:07:30.180 Give it a shot. If it doesn't work, try another one. If that doesn't work, try another one. If that

02:07:34.080 doesn't work, try another one. Try it for a bloody year and see if it, because you, you know, you'll

02:07:39.460 still be around in a year. You've got a year to experiment with, and if they don't work, quit

02:07:43.860 taking them. Go talk to someone. Find someone. At least, and if you can't afford it, you can't find

02:07:50.720 someone, at least try the damn medication. And then there's other treatments as well that can be

02:07:55.540 effective. And then, as I said, you should also consider the possibility that there's actually

02:08:00.040 something physically wrong with you. And so don't give up too soon, because you give up and that's

02:08:06.680 the end of it. Okay, so, but then there's something else you said here, which I would also point out

02:08:12.760 here, which is also important. Hurting my abusive family motivates me further to kill myself.

02:08:21.120 Well, that's a rough one, man. Like, I don't know how old you are, and that's relevant.

02:08:27.220 If that's your motivation, then I would guess that you're suffering from some variant of post-traumatic

02:08:40.960 stress disorder, because you wouldn't be possessed by the idea that you could torture your family

02:08:47.640 by killing yourself unless you had reason for revenge. Now, it's possible that your thoughts

02:08:55.320 have gone to a point that's so dark that you're not seeing things clearly. That's a possibility,

02:09:01.180 and you should, you know, you should really keep that thoroughly in mind, because it is possible.

02:09:05.680 But let's assume that you have had a terribly abusive family. Well,

02:09:10.080 what's at the bottom of that abuse? It's malevolence, right? It's the spirit of malevolence.

02:09:18.480 That's certainly what's animating that kind of abuse. It's the spirit of evil, for lack of a better

02:09:24.800 word. And you don't recover from post-traumatic stress disorder or from abuse until you understand

02:09:30.100 that. And you know, it isn't obvious that you want to let that win. And it wins by taking you out.

02:09:36.660 And it wins worse. It wins its worst than it winning by taking you out, you see. It wins because it also

02:09:46.340 possesses you. Because whatever it is that's abused you, that spirit of malevolence, now wants to

02:09:53.680 inhabit you so that you can extract your revenge. And so not only will it kill you, it will also take

02:10:00.840 your soul. And I would say that's a very bad idea. So, well, what are the reasons?

02:10:13.720 There's probably more things that you could try. And you know, I've seen people recover from

02:10:18.700 unbelievably serious cases of depression, like immobilized in bed and definitely suicidal on a 24-hour,

02:10:26.900 24-hour, on a 24-hour continuum. You can recover. Medications can work, I would say. Get the hell

02:10:37.820 away from your family if you can do it. And if you're 16 or 15 or 17 and you can't quite manage it

02:10:43.600 yet, well then endure for a year or two and leave. And don't look back like Lot's wife. Remember in the

02:10:50.580 story when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, God warned Lot's wife not to look back because she

02:10:56.620 would turn into a pillar of salt. Salt, that's tears. Man, if you leave, don't look back. You brush

02:11:03.340 all that catastrophe off and see if you can set yourself up a life. And if that's, if that's, if

02:11:09.380 it's justice that you need rather than revenge, and justice is much better than revenge, then what

02:11:15.640 you do to obtain justice for yourself is to go out and have yourself a life, despite the fact that

02:11:21.760 these malevolent forces have conspired to take you down. And to see if you can do it.

02:11:27.760 You know, there's beauty in the world. And there are things to do. And there's a place

02:11:33.020 for you in the world. There, there's a hole that you leave in the fabric of being by your

02:11:37.660 sudden departure. And the addition of the catastrophe that you produce as a consequence of your suicide,

02:11:43.440 all it does is make things more like hell. And that's not the right answer. And so that's

02:11:49.580 what I would say. Say, why not kill yourself? Because it's wrong. It's wrong.

02:12:04.860 You know, and it's, I don't mean wrong in the finger-shaking way. I mean that

02:12:09.540 even if you follow the logic that has driven you to the straits that you find yourself in,

02:12:19.580 what you do by taking your fantasies of vengefulness to their final conclusion and making your abusive

02:12:29.280 family miserable, let's say, in a vengeful manner, is you fall prey to the very force that brought you

02:12:36.660 to the brink of catastrophe. And there's no victory in that. And you could instead have the victory.

02:12:43.860 It's not going to be easy. And I'm not trying to make light of this. And not everybody who has,

02:12:48.300 who is depressed, recovers. You know, you may be in for, you know, sporadic periods of depression

02:12:53.460 through your life. But there are lots of treatments that work. And you can, you, if you work diligently

02:13:00.820 and carefully and you're willing to pursue every avenue, you have a reasonable chance of finding

02:13:06.540 out what the hell is wrong and fixing it. And then maybe you can have a life. And then you have your life.

02:13:12.240 And you don't look back. And then you have your justice. And that's way better. And so don't,

02:13:20.140 you don't commit suicide because it's wrong. You go out and live like you could conceivably live

02:13:25.000 with some good luck and some goodwill and some willingness to attain help and the grace of God,

02:13:33.120 let's say, all of that. And you prevail. And that would be much better. And so that's what I would

02:13:39.780 recommend for you in the two minutes that I have to make such a recommendation. So best of luck to you.

02:13:47.780 And I hope that you can endure. And do remember, people do recover. There may be something out

02:13:54.860 there that could help you. There's a hundred things you could try. And maybe you've tried 20 of them

02:14:00.120 already. But certainly getting the hell away from your family sounds like a start. So, Jesus, what have

02:14:08.140 you got to lose, man? You're already willing to contemplate death. Leaving, that's a relatively trivial

02:14:16.460 problem by comparison. So, best of luck to you.

02:14:34.280 And on that note, good night to all of you. Thank you very much for coming.

02:14:46.460 Thank you very much for coming.

02:15:04.280 See JordanBPeterson.com for audio, e-book, and text links, or pick up the books at your favorite

02:15:21.840 bookseller. Remember to check out JordanBPeterson.com slash personality for information on his

02:15:27.380 new course, now 50% off. I really hope you enjoyed this podcast. Talk to you next week.

02:15:32.760 Follow me on my YouTube channel, JordanBPeterson, on Twitter, at JordanBPeterson, on Facebook,

02:15:40.060 at DrJordanBPeterson, and at Instagram, at Jordan.B.Peterson. Details on this show,

02:15:47.400 access to my blog, information about my tour dates and other events, and my list of recommended

02:15:53.040 books, can be found on my website, JordanBPeterson.com. My online writing programs, designed to help people

02:16:00.800 straighten out their pasts, understand themselves in the present, and develop a sophisticated vision

02:16:06.240 and strategy for the future, can be found at SelfAuthoring.com. That's SelfAuthoring.com.

02:16:12.900 From the Westwood One Podcast Network.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - March 29, 2020

Toxic Masculinity - A 12 Rules for Life Lecture

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