On 9/14/2023, Jordan Peterson was interviewed by Toby Robbins, and the title of the podcast was, The Wisdom of Dr. Jordan Peterson with Tony Robbins. I took notes on the 53 minutes show and will comment on what I recorded. It was a monologue by Peterson, and then people attending one of Robbins seminars asked Peterson some questions.
Jordan: “There is nothing that can stand up against the truth. It is self-evident that truth is deeply reflective of the structure of reality. The claim that the lie can dominate is the claim that the unreal can defeat the real. You are literally insane if you believe this.”
My response: I agree with Jordan that truth wins in the long run, but the forces of darkness can resist the revolution for a long time, often for decades. We still must tell the truth bit it is not insane to object to Jordan of little, insisting the victory of truth and justice of lies and corruption will come but not easily and not all at once.
Robbins: “Jordan Peterson loves the truth and digs in and studies all the time. He does not claim to have the whole truth, but he keeps reading.”
Jordan: “In the midst of all this chaos we must remember there is a larger order. We can find this larger order if we study the stories of humanity. The myth of the hero is one of these stories.
Across many disciplines from literary criticism, robotics, computer design, etc., many are reaching the same conclusion, a coming together of observations: The fundamental realization is that we have to see the world through a story. If you describe to someone the structure through which you see the world, you are telling them a story.”
My response: We need to construe reality as a story, a explanatory narrative, to make sense of what we have learned and experienced.
Jordan: “When you see a movie, the film gives you insight into the goals of the characters. You can align your emotions with their emotions and feel what they feel. By aligning your emotions with their emotions, you adopt the story that someone else is telling. You can mimic their nervous system with your own. You are in tune with someone.
We have to see the world through a story and this determines how we respond emotionally. If things are not going well, and you feel bitter, useless, upset, and hopeless, you might want to adopt a new story.
Which story should you adopt? There is a controversial cultural war raging right now in the West, a struggle over which story to adopt.”
My response: To lead a happy, successful life, you need to adopt a positive, metanarrative, grounded in whole moral values.
Jordan: “The postmodernist, neo-Marxists insist that all our stories are subjective, fragmented, .and hedonistic at the base—there is no overarching narrative. Or they offer an alternative story that the only story that unites people is power (Join and expand the reach of one’s group’s holy cause, Ed Notes). They see the whole world as a competition between different stories of power.
The Marxists characterize America is an oppressive hierarchy and marriage is an oppressive institution. The only economic relations are those of exploitation. The only story that people can live is that of domination, victimhood, and exploitation. This is a very dismal view of humanity and those putting forth this story use it to justify their using the power of domination to deal with other people. This view is counterproductive, pathological and leads to further unhappiness.”
My response: If people want good values and a good story, they can use Christianity, capitalism, and democracy to tell a tale to live by.
Jordan: “Well, Dr. Peterson, you are incorrect. Look at the dictator in North Korea. He has been successful just seeking pure power as a bully.
Just because you are the biggest devil in hell, does not make you successful—quite the contrary. You can gain position of power through force but what have you gained?
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn painted out a psychological study of Stalin, the most powerful man in the world’s most corrupt country. What did Stalin gain? Every person around him lied about everything all the time. He had no true friends, just sycophants. They just wanted to be close to a bully. He had contempt for everyone, trusted no one. People acted atrociously around him. For the genocidal enterprises, this murderous thug likely ended up murdered. It is not obvious that this is success. Stalin’s life is an example of strategies based on power.”
My response: Again, Jordan is right, and the strategy of gaining power is not a story to live by, but so many in the word live in such collectivist, pathological nightmares that they seem almost insurmountable and self-perpetuating.
Jordan: “It is not advisable in your own life to use this story of power: if you use instrumental and manipulative means to get to where you want to go, that is not good. Marriage based on power where one is the tyrant and the other is the slave, or they take turns—no love nor mutuality just force, not good.
Friendship is not based on power, because if you use force, people do not want to hang around with you.
Business must be about mutually beneficial interests being aligned so you are thrilled to work with each other. To give good products and service for the money is not about power; it is a completely different ethos.
The ethos that replaces power provides for social unity, uniting people, making them psychologically stable.
To discover a good ethos to live by, check out the archetypal stories. One good one is the adventure story and the other one is the romance story.
The adventure story is the myth of the hero, the story Western culture is predicated on, the assumption that humans are not automatons, not clock-driven machines run only along deterministic lines.
This hero constantly confronts a transforming horizon of possibility.
For you personally, each day you confront the possibilities of the day, that vast domain of potential occurrences that you can play some role in determining. You see problems and possibilities that you shape to your advantage, and to the benefit of the people around you.
You do this through your vision as something like a hero in a dragon fight. Under the hero story, the city is threatened by ancient, chaotic forces that used to be under control, but are now unleashed. The hero leaves the city to confront the creature.
Some scoff that dragons are not real but that is not true. It is a predator, an amalgam of the predators that preyed on humans: birds, cats, reptiles, and destructive fire.
The hero emerges out of our ancient consciousness, and moves out into the world to confront chaos and the predator.
We protect our kids and ourselves from predatory animals, people and from the predatory in our own hearts.
The dragon of chaos threatens the civilized city and those that are alert and awake, and holding the highest principles, know that the threat exists, and face it and confront it voluntarily.”
My response: Jordan has done a great job laying out the hero story as a way for a Westerner or American to adopt good values and fight the good fight to maintain or expand the cosmos. If he individuator/hero expands the cosmos, in a small way, he is creating the world, so this hero is an individual, not a group-liver or non-self-actualizer. He creates as does God, his mentor a much greater Individuator and Individual that created the world.
In an odd way, the hero risks all, maybe even his life, for the sake of all, so his self-sacrifice is selfless in a way, but it also what a responsible leader undertakes, acting heroically and decisively and that is in his own best self-interest as well as in the best interest for all the people of the city.
Jordan: “He will leave the city and confront the dragon in its lair for the dragon stores there treasure and virgins.
The treasure s that which most of you need to find to know what is true, to gain knowledge and know how to live. The treasure is lurking where you least want to look. The life message here: by facing things in your life that you least want to deal with, if you can confront and overcome the predator within you, you can get organized and brave enough to conquer the beast within. That is when you learn things about yourself and learn what you did not know.
If larger the treasure, the larger the dragon; you might be eaten, but, if you win, the larger the treasure.
How does the virgin fit in? Women are deeply attracted to men that can take on chaos and prevail, so if can confront the unknown in a visionary manner and shape it into the cosmos that is habitable and good, that makes the hero attractive.
If the hero confronts a giant a version of the corrupt state, the giant is the eternal enemy of human progress.
Organizations become tyrannical and giants need slaying in order for proper order to be established.
The story of confrontation with chaos is very fundamental in the West, especially Christianity. The crucifix itself is a symbol of chaos, of awful state-sponsored torture. The cross is the sum total of all possible vulnerabilities.
Christ takes on all the suffering in his voluntary dying on the cross. We on our cross that we take up: we could be murdered, tortured by the state, innocent but still die on the cross. The cross is the total sum of all possible fears. The cross is a redemptive symbol of all possible fears. Pick up your cross. You are best able to handle all the problems of your life in you confront them before they make themselves known.”
My response: The Christian version of the hero myth seems to be to face chaos and evil as forthrightly as you can, and if you have the courage to anticipate even the worst that could happen to you, you may just have become tough enough and courageous enough to work your way through adversity when it arises, and it will arise.
Jordan: “If you want to be more resilient and less subject to depression, anxiety, or nihilistic thoughts, better able to spring back, envision hard times for yourself, your peer group and even your state. You will be better able to come right through difficulties when they arise.
Face hard times willingly, perhaps even with cheer approaching joy; learn to walk right through it so you can keep your moral compass and sense of optimism in face of what could happen to you. There is no alternative but to face hard times head on, or you, when you do face them, will be shattered, embittered, terrified.
If you fall apart, your suffering will just increase, and you distribute that suffering to the people around you, and that does not work.”
My response: Jordan is wise here. Some suffering, at a minimum, will be felt by everyone. If you cannot absorb the hits and keep on trucking, and you lose it, you suffer more, and hurt the loved ones around you, and that is not what you want. Great points.
Jordan: “The radicalized intellectual types have an answer that to get over it, indulge in radical hedonism and pleasure. The Marxists offer that one should grab power as a solution, but seeking hedonism or power and domination are not the solutions to suffering.
A better alternative is full frontal confrontation with the most dreadful elements of existence. To imitate Christ is to take on the full extent of vulnerable existence—at worst you could experience death, torture, betrayal from friends or a spouse or the state.
You need to realize that there are worse things than death, maybe even pain. Those that suffer from PTSD were not just hurt by life but were touched by malevolence. It is one thing to suffer; it is another thing to suffer at the hands of people trying to do nothing but increase suffering. This is the definition of evil.”
My response: It is very hard to be optimistic and recover after one has been touched by malevolence of those that are just sadistic, or if one has treated others that shabbily.
One way I know my egoist ethics is a kind and noble ethics is the principle that it is not in my self-interest to allow anyone to abuse or enslave me, and I in turn have no right to enslave or abuse another. This principle would do much to reduce unearned suffering in the world.
Jordan: “A person of sense knows that evil exists. Look at the totalitarian killers of the 20th century; their butchery and savagery does not make sense unless evil exists.
You are to confront the existence of malevolence and contend with your own morality. The Christian myth is the deepest hero myth: to confront malevolence itself and moral vulnerability to maximize your resistance, and, oddly enough, foster the deepest levels of hope. Christ was crucified, died, and went to the deepest depths of hell, and that trip is incumbent upon each of us. To be everything you could be, you have to face the worst there is to face.”
My response: Jordan shows great wisdom. We cannot know truth and gain knowledge and wisdom about the world, others, God and ourselves unless we confront the essence of both good and evil and embrace good and fight the evil. To self-realize then, is not just to develop our reason, our creativity, our competence and mastery: it is also to be an great soul, a hero fighting for spiritual and moral goodness, as best we can, and that is how we come to be great and know greatness.
For the rest of the podcast, Jordan is answering seminar attenders’ questions, and I will just run a few highlights of his answers:
Jordan: “If a youngster would thrive, he has to go to the highest level of voluntary confrontation with chaos and malevolence that is possible, and that is where the path to resurrection is the highest treasure.”
My response: Very noble but possibly very dangerous to undertake.
Jordan: “If you tell the truth all the time, what happens is the best thing that can happen, and with your statements, you are fighting evil and lies, and the word of God makes habitable order out of chaos. God uses true speech to add to the cosmos—this is good.
Tell the truth, and that makes the cosmos better, so even if you are punished in the world for truth-speaking, then so be it.”
My response: I sensed that Jordan was hinting that truth-telling all the time pushes back chaos and malevolence, the story of the Lie; when you speak the truth, you add to the world of Cosmos and love, the story of the Truth is the presence of God and goodness. When we lie in the world, we grow evil there, and give the dark powers more clout and range.
Jordan: “We are ignorant so we cannot tell the Truth, but we get better at approximating it over time. We don’t know ultimate truth but can know what is false or wrong or what is true and good even if we can’t articulate it, so lie no more and tell the truth. If you habitually do what is right and speak truth, then your speech will be more precise, and your vision will be clearer. You need to learn to tell the truth and know the truth so at critical junctions, you will make good decisions and not lose everything.”
My response: An excellent paragraph.
Jordan: “Do not pretend to serve God when you are not. Do not thus take the Lord’s name in vain. Tell the whole truth, not cleverly pretending to be truthful, while omitting critically important parts of the explanation to gain an end. That is very offensive to God.”
Jordan: “When Moses encounters the burning bush in the wilderness, and is interested in it, and that is where God reveals his name to Moses, what does that mean?
One thing it means is: Lots of things interest us but they are not free choices. What interests us, picks us. You can decide to pursue it or not or how diligently you will pursue it and really go for it. If you go in deep, you are on sacred ground, and if you go deep enough, the nature of Being will reveal itself to you.
Look at your problem, and find out what interests you. There is meaning there and that is where you should be, there to learn more.”
My response: This last entry is about that interest that could be your vision quest, your life-calling and as you attain it over the years, you will self-realize into living angel status.
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