VPRO With Jordan Peterson

This interview was between Dutch interviewer Emy Koopman and Jordan Peterson, a VPRO doucmentary in 2019. This interview was not conducted to a a stand alone interview; it was conducted for a Dutch documentary about the male/female dynamics in Canada. Within this documentary, we explored how an event like the Torontovan attack coould happen in Canada and how Canadians are tyring to heal from it. More broadly we looked at misogyny and violence against women within Canada and what is it about contemporary feminism that makes some men angry or lots. This interview is 2 hours ll minutes and 54 seconds long. I took notes on the interview, the basis of this blog entry. Emy Koopmam got a PhD in empathy in fiction. Jordan commented that empathy in fiction is mimicry--we mimic others to understand them and thus sympathize with them. The mimicry is physiologically an embodiment not cognitive. Children role-play to mimic adults, and thus learn about gender identification. Childrne must play or cannot make it. Jordan mentioned that he opposed federal bill C-16 in 2016 over compelled speech, mandating certain speech and certain ceonceotualizations about sex and gender not scientific, incoherent,, not logical and an intrusion upon free speech. He was called racist, bigoted, against trans, homophobic, etc. by the noisy, virtual signaling minority. Jordan has a point: the noisy, minority mob bullies the silent majority into surrender, and submission, whereas we schould escape from the grip of this howling mob, by standing up and out for what we believe--fight them back--that is now to defeat them. Jordan helps young people, especially men, to find meaning in responsibility, not in rights, and they are starving to hear that. Young men are not encouraged, and when they try to be competent, powerful and strong, they are accused of being tyrannical, part of the corrupt Western patriarchy. Being competent is not the same as being power-stricken and tyrannical--the latter is mere corruption. If people do not take control of their lives, they end up jaded, cruel, resentful and vicious and that can be appalling. Things here are not perfect, but Westerners are doing pretty good--people share with him their success stories. Emy notes that most of his followers are male, and you seem to tell them that it is okay to be a man. Jordan got impatient and retorted--it is not okay for them to be men, it is necessary for them to be men. He is upset, shouting, what are we going to do without men to keep structure and culture and infrastructure going and in repair. There is no gratitude from the Left, especially pampered professors, for what men sacrifice, especially working class men to keep things going. They keep what breaks working. A good man is proper, honest, forthright to help his family, his community--that is not toxic masculinity--that appalling phrases. Jordan defends the West defiantly, refuting the label that the West is a oppressive, white male patriarchy, angrily rejecting the accusation and lie that it is fundamentally predicated on power. Male bosses and functional organizations and hierarchies run on competence, not power. Most Western male bosses are hard working, conscientious, good mentors to promising young people. I would clarify that Peterson is not an anti-feminist, but he is anti-radical feminist because this claim of that identity group victimization status as oppressed by the capitalist, patriarchal system is but another front, disguise and cover for Marxist revolution once the mask is torn off of it. Our system is slightly patriarchal and a little oppressive, not perfect but our Capitalist, Western system is repsonsible for a dramatic rise in the standard of living around the world--absolute poverty can be erased by 2030, 1/2 decreased from 2000 to 2012, a bloody miracle. Not starving except for politcal reasons, free electronic access everywhere, fresh water and child mortality rates much reduced. By Contrast Communism is a disaster. With individual sovereignty and free market economics people everywhere could be made rich; things are much better everywhere, and there is no gratitude for that either. (I add that 43% of Americans today think some form of socialism is a grand idea.) Emy asks him about male/female relations in Canada and in the West, and due to feminism are man having a hard time of it, and resenting women for it. Jordan responded by saying that it was not clear who was having a rough time, men or women--that is answerable only on an individual level, but he did point out that young men are discouraged from being strong and competent, virile males. Jordan allows that we are doing better but a permicious social viciousness in the last 10 years is feeding polarization. He noted that birth control, the pill, has made a revolutionary impact on the lives of men and women in the last 60 years. Women do not know whom they are, and this role uncertainty destabilized relations between men and women. We lie to young women, telling them career is the most important thing in life, when actually family and friends are more cherished and more important. Career for women is not the fundamental orientation. I would offer that indviduating women can have their cake and eat it too--marriage, children and a strong, virle, coequal partner. It would be difficult but doable. Jordan offers that women want family, husband, not just a career. We need children and grandchildren so not lonely and isolated in our old age. This is not just propaganda from the oppressive hierarchy as radical feminist have lied to young women about, a cruel deception. Emy wants feminism and more or 50% of women in C-suite positions on the top of business and governmental organizations. Jordan angrily shouts that why would women want a C-suite position, and why would a man want it--80 hours a week and no life, no family, no friends or time for friends. A few men (and some women) are healthy, smart, workaholic and healthy enough to work that way. Women by 30 want to have children and a life, and women as bosses would be more humane then men? Really? Most people are happier working for a male boss than a female boss. He denounces the social construction lie that there are no differences between men and women. We are very similar but there are important differences--hormonally, developmentally, morphologically, physiologically, psychologically and tempermentally. Judith Butler, the social constructionist, has zero understanding of biology, and denies that she needs to understand biology. This sweeping dismissal of Butler by Peterson is a big deal for she is a big gun, queer and gender theorist and postructuralist, a darling of the Left. Jordan explains that women care for people and men care about things, and this explains why they go into fields that pay more for men and less for women, and that helps explain the wage gap. Few women are interested in the STEM fields. Freest countries in Scandinavia have the most extreme separation of men and women by fields of choice, and this is a natural bent, not socially constructed. It belies radical feminist claims that men and women are the same. Jordan argues that it is cruel and arrogant to scheme to make boys and girls the same, to degender them. Jordan wants traditional familial structure, but not traditional gender role divisions which Emy accuses him of wanting. He refutes that families of any kind will do and are just as good as traditional binary families. Kids need fathers, married to their mothers, and active in a proper way in the lives of the children. Girls without a father, enter menopause earlier, pregnancy sky rockets, alcoholism and much more mental illness occurs. Boys with no dad incarcerated and chemically dependent at much higher rates. He said we need our young people to have kids, and more than one to perpetuate the rate. The Western low birthrate of 1.2 is sign of a sick society. We in the West lost faith in the divinity of the Virgin Mother and child. Modern women have been more unhappy in the last 60 years. Single children more narcissistic, need a sibling or two to grow up normally, learn how to compete, socialize and play, be social. Jordan wants women to stay home and be mothers, since day care is so expensive. He may be a bit too conservative here, but he raises some good issues. Emy asks if Jordan agreed that where men and women are equal in a relationship, are they not happy? Jordan did not seem to disagree with her but he likely would qualify that remark that men and women should be equal but that is not the same as being the same, that love, cooperation and mutual respect would make them happy. Emy likes equality of outcome, but Jordan would only go for equality of opportunity between men and women, but equality of outcome he condemns wholly, enforced quotas of representation by each identity group as populated in each hierarchy. The problem is this enforced equality of outcome crushes competence drives and expression of the individual's talents and creativity, which is horrible for the individual and for society as the best do not develop and share their gifts with society. Peterson the mistaken snob is for equality of opportunity so that liberty and unfettered ability to do one's own creatively will allow the blossoming of what talent is available, and that talent is in short supply, so society cannot afford to suppress it with ruinous, guaranteed equality of outcomes. Peterson is right about the need for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, but he does not realize like Eric Hoffer that all are loaded with undeveloped talent, and that talent is bountiful and will burst out all over as soon as people individuate and individual-live. He roundly denounces the holy triumvirate of the Left: Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity. Equity is mere equality of outcome. Inclusivity is gibberish and so ill-defined to even mention, but inclusivity is the Leftist concept that male patriarchs, white and heterosexual, need to include all the ther identity groups. He criticizes the concept of Diversity: if people are diverse, how can we enforce equality or sameness of outcomes? I respond that they are diverse, and increasingly so, as individuating anarchists--so equality of outcome would be stunting, cruel and socially and economically disastrous and wasteful. It would increase malevolence and suffering to the utmost. Jordan also points out that if people are not diverse, why worry about enforced equality of outcomes.. Great point. He likes the sovereignty of the individual, and urges each indivdiual to build one's unique competency and this includes women and members of all identity groups--this is why he is not sexist or racist in any serious way. His philosophy of personal responsibility is promoting the liberation of all that will undertake it, regardless of what groups one identifies with, and the Left smear him as an alt-right extremist, which is vicious slander and libel. Emy counters that ther is also the Red Pill Society that is an anti-feminist backlash, evidence that men are angry at the liberation of women.Emy obviously believes the men in the Red Pill Society are misogynistic, asserting male rights and potentially fascist and scary, but Jordan scoffs at that as a media piece of paranoia. Adolescents in the Red Pill Society online may just be reacting to radical social justice warriors polarizing society. These Leftist totalists have no one's best interest in mind. The Red Pill society does not even exist (It is but a very few members like the handful of white racists and white supremacists that the Left are eager to claim that all conservatives are, a rising mass movement of fascists that does not exist either.) Red Pill does not exist, claims Jordan, it is but adolescents making the gullible, hysterical Leftist press swallow their memes whole, and did the manipulation with incredible ease and effectiveness. Emy challenges Jordan to show who are these allegedly dangerous social justice warriors that he goes on about. He responds: professors, lawyers, HR specialists, mainstream media. These hardcore radicals are only 7% of the population but theare concentrated in certain fields. Jordan worries that the provincial and federal government in Canada have swallowed whole the entire social justice movement based on inclusivity, diversity and equity or equality of outcome. The Trudeau government staff is 50% women even though 27% of Canadian women voted, so that quota requirement hires on the basis of genitalia not competence and merit, and Jordan ecoriates this injustice promoting based on power not competence and responsibility. These women promoted into government not based on merit should feel ashamed of themselves for taking a position deserved by others more competent than them. I am no expert on Jordan Peterson, but, if women, liberals and Leftists are being fair to him, really listening to what he repeatedly postulates, it becomes clear that he is not sexist, racist or homophobic. Rather he opposes not the members of these identity groups per se, he opposite the use of these identity groups as the victims or oppressed sections of society rumored to be held back and held down by a corrupt, rotten white, male, capitalist patriarchy. These members of these identity groups are victimized, but it is not by white, male capitalists that are mostly egalitarian and just; rather these identity groups are useful idiots used by socialist ideologues to advance their totalitarian agenda. If the revolution against whites, democracy, capitalism and the West is victorious, and it could happen, these minorities groups will be as oppressed and attacked and suffer in poverty as much as any other group of citizens. The Left uses them but will discard them as soon as the take over of society is complete. This is what Jordan implies and that is why he is angry at Emy. She and other Leftists are being used by their puppet masters, or they are part of the ruling elite of puppet masters manipulating these members of mentioned identity groups for the sake of revolutionizing society. Marxists are totally cynical: they regard all hierarchies as inherently corrupt and dominated by power-grabbing and power-keeping by those in charge at the top. Hierarchies are not base don competence and sacrifice to help society, as bosses do in the West in free market economies. Emy then brought up the social justice warrior claim that the Canadian establishment is guilty of colonialism, genocide, racism and exploitation of indigenous peoples across Canada. Jordan is furious at this false compassion and reckless, baseless accusation. Indians on reserves live in isolated areas with no jobs jobs, frozen, nothing to do, and no future so drugs, alcoholism and disease and broken lives is a train wreck but it is complicated, not a design by the patriarchy to wipe out Indians. Jordan lambastes the Marxists for fomenting division, rivalry, disunity, even stoking fires of hatred and violence with their dangeorus tribalist dualisms being brought back to life. To take favored indentity groups and to stoke resentment in their hearts is to lead to civil war. Marxists are responsible for 150 million deaths, so no one should listen to these fanatical butchers and murderers any more. Amen to that I say. Jordan goes on: compelled speech in federal legislation is the loss of a free society. Every structure is based on power. He asks the Leftists: if you are obsessed with power and economic causes, what is your motivation. Are you seeking to unite absolute power and absolute ownership of economic resources under your command. Is that not your plan? (I know it is the Marxist plan, though they would flatly disavow such ambitions.) Ideologues do not like to think, but they like to think they are right. They are not right and things are more complicated than they make them out to be. Well said, Jordan. They sit in their coteries and pat themselves on their backs with their universalistic solutions to very complex problems, and have done nothing to improve the world. They have improved nothing. Leftists regard history as a battle between the haves and the have-nots, and now it is repackaged as identity group politics but still a power struggle. If a members of society is a member of ten identity groups, and 8 are defined as oppressed, and two are defined as oppresor, once the Marxist government takes over, the citizens with any oppressor group membership will be purged, gulaged or murdered to further purigy who is worthy of surviving as a comrade. One can never be pure enough to survive if one has any oppressor affiliation. This is madness, cruelty and viciousness of the highest order. This is what the Soviets did. These collectivists preach that the group is the fundamental hallmark of human existence, and one's identity is the group or groups thatone belongs to. Marxism yields nothing but totalitiarianism, tribal warfare of one tribe against another, suffering, want, starvation, the collapse of civilization into anarchy and lawlessness, quarrels based in resentment, rage, hate. It is a retrogressive movemement, malevolent and hurtful. By contrast the West champions the sovereign individual. If the intersectionalists would logically follow through on the fact that each individual is a member of 10 to 25 identity groups, then they would accept that true diversity can only be expressed and rewarded in the individual. Marxism is toxic, this group against and winning over that group, always a struggle for power. Emy switches subjects criticizing Jordan for mentioning in his book that feminism is chaos (inferior) and that young men should help themselves out of chaos by bringing order and method into their lives. Order is good and masculine and chaos is bad and feminine. Jordan disagreed vehemently; he wrote that chaos is symbolically feminine and that order is symbolically masculine, not respecitively literally women and men, and that is not the same thing. He noted that his idea for this comes out of Eastern philosophy and that idea is thousands of years old, for under the Tao chaos seems feminine and order is masculine. Jordan;s concept of spiritual, ethicial and ontological moderation shows here as he had actually advised that the good, responsible human is like tehe Taoist with masculine or order as part of his living and chaos or feminine as part of his balanced life. He is a bit more ordered than chaoitc, but he is both, not either or, for it is the extremes that turn evil. Extremes are evil and groupist, and the middle is individual and good. Jordan denies it but the Eastern and his conception that chaos is bad and feminine and order is male and good is how it is in reality. Women are a bit more evil than men because they are naturally more groupist, extreme, selfless and emotional than men. Men are a bit more rational, individual, moderate, and self-interested than are women. This I have asserted for 30 years but no one reads me anyway, but that is ontological reality. I speak this truth, and will not back away from it, and Jordan does not want to admit the truth openly, probably because he has not quite processed it as I have, and he does not want all of cosmos rained down upon his head in a hail storm of anger and outrage from the mob of howling woke thugs. Jordan the moderate tries to reassure woke Emy that the West is not a male, corrupt patriarchy, pointing to the Bible where 3500 years ago it was written in the Old Testament that both men and wome were instilled from birth with a divine spark from Jehovah, making each of them worthy and eligible to enter heaven, and that is pure equality. Both genders were made in God's image, and out of this grew individual rights. The state cannot impose its purview past a certain limit--we thus have free society not dictatorship under a patriarchal oppressor. In conclusion, I reagrd Jordan Peterson as brilliant, wise, conservative, a truth-teller and a good prophet good for humans and for humanity. We could do worse than follow his recommendations. This 2 hour or so interview did not give me new insights into him so much as it is long enough for him to lay out his worldview and his ethos in its entirety, and that is helpful.