Jordan Peterson on Patriarchial Tyranny Joe Rogan

You know, when I, well, I've seen this in debates that I've had publicly where people, you know, talk about prejudice and I've pointed out to them that they have prejudicial attitudes with regards to their sexual preferences because they don't just sleep with anyone who asks them. Right. So it's like, well, how's that not a prejudice? Well, of course it's a prejudice. Well then the question is, under what circumstances are prejudices justifiable? And that's a conversation we don't like to have because we believe that there are no circumstances whatsoever under which prejudices are acceptable. There's a big difference between prejudices and discrimination. I think those two get conflated. Yes, there is a big difference between prejudice and discrimination. Right. And hopefully discrimination has to do with setting your standards in relationship to the task at hand. Yes. That's what you'd hope for. That's the appropriate form of discrimination. That's like intelligence. Sure. Everything isn't the same about everything all the time. So you discriminate, you rank order things and you need to rank order them even to pursue things that are valuable. This is one of the problems with the people who are so anti-hierarchy like the radical leftists. Well, there shouldn't be hierarchies. It's like, okay, then why do something? Well, that argument is so foolhardy that it's difficult to take seriously, but you do have to engage in it. And I think when you engage in it, it's really fascinating to watch because it's like you're playing a game of chess with someone who only has a couple of pieces. They have this strong move that they do, but you've got all these other pieces and you're like, well, let's just keep this game going until this comes to this logical conclusion, which is checkmate. There's hierarchies all throughout nature. It doesn't mean people should suppress people. It doesn't mean people shouldn't have rights. It doesn't mean people should enforce themselves or force themselves on other folks. That's not what it means. It also doesn't mean that the hierarchies, especially if they're human hierarchies, are good. Well, or that they're only, that's right, not that they're good necessarily, or that they're predicated on power. Like one of the most pathological elements of the postmodern types, especially people like Foucault, is their insistence that all hierarchical structures are predicated on power and that there's nothing other than power. And that's completely preposterous. I mean, I use examples of plumbers in my lectures more recently because it's rather comical. It's like, well, on what basis do you hire a plumber? So imagine that there's a hierarchy of plumbers ranging from very successful to very unsuccessful. Okay. And you say, well, what makes plumbers successful? Well, the power theory would imply that there are roving bands of mauphyocial plumbers who like compounding on your door at three in the morning and tell you that if you don't get their particular posse to fix your pipes leaking or not, that they're going to come and burn down your house. Of course, that's completely, it's completely absurd. When you go to hire someone like a plumber, well, the first thing you want to know is reputation. Can they actually fix a pipe because you actually want your pipe fixed and then you want to know, well, do they deal with you fairly? And part of what's tangled up in that in all likelihood is do they deal with their employees fairly because that's going to make their business function properly. And so the hierarchy of plumbers, which is part of the patriarchal tyranny, is almost entirely predicated on competence. And almost every enterprise in the West is like that because I keep wondering, well, where the hell is this patriarchal tyranny? Like is it massage therapists? Is it nurses? Like most nurses are female. If you get females organized into a hierarchy, which you do in nursing, is that all of a sudden, is that part of the patriarchal tyranny? Or is it the fact that now all those people are women? Does that mean it's no longer, well, it's still a hierarchy. Is it no longer a tyranny? Is it no longer patriarchal? Is it patriarchal only because there's men in it? Or is it patriarchal because it's a hierarchy? All of this stuff is so incoherent that it just, all you have to do is think about it and that hasn't been done to any great degree and it just dissolves in your hands. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Is that if you're entering into a job straight out of college, you leave university and now you're entering into your first year in the workplace, it's just a natural fact of life that there's going to be people that are further ahead in this race than you. Yeah, because they're better at what they do. Some of them because... They're better at it, they have more experience, they have more education. Yeah, and some of them are more crooked and sneaky too, you know? Sure, that's possible as well. But it's the agreeing, everyone agreeing that this is a game. Yes. This is some sort of a competition. Yes. And you're going to have hierarchies in competitions. Yes. You're going to have people who win, you're going to have people who do better. Yes. No matter what the... So that's the fundamental issue. So we could look at it this way. As soon as you... Let's assume people have problems. Everybody can agree on that. And then we could assume that people would like solutions to those problems. So we could agree on that. Then we could say, well, then if you implement a solution socially, so with other people, then you're going to cooperate and compete in relationship to the solution. And that's instantly going to produce a hierarchy. Because no matter what the problem is, some people are going to be better at solving it than others. And then if you have any sense, you put the people who are good at solving it at the forefront. Because then they solve it faster and cheaper and better. And then everybody benefits. Right. But then you get a hierarchy. Right. The people who solve those problems get financial incentive to solve those problems. Yes. And they do that because the rest of us are greedy and desperate. It's like, we want the people who are good at solving the problems to keep solving them. And so what we're trying to do is to reward them so that they'll keep doing it even if it's difficult. Yes. And then you can help them extraordinarily. If necessary. Yes. And then when you look at the people that are the head of giant industry, the CEOs of super successful companies, they're the ones who have the giant yachts and the big houses. And this is the incentive for people to try to get to that position. And the idea that there's no incentive and that there should be no incentive, but yet you're still going to have all this innovation is ridiculous. It's not how it works. It's not how human beings work. If human beings are going to work really hard, there has to be some sort of a reward. And it can't be an equal reward. Yes. You could say like, so, okay, so the right, that would be roughly speaking a conservative position. And then you can take a left wing position that's reasonable and you can say, yes, there are hierarchies, but we have to stay awake because they can degenerate into power hungry tyranny so that it's no longer competence. It's political machination and game playing and tyranny that produce the positional differentiation. So we got to stay awake to that. And so we got to criticize the hierarchies, not the fact of hierarchy, but the structure of hierarchy. So they stay honest. And then we also have to be careful because when you do set up a hierarchy, then a lot of people collect at the bottom. That's the necessary consequence of a few people collecting at the top. And so then you have to be concerned about those people at the bottom. And so there's a variety of things that you would do to express that concern is one, you might want to have a lot of hierarchies so that people have different talents could play different games. And a complex society is pretty good at that. But you're still going to have people who stack up at the bottom of all hierarchies, right? And those are going to be people who are sick mentally and physically, and maybe people who are cognitively impaired or, you know, or experienced some kind of catastrophe in their life. And then you want to set up your system so that those people don't suffer unduly, partly because that's bad and partly because that destabilizes your whole society. And so you could say, well, that's the left's place is to speak for the speak on behalf of the unjustly dispossessed. And the right's position is to stabilize and maintain functional hierarchies. And encourage competition. And encourage competition that's of benefit to the whole. Yes. And to the individuals within the competition. And then the political dialogue is a continual discussion between the left and the right saying, well, you know, this hierarchy is getting a little too steep and a little too rigid and, and, and, and well, and that's for me, that's also the, the, the fundamental reason for the necessity of free speech is because. That's the only way to discuss this. It is the only, it's the only way of working it out. And it is the case. You need, you're going to produce hierarchies. If you're going to pursue things of value socially, you're going to produce hierarchies and they're necessary. And it's also, I have a giant issue with the concept that these things are mutually exclusive, that you can't have competition and also have a good social environment. I think that's ridiculous. That's a preposterous idea. I mean, one of the things I really like about the psychologist Jean Piaget, who's, who I would say the world's foremost expert on games is that he did a very careful analysis of say competitive games. Okay. So let's take hockey or soccer. Doesn't matter. Same example. Okay. You say, well, cause people now they, they have kids play these games and don't keep score, which of course the kids keep score cause they're not stupid like the adults, but you know, while we can't have it be competitive. Okay. So let's take it apart. It's like, well, is hockey a competitive game or a cooperative game? Okay. Well, so first of all, everyone's trying to do the same thing. That's cooperative. It's not like half the people are playing chess and another, you know, a third of them brought a basketball and two of them are boxing in a court. Well, sometimes they do in hockey, boxing in a corner, but everyone's trying to do the same thing. So that's cooperative. Okay. So the team plays their position. That's cooperative. They all follow the same rules. That's cooperative. Right? So, so there's competition, but it's nested inside a fundamental structure of cooperation. And the cooperation is the cooperation is the basis of the game itself. Let's all arbitrarily agree that it's important to put this black disc in the net, which is to get your aim right. And then let's cooperate within our teams to do that because we're going to pass and we're going to pass to each other. And we're also going to work so that each of us is a good player, but so that we all work for the betterment of our team because we want to win games across multiple games. So that's also cooperative. And then you want to interact with your enemies, let's say the other team in a way that's indicative of good sportsmanship so that the entire league can flourish. And to think of that as competitive is absolutely, it's so, there's no other way of describing it than stupid. That's what it is. It's a, it's a, it's an ignorant unidimensional analysis. It's put forward by someone who's reflexively opposed to anything that smacks of competition and who isn't thinking it through at all. They're denying the benefits of competition and the fact that they reap those very benefits of competition by enjoying the products that are created by these corporations. Yes. It's very hypocritical. And well, well that's for sure. That's called a performative contradiction. It's like, well, I'd like to, I like to complain about left wing issues on my iPhone. Right. Exactly. You know, it's like, well, yeah, fair enough. But you know, you should have a little gratitude for the fact that you've got your iPhone to complain about. And those, and those organizations, those corporations are unbelievably competitive. And they fall apart almost instantly when that competition starts, stops being a, an issue because then there's no constraint on the behavior of the behavior of the system. So yes. And you know, the, the issue with men, I think with young men, and this is one of the things I've been trying to address is that if your fundamental presupposition is that our culture is a patriarchal tyranny, which is an appalling presupposition, along with the idea that the best way of looking at history is that it, it was the oppression, the continual oppression of women by men, which is also something that I regard as absolutely reprehensible doctrine then. Okay. So it's a patriarchal tyranny. That in their defense that did exist, there has been continual oppression of women. It's just not the only thing that's happened. Well, there's been women that have been revered. There's been women that have been celebrated. There's been women that have accomplished great things, but there's been a lot of oppression. So if they concentrate primarily on that oppression, and that's their main point of study, and that's the thing they want to talk about all the time, they kind of have a point in the fact that if you're looking at all the events that have ever taken place, there's a significant number of them that have been women being oppressed. Yeah, but I don't know if there's more women who've been oppressed than men who've been oppressed. That's a very good point. So I would say that the entire history of, I mean, you look at it this way, is that we oppress ourselves personally with our own malevolence and stupidity. And then we're all oppressed by the kind of the crushing hand of the social world that molds us in one way and not in another. And then of course, nature is doing her best all the time to give birth to us, but also to kill us and take us out. And so there's this endless, like, there's this endless, what would you call it, vulnerability that characterizes our existence psychologically and socially and naturally. And I would say 150 years ago, that was even more intense than it was now, you know, because the typical person in the West lived on less than a dollar a day before 1895. And so the way I think that we should view the history of the world is that men and women labored under virtually impossible conditions for the entire bulk of human evolution. And they did their best to cooperate and to compete, but to cooperate so that they had some modicum, some possibility of a modicum of security and satisfaction, and that that's the right framework. And then within that, of course, there's power games that are played by people who are corrupt. Yeah, within that there's horrible events, terrible things that have taken place. But there's a massive amount of hypocritical thinking when you are criticizing the actions of so many people and talking about how many people are complicit in these things while you're carrying around a phone that's made by someone who gets a dollar a day. I was talking to a journalist in Slovenia who is a lefty and not a very sophisticated one. And she was talking about the 1%. And I said, well, do you know that if you make more than $32,000 a year that you're part of the 1%? She said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, that's the worldwide statistic. It's like, so you're part of the 1%. First of all, she said, well, I don't believe that statistic. And I thought, well, that's fine. You can go look it up yourself. But what was so interesting was that for her, that characterization, the 1% victimizers was only relevant within the confines of her national border. Right. Right. As soon as I said, well, no, all you have to do is expand that out a little bit and you're the problem and not the solution, then that was completely untenable for her. Exactly. She would herself in the population of victimizers, even though she lives in a Western country and she's a well-paid journalist and she lives a very privileged life, so to speak, by historical and world standards. In comparison to someone living in the Congo or something. Well, or anybody living anywhere in the entire history of the human race. Up until that, yeah, for sure. If you make $34,000 today, you absolutely are in the top 1% of everybody who's ever lived ever. Oh, definitely. Well, of course. Of course. Yes, yes, definitely. The only reason I deny that is because it doesn't fit what you've come into the argument with. Right. It doesn't fit your pre-disposed notion that you have, though your idea that it's so rigid, this idea that you are not one of the ones that's depressing. That's right. That's exactly it. Even though you're carrying that iPhone with that laptop and all these different things that you enjoy that are created by these corporations that you support them financially, but yet they're the ones that are destroying this earth. These are the ones that you're rallying against. These are the ones that you hate against. Yeah, well, the victim-victimizer narrative only works if you assume that you're a victim. Right. And as soon as you assume that you're a victimizer, well, then it's not so much fun. One of the things I wrote the forward for the new version of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, the abridged version, it came out November 1st.