https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=w5SQ_CtdSwQ
a commitment to the unit of two parents in the house with a commitment to their children first. The idea that, you know what, I will take care of my family first before I worry about the starving child in the middle of the Congo. Not to say that there’s something wrong with going and helping the starving child in the middle of the Congo, but to say that there’s an ordering, I am a self, that that means something. I work hard and create something in the world and I am proud of that and I am an individual agent. Not riding some tectonic plate of group identity, but there’s only ever one you, Dr. Peterson. There’s only ever one me. There’s only ever one anyone. And that there’s inherent value as the individual. The same thing I’ll say is that my first commitments are to my family. The children who I brought into this world, the wife with whom I am raising those children, the parents who brought me into this world. Those are my commitments. And then around that, I have commitments as a citizen to this nation that I will go and visit the South side of Chicago or Kensington in the middle of Philadelphia before I go take pictures with some child in Myanmar so I can post it on my social media account and feel better about myself. I’ll get to Myanmar later. I’ll get to the Congo later, but I’m a citizen of this nation and that that means something to me too. So I take care of myself throughout my own hard work and dedication. I take care of my family. I take care of my nation that I’m proud of these things. That I believe that we’re a nation under God. And then yes, as human beings, we are all equal in the eyes of each other because in the Christian tradition or Judeo-Christian tradition, you’ll say, we’re made in the image of God. I’m raised in a Hindu household. We say it’s that God resides in each of us, but whatever formulation it is, that there is a higher power. And then once we’ve taken care of all of that, then we can get to Ethiopia or South Africa or Myanmar or wherever else one might go. But I think what we see right now is a substitution of that effect, right? Intensely worried about the climate apocalypse or intensely worried about some fringe problem that doesn’t affect your own community or your family or your nation at home as a substitute for the actual things that in a time-tested way ground us as human beings. And so I’m still scratching the surface, but at least gives you a taste of how I view that future. Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time assessing the book of Exodus, right? And part of what the book of Exodus does is lay out a psychological and social alternative to tyranny and chaos. And chaos is the desert in the Israelite sojourn. And so you could imagine two extremes of misgovernment. One would be tyrannical order and the other would be desert chaos. And the alternative that’s put forward in that book is an alternative that the Catholics in particular have referred to as subsidiarity. And it’s the notion of a hierarchical identity that’s both individual and social. And it very much parallels what you’re describing as the essence of identity itself. Now you see a craving for this on the left because the leftists tend to prioritize hedonic impulse, as sort of the grounds of individual subjectivity. And then in response to the lack that produces, they leap to global identity solutions. And that would be ethnicity, race, or maybe the, okay. But what would be appropriate, exactly. The appropriate alternative to that is, I think historically speaking, the subsidiary structure that you’re laying out. So you could say, well, first and foremost, you’re responsible for yourself. You have to take care of yourself. And that’s a duty and an obligation, but also a source of meaning, right? Of meaningful strides. And if you can manage that, well then you can embed yourself within a couple. And that’s another place you can derive meaning and identity. And if the two of you can organize yourselves half ways intelligently as a mutually sacrificial couple, because you’re sacrificing your short-term impulses to her wellbeing and vice versa, and counseling each other to do the same for yourselves, well then maybe you can establish a family. And that’s your next level of responsibility. And then maybe a community or a business enterprise, and then maybe a town, and then maybe a city or a state, and then maybe a nation. And then you said, you know, that has to be nested under God. And that is, like that’s one of the pillars of Catholic social doctrine, one of the three pillars, that notion of subsidiarity. And I think it is the time-tested alternative to, you know, the time-tested alternative top-down Tower of Babel, statist centralism, and the absolute inchoate chaos of the fragmented identity that we see unfolding in the world now. And I think that’s why this message of responsibility, by the way, is echoing so deeply with young people, particularly with young men, because meaning is to be found in that subsidiary hierarchy of responsibility, right? And it’s also ethical, and you implied this. It’s also ethical, oddly enough, to focus your attention first on what’s local to you, right? Take care of yourself first, then take care of your wife. It doesn’t mean other people aren’t important, but it means that you have a hierarchy of responsibility and that you should take care of what’s local and immediate before you dare or deign to presume that you’re capable of doing something that’s more abstract. And I know people understand this. That’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right, it’s intuitive. It’s woven into our nature as man. And I think that we are in some ways running contrary to our nature as man, which leaves a vacuum in its wake that leaves us lost like the Israelites were in the Book of Exodus. And I think that that’s where we are in our modern American landscape. And so I think that there’s a very practical component of how we revive that worldview. I think there’s an attitude where the things that I’m talking about, individual, family, nation, God, these are needless to say not novel concepts. They sound novel to some when I say them now, to many, to most. And that shows you how dislocated we are right now from even the proper ordering of a society. You don’t have to take a Judeo-Christian worldview. Take Aristotle, he said the same thing, basically. You go to the Hindu scriptures in ancient India, they say the same thing, right? So this is time-tested transnational, trans-historical stuff, okay, truths. Now, the reality is I think that there’s a sort of squeamishness, prudishness that make us feel in the modern American moment like we’re hearkening back to something. Those are antiquated values. They’re not cool. They’re not the stuff of progress. I think that’s a uniquely postmodern attitude. And I think one that many, especially millennials, Gen Z actually might actually come back to it because they’re so starved, but millennials, my generation, feel like that was like not cool. And certainly if there’s a boomer preaching to us as such, or a Gen X are preaching to us as such, I think that there’s a reluctance, almost a contrarian impulse, equal and opposite reaction in the other direction, a sort of natural rebellion to it. This goes back to also the special set of attributes in this unique moment to get this done. This is my responsibility to make faith, family, patriotism, hard work, to make these values cool actually for the next generation, to the way we live by those values. The example that I wanna set living in the White House, I’m not some old foggy from a past generation preaching how it used to be. I’m talking about this on the campaign trail, certainly in the way that it can be. This is a progressive vision as I cast it because of how far we’ve come. This now becomes the stuff of progress, not regress. And I think that, I know that’s framing, and you could just say that’s just marketing, but there’s some element of marketing to the job, to get this done. Human beings have to come along. There’s some element of marketing to every job. Yeah, and I think that’s okay. I don’t chafe at that. I accept it. I embrace it. Let’s accept that. Part of the job of the next US president is to be a successful marketer for the values, as long as you’re marketing something that’s good for you, that’s grounded in truth, that’s good for the nation. There’s no shame in that. But I think that as a young person, as a guy who’s still, actually, this month I’m turning 38, but as a guy who’s still 37, I think that there’s no shame in that. I am openly saying it. Many young people will hear me say this, and that’s okay. They can be in on the marketing campaign to say that, yes, I’m marketing to you guys, but I’m marketing something that’s true. These values are cool. They are meaningful. They are different. They are, today, heterodox. You want to stick it to the man? You want to be a hippie? You want to be heterodox? You want to be counter-cultural? Say you want to get married in a heterosexual relationship and bring kids into this world and teach them to believe in God and be patriotic and pledge allegiance to the flag. That’s pretty heterodox today. Put up the US flag instead of the trans flag in the month of June in front of your house. Yeah, that actually is pretty heterodox today.