https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=4XMdT2cF-ZM
Hi everyone. I’m in Australia and New Zealand, off to New Zealand in the next couple of days, and I thought I’d bring you up to date with a story that’s been breaking there that’s of some substantial interest and a certain degree of absurdity. A group there known as Auckland Peace Action released a press release on Monday, 11th of February 2019, stating, quote, Jordan Peterson threatens everything of value in our society, which I had to admit was rather impressive because that’s not an easy thing to manage. Anyways, I’ll read you a little bit of it. What happened after the release was that a journalist, Sean Plunkett, interviewed the author or the spokesperson of this particular press release, and then we had a chance to talk the next day. And so what you’re going to see in this video is me reading the press release, then you’re going to see Sean interviewing Iris Krizosciak. I hope I’ve got that reasonably right, of Auckland Peace Action, and then you’re going to see the full interview that I had with Sean the next day. So here goes. Jordan Peterson threatens everything of value in our society. In the lead up to Jordan Peterson’s visit to New Zealand, we have a duty to condemn his sexist, queerphobic, racist and deeply reactionary views, says Iris Krizosciak of Auckland Peace Action. Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, turned right-wing media celebrity, is in New Zealand to promote his book, 12 Rules for Life. This book, while offering superficially useful life advice to an audience of disaffected white men, promotes a reactionary misogynistic view of the world utterly in opposition to New Zealand values. While we as a country have many problems, we can be justly proud of our values of gender equality, egalitarianism and social inclusivity, says Ms Krizosciak. Jordan Peterson is actively trying to undermine these values. This is distinctly unhelpful. I won’t read you the rest of it. You can find it at Scoop Politics if you’re interested. And now we’ll turn to Sean’s interview with Iris and his analysis of her claims. So Iris, your group has come out with a press release yesterday that got some coverage saying Jordan Peterson threatens everything of value in our society. Why? Why does telling kids to clean their room up represent the end of civilisation as we know it? What I would say as such is that telling kids to clean their room is probably not a bad thing. The issue comes with that as, you know, pretty far from all that Jordan Peterson is doing. Not really. That’s what his book’s about. That’s what he’s promoting on his tour. Isn’t it? I would say not if you can, like, I mean, if you take a look at some of what’s actually said in the book and many of the media comments he has made elsewhere, it seems quite clear that he has some seriously problematic views. Name one. Okay, so let’s see. Let’s begin with the kind of, so his interview with Camille Pellier, wherein he effectively has said that, well, you know, he believes that in discussions with men he knows how to, you know, he knows where he stands more or less because, kind of, I guess, his honour or something is backed by the threat of physical force. His argument is that men can put, men are better at putting barriers around social interaction between each other because there is the implicit and underlying reality that if things get out of control when men have a conversation there is the possibility of physical violence. And he says that subconscious check on how far or how, if you like, bitchy, a conversation can get is tempered by that knowledge. I don’t see, does that very suggestion or idea, which I know a lot of people agree with, does that threaten Western civilisation and the very foundations and everything of value in our society? Well, I’m not going to speak about, I won’t speak about Western civilisation and, you know, whether that concept even makes sense. But if you consider something like, say, I mean, consider basically how that kind of statement is going to be read. I think it’s going to be read by men saying, yeah, we need to think about, you know, the differences, the biological and, I guess, behavioural differences between sexes. And we need to talk about these things honestly and openly if we’re going to make progress on some of the issues of gender in our society. Alright, but on the cultural milieu where, frankly, homosexuals are still getting beaten up, we have ridiculous rates of domestic partner violence. Frankly, in the last few months… So just want to check, has Jordan Peterson, to your knowledge, ever beaten his wife or beaten up a homosexual? No. Has he ever advocated people beat their wives or beat homosexuals? I don’t believe he has. No, I could say that would be a no, right. Can I please, could I please continue? Yeah. So, the fact of the matter is that Jordan Peterson has a large platform, there are many people paying attention to him, and if you’re making statements in such a situation, it is vitally important that you kind of, that the statements you make cannot be misread in such a way as to promote… Which is, he’s hardly responsible for the misreading of his statements, is he? I would say that, look, everyone has made, you know, everyone has made kind of… if you do it once, yes. If you do it repeatedly… Do what repeatedly? Talk about things you’re interested in in an open and intellectual way, that’s all he does. Or do you think he, maybe, Iris, do you think he should be shut down, do you think his ideas are too dangerous and he shouldn’t be allowed to speak in New Zealand? I don’t believe he should be shut down, hence why we’re not doing this. The issue, however, is that his ideas are, is that his ideas are rather more problematic than I feel you’re giving… Which ideas? Which ones specifically? That you should clean your room, that you should hold your shoulders back, that you should take responsibility for your own life, that people shouldn’t be compelled by governments to use words, particular words in particular circumstances? Okay, the one about particular words in particular circumstances. Yes, I agree that it would be ridiculous if it makes the government to force, you know, effectively to use government, to use the threat of government to force to do that. But, the way the statements are being read in the media, including by some people… Yeah, well he can’t be responsible for the stupidity of people reading his statements, can he? Again, as I’m saying, so do you think that people are not responsible for, do you think that, do you feel that people are never responsible for the effects of the things they say? Well, yeah, no, not particularly, but I’d also say that it would seem to me from my observation of the impact that Jordan Peterson has had on people’s lives that it’s been overwhelmingly positive for a huge number of people, which is why he’s so incredibly popular. I would point out, but you can say the same thing about a lot of fascist movements. They have a very positive effect on the lives of many young people. Are you saying that he’s a fascist? No, I’m not saying that he’s a fascist. Oh, OK, good. I am saying that he is exploiting a lot of the same kind of basic, you know, exploiting society. How’s he exploiting anything? He doesn’t compel anyone to go to his talks, to look at his stuff on YouTube? How’s that exploiting anyone? I’m not saying… I mean exploiting in the terms of he is using the same, like he is using the same basic psychological mechanisms to build his base. Well, what base? He’s just saying what he thinks and people happen to be interested. Are you suggesting he’s running some campaign to destroy the Western world? Hardly. I just think that he is a very responsible man who is making… Well, let’s talk about responsibility, shall we, and your group, Auckland Peace Action. You would like people not to go and see certain films and you’re happy to physically intercede to stop them seeing certain films and in fact your Wellington branch bought fake bombs to create terror in 2018 at a film festival and stop people watching a film about Ben Gurion, right? Is that right, Iris? It’s actually correct, so you’re putting a very negative spin on us. I’m not. I was just saying some facts, mate. I mean, that’s the thing, though. So what do you think is a greater threat to our society, threatening to plant fake bombs in a movie theatre and telling people they can’t go and see a movie because your group doesn’t like it? Do you think that’s a greater threat to our society than Jordan Peterson book out a hall and say, pay some money and come and see me if you want? I mean, I would say that Jordan Peterson is certainly a greater threat to marginalised groups in society. I can tell you that I’ve got… I can tell you that what he is saying about trans people, about queer people, about women… I’ve never seen him say anything negative about women, trans people or queer people. I’ve never seen him be homophobic, transphobic or misogynistic. And I believe me, I’ve watched a lot of what Jordan Peterson says and does. I’ve never once anywhere seen him be misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic. Can you point me to an example where he has been? Iris? What do you mean by an example? Like what in this case do you mean by an example? What I am saying is… Well, an example where he in any way is misogynistic, homophobic or transphobic. So you do not feel that effectively saying that women are… So just to be clear, you don’t feel that saying that women wear lipstick to work in order to appear sexually provocative is not… He’s not saying that and he’s never said that. What he said, Iris, is if we need to, if we accept, we’ve got to have some rules. He understands the biology of men and women and he says men need to respect women’s boundaries. And he is always very, very clear about that. But he says if we’re going to have a desexualised workplace, if we’re going to have a set of rules, let’s be very clear about what those rules are. He would argue that makeup, right, that makeup is designed as a sexual display in its pure, in an academic sense. People put on makeup or have traditionally put on makeup as a sexual display. And he said, OK, if we’re going to have workplaces where sex and any sort of sort of interaction of that nature between the genders is off the agenda, maybe we need to think about makeup in the workplace. He is not accusing women. He’s not slut-shaming and he’s not sitting there saying women bring it on themselves. He’s just saying we need to be realistic about what the rules and boundaries are. OK, so a question for you, if you will. So Jordan Peterson is apparently, so Jordan Peterson says things which clearly are, you know, which you clearly feel are not problematic. Well, no, millions of people think is not problematic and millions of people seem to think he’s saying stuff that no one’s had the balls to say for a while. And they’re on board with him. Well, saying stuff that no one’s had the balls to say is really pretty passe. Isn’t it? That’s what I’d say your movement prides itself on doing. Yes, but we aren’t saying it simply to, you know, because no one else has the balls to say it. We say it because we genuinely believe in our political position. And I’m sure that Jordan Peterson genuinely believes in his. And actually, to be honest, they seem more mainstream and less of a threat to society than buying fake bombs to scare people out of going to see a movie in New Zealand. So just out of curiosity, how do you feel about what like what kind of effects do you think that, say, I don’t know, bombing civilians has on society? Because that’s what we’re fundamentally about opposing. OK, are you saying Jordan Peterson bombs civilians? No, I’m not. What I’m saying. Then why, when we’re talking about your press release about Jordan Peterson, would you bring that up? Well, why do you keep on bringing up stuff about, you know? Because it’s your group that put out the press release and it’s your group that bought fake bombs and said that people shouldn’t go and see a movie you didn’t like in a free country. Dear Lord, well. Let me put it this way, if you would. Like, if you’re going to. If you’re judging us by the effects of OK, how to phrase this, I might just be suggesting that your press release is a little bit over the top. Are you prepared to admit that on the back of this interview? No, simply because I’m simply because I’m living kind of on a daily on a fairly regular basis with the effects of the Jordan Peterson talks are having on his fan base. We are getting repeated consistent harassment from rabbit from frankly Jordan from Jordan Peterson fans. How do you know they’re Jordan Peterson fans? Because they say so. So Jordan Peterson is an inciting people to hate on you? Yes, he is inciting people to hate on my movies. Give me an example. OK, so in the wake of a press release, we are frankly an awful lot of. Look, we got an email from. Look, we got an email from a member from frankly what appears to be a white nationalist suggesting that we take a look at this suggesting that we take a look at a whole bunch of, well, frankly, Nazi videos. Yeah, are they Jordan Peterson fans? Yes, they are. No, they are not. OK, so what’s he got to do with that email from the Nazi? Yeah. Well, the fact of the matter is that his fan base are the same fan base but. No, they’re not. I’m part of his fan base. I’m not a Nazi. I don’t. I’m not suggesting that you are. You are. I’m not suggesting that you are. I’m not suggesting that you are. I’m not suggesting that you are. You can’t. You can’t. suggesting that you are, but on the other hand… Well, you’re suggesting anyone who is, does like what he says is a Nazi, and that seems pretty wild. No, what I’m suggesting, what I’m suggesting is that he has created a certain, a certain subset of his fans, which may not be the same subset as you are a part of, in fact I’m pretty sure they aren’t, yes. Yeah, okay, yeah. Is behaving in a, is behaving in frankly quite disgraceful way. Then it is the subset of his fans that represent the threat to everything of value in our society, not Jordan Peterson, right? Right, but you can say… So why didn’t you say that in your press release and say that it was Jordan Peterson who represented the threat to everything of value in our society? Because Jordan Peterson is causing for his fans to coalesce, he is encouraging… No, he’s not, he’s just saying what he thinks. Alright so just out of curiosity, alright, but where do you draw the line as to what, like where do you draw the line as to responsibility for what you’ve said, though? I mean surely you can’t say, look, you can’t say that he holds absolutely no responsibility for the behaviour of people who are effectively, you know, the behaviour of people who listen to him, seduously, and to take… Well I’d be more worried about the consequences of buying a fake bomb to scare someone out of a movie theatre, to be honest, Iris. And I had to start, I think most New Zealanders would as well. Look, I think we can all agree that that action was foolish and that we are not… And as a result of that you’ll notice that we have not done that again. Jordan Peterson on the other hand is only doubling down on his positions… Which all seem to be quite reasonable. …many more resources, a much wider base of support. Are you going to cut protesters’ visits here and try and protest outsiders’ talks? We’ve got any number of better things to be doing. Okay, so you’re going to leave my line? Or are you going to plant fake bombs in the places he’s speaking? Okay, that’s just unfair, frankly. Well, I was just judging you on past behaviours. We’ve done it once, I’ve clearly stated that it was a bad idea and that we don’t intend to repeat it. Okay. Well, Iris, make a closing comment. Look, as far as we’re concerned, the best thing we can do in order to counteract Peterson is to make people aware of what his views are, what he has said and how his fan base behaves. And that’s what we’re doing. And all his views are very reasonable and seem to be having a positive effect on the massive number of people who are his fans. Well, you would say that. Well, because it’s the truth, Iris. I thank you for your time. That’s Iris Krusiak of Oakland Peace Action. So that’s that. The Auckland Peace Action Group did release another press release on the 14th, stating, Auckland Peace Action is issuing a statement to publicly correct the record about a protest action that occurred in Wellington in 2018. This action occurred at the screening of the film Ben Gurion at the Dock Edge Film Festival. Both Auckland Peace Action and our sister organization Peace Action Wellington opposed the showing of this film as it is subject to an international boycott on behalf of Palestinian civil society organizations. At both Wellington and Auckland screenings, the screenings were disrupted by activists with noisemakers and alarms. Subsequently, the Dock Edge director alleged that there was a fake bomb at the Wellington screening and this was reported by New Hub. This was a complete lie. There was never ever any fake bomb of any sort whatsoever. NZ police attended both protests and were fully aware that the items in the theatres were noisemakers, as were the theatre goers. The theatre was not evacuated and no one was arrested. So it appears that, at least as far as Auckland Peace Action is concerned, that Sean overstated the case in that lecture. In any case, the next day I had a chance to talk to him directly and so now we’re going to segue directly into that. First, let’s get the pronouns out of the way. What would you prefer I called you? Professor, doctor, Jordan? Jordan’s fine. Jordan’s fine. I like it that way as well. Jordan, my first question for you and the reaction here in New Zealand to the very idea that you’re coming here or that you’re fronting on this show today. I’ve just got to say, and I’ve watched you for a couple of years, you are one of the most hated people online. Why do you think it is that people hate you? I’m hated by a very small minority of very noisy and committed people. And so they’re noisy and committed and so they can make a lot of racket and they are very good at it and often professionally trained to do so. And they’re very casual with their, what would you call it, epithets. I was listening to you introduce me and you listed off about 20 terrible things that I might be, many of which were contradictory, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference. Well, it seems hilarious. You kind of get, your celebrity gets co-opted from people on all sorts of parts of the political spectrum and extremes of the political spectrum, doesn’t it? Well, I think there’s some of that. I don’t know if it gets co-opted too much on the radical left, let’s say, although I certainly face the majority of my opposition from the radical left. But the radical right types are not very fond of me either. There was a new book written called Dianetics by a rather reprehensible individual named Vaux Day. And if you want to find out what the ethno-nationalists think about me, that’s pretty good read. I wouldn’t call it precisely complimentary. Look on a personal level, and I’m someone who has fallen foul of the vagaries of Twitter pylons, but what’s directed at you is at a whole different level, Jordan. And you’ve admitted, I know that you have, well not struggled, but you admit you’ve had episodes of depression in your life. I know people who have been horribly affected by the most minor pylon on social media. How do you as an individual take or channel that hatred to good? And I imagine it affects your family as well. Well, part of it is that I have a pretty solid family. You know, I have lots of people behind me. My wife is firmly behind me without hesitation. My children are behind me, and they’re smart and mature, and my parents are behind me, and I have a good set of friends. And also generally, I try not to talk about things that I don’t know something about, which also helps. And I’m not impressed with the sorts of ideological positions that have been put forth, especially by the left-wing radical types in the universities. And I understand what they’re doing and why reasonably well. And I feel that whatever vitriol happens to be directed at me is trivial in terms of its danger in comparison to the overwhelming social danger that these ideologies are producing. And so better to do something about it now than to wait. So in a social media world that is dominated by extremism and hatred and vitriol, people I know who have watched you are literally dumbstruck by your ability to remain civil and to engage in debate without getting angry at those who often absolutely lambast you. I think I’ve only seen there was a debate you did with Stephen Fry where an American pastor had a go. And I think I saw some fire there. I think you were genuinely upset, but you seem to have a remarkable ability to play the ball, not the man or woman. Well, that debate, the monk debate that you’re talking about, mostly I was upset about the foolishness. You know, the person I was debating with called me an angry white man, and it just struck me as so so rhetorically foolish and inflammatory and unnecessary. All of those things at the same time. First of all, he was in Canada and not in the United States. And those sorts of statements actually don’t go over very well in Canada. And my race had absolutely nothing to do with what we were talking about. And so it was just the kind of trouble making statement that does nothing but make things worse. And I’m never happy when I see. People behaving in a manner that only makes things worse. And so that that and I felt even it’s a funny thing. I can’t say exactly felt bad for him, but I thought it was so foolish of him to undermine his own credibility in that manner. It was just the sort of performance that removes all patience, you know, a bad rhetorical statement, an unnecessary racist comment, a rhetorical flourish that had nothing but counterproductive consequences, as you can see by the YouTube commentary, added nothing at all that was productive to the debate, didn’t address the issues at hand, was a cheap method of scoring points, a way of playing victim. I mean, it was altogether a second rate performance. And and because he had academic pretensions, was a professor, I have a lot less patience for professors and professional journalists than I do for other people because well, because they’re they’re supposed to. Well, that’s their profession. I thought Stephen Fry was brilliant in that debate. And he started out saying he didn’t agree with a lot of what you said, but he was going to stand next to you and fight your side. And he also said the world would be a much better place if everyone was less convinced of how right they were. Yeah, well, Stephen Fry is really something. It was a pleasure to meet him. And he’s he’s quite the remarkable person. So that was one of the very good things about that evening. We’re going to take a break, Jordan. And then I want to talk to you about an interview I did yesterday. And if that’s typical of the stuff that you get. Yeah, that was quite the interview, man. We’re with Dr. Jordan B Peterson here on Magic Talk, back in just a sec. And we’re with Dr. Jordan B Peterson, cultural phenomenon. And according to Auckland Peace Action, the biggest threat to New Zealand’s way of life and civilization that, oh, I don’t know, we’ve seen since the last earthquake. They came out earlier this week and threw a lot of labels at Dr. Peterson and their spokesman Iris or spokesperson Iris came on with me yesterday, simply so I could ask them to, well, provide the proof of their accusations. I didn’t think he did that well, or they did that well, Jordan. Well, it was quite the remarkable interview. I think that I don’t know how many people have watched it or listened to it, but I suspect quite a few. And it’s no wonder because it was it was a real a feat of journalistic persistence, I would say, on your part. You didn’t let your your interviewee off the hook for a moment. And there wasn’t much content there. There was a lot of exactly the same sort of thing that’s been happening for the last two years. It’s really quite appalling. And that what seems to happen generally in the journalistic sphere, on the negative side for me, is that there’s a list of epithets that are it’s like all the radical leftists have a list of epithets that are sort of at hand. Maybe they have them on a little sticky on their computer. Misogynist, homophobe, Islamophobe, transphobe, bigot, racist. Then there’s often some either Nazi. I don’t forget your cocaine addiction either. Location or that and or there’s Jewish shill, which is another one that comes up now and then. And the idea seems to be that if you don’t agree with what someone says, that you just lay out the longest possible list of pejoratives that your imagination, your collective imagination can generate and hope that one of them is sufficiently true in some sense because of something you once said that it sticks and you’re done. And it’s getting downright dull. I mean, what would you say that it seems to me that liberal journalists throughout the Western world have been lining up to try and take you down? Yeah, well, I mean, I’ve had a fair number of journalists who’ve been supportive of me. Now, whether or not they are on the liberal side, they’re certainly not on the radical left side. Yes, this has been happening pretty much nonstop for two years. And they’re basically out of insults, as far as I can tell, which in some sense disarms them. But they’re actually getting rather dull to read because it’s always the same old thing. Although the person you interviewed yesterday did have a new twist, which was greatest threat to the civilization of New Zealand, which was really quite impressive as far as pejoratives went. All right. So we’ve dealt with Auckland Peace Action. I know you’re in Australia now. Has the, if you like, the virulent opposition to you for whatever reason, is it starting to subside? And I know there haven’t been protesters, I understand, so far in Australia. There was a few in Adelaide, but about 25. And it wasn’t exactly clear what they were protesting. They seemed to be more concerned about homosexual rights, which I don’t really know what that has to do with me, but it had to do with whatever they were interested in protesting. But there was nothing in Melbourne at all, although there was quite a large police presence at the venue. Well, there were a lot of people there. There’s about 5,500 people. But there wasn’t a single protester. And I would say that, yes, overall, the virulence and also the frequency of the hit pieces in the media has declined rather precipitously in the last three or four months. And I think it’s because, well, because it’s become dreadfully repetitious. And because no smoking pistol of any sort has emerged. People have gone over virtually everything I’ve said to students for the last 20 years, because almost all of it is recorded and scoured my Twitter feed and my Facebook and all the social media platforms that are usable and haven’t been able to find anything so far that’s of sufficient reprehensibility to take my reputation out. But the diets are a bit weird, Jordan. Come on. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, it’s not just a bit weird. It’s very weird. But it’s not something I… Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Let’s see. All right. I want to go back two years. And in many ways, I look at you and if I was going to put you in a fable, you’re the guy who said the emperor has no clothes. The emperor of wokeness, of political correctness, of third wave feminism. Did you plan two years ago to be where you are now, a global cultural phenomenon? Was it all part of some clever manipulation of modern social media? Or did you just stand up and say, I’m not going to do this? Well, I mean, I was writing a book and I was hoping it would be successful. So there was that. And I had been experimenting quite substantially with YouTube, putting my lectures from the university on YouTube and some lectures that I had done for a small television show. And they were developing a certain following. So I had about a million views far before the political controversy hit. But no, I mean, there’s no way of predicting what happened. It’s a completely unpredictable phenomenon. But I can say that I said what I felt like saying as carefully as I possibly could. And I pretty much had enough of it. I mean, seriously, I’ve had enough of it. And I’m not happy with the radical leftists. I think the postmodern philosophy is what intellectually vapid, nihilistic, malevolent, destructive, arrogant and narcissistic, impractical as well, all at the same time. I think that what’s happening to the humanities and social sciences is borders on fraudulently criminal if it hasn’t already passed the line. And I’m absolutely no friend whatsoever. A radical leftist utopians. I feel that there’s after 100 years of evidence of complete bloody catastrophe on the side of the radical left, it’s time for us to wake up and notice that something has gone wrong on that end of the spectrum. And I don’t see any responsibility being taken for that at all. I’ve called publicly for the moderate leftist types, whom I have some sympathy for, to draw some lines. It’s like, all right, we know that things can go too far on the left. When exactly? Where is it that you go too far? Now, my sense, it’s with the equity doctrine, which I think is not really emotionally powerful, unfortunately. It doesn’t have that kick that’s necessary to make something really stick in the memory. But I think the idea of equality of outcome is dangerous beyond comprehension. All right. I want to talk about a few things going on in New Zealand, which is, you know, part of the culture war, we’re part of the global community, and we’re connected online. First up, we have a cabinet, the Labour Party, the largest member of our or part of our coalition government, it has a quota, a male female quota for cabinet posts. Yeah, Canada too. Yeah, what do you think of that? I think there’s absolutely no excuse for it. I think that it’s a, you know, the radical leftists are always yammering on about biological essentialism, which they associate with something akin to fascism, you know, the idea that there are mutable biological characteristics that define people. And yet they’re the first people to insist that if you’re going to have a cabinet that is, let’s say, both competent and representative, that you have to divide it according to identity categories and first and foremost, perhaps the ones of sex. And to pick your cabinet by genitalia is not an acceptable technical move. And exactly the same thing happened in Canada, where 25% of our major parties elected officials were female, but 50% of the cabinet members ended up being female. And all that means, what that certainly means is that the lead, the most qualified people were not selected, because it’s statistically impossible for them to have been selected. It was cheap virtue signaling. And, and it’s also technically impossible, even from the perspective of the leftists themselves, with their intersectionality, because they insist that people have to be judged in relationship to their oppression on multiple dimensions simultaneously. And I’ve done some back of the envelope mathematical calculations. And if you have 10 dimensions that mark you out, let’s say, as in terms of your of the group affiliations that characterize you, then you’re the only person like that in the world. So as you multiply, all you have to do is do the math. As you multiply the number of groups that have to be given favored status because of their hypothetically oppressed situation, then you make it increasingly impossible for equality of outcome to even be to be something that can be practically implemented without a bureaucracy of terrifying proportions. We also have a Ministry of Women’s Affairs in New Zealand and the Minister of Women’s Affairs or the Minister for Women as she’s known suggested recently that there were too many white old men on boards in New Zealand of private and public companies, and just suggested that they needed to move aside so there could be more diversity. Your response to that suggestion? Well, what’s her racial and ethnic background just out of curiosity? I think she’s born in America, Julie Anne Genter. She’s a member of our Green Party here. Is she white? Yes. Well, maybe it’s time for her to bloody well move aside and let someone who isn’t white have her position. All right, so I’m taking it you don’t agree with Julie Anne Genter. Well, there’s also look, they’ve tried this in Scandinavia where they put quotas for females on boards and part of the idea was that if you did that, that you would increase the rate at which women would move through managerial and administrative status rankings and that has had zero success. Their suggestion also is Jordan that actually women can somehow up the financial performance of companies. Yeah, sure. That’s so you don’t believe those stats that research? Well, there’s no evidence for that. What elevates the financial productivity of companies is quite clear. Trade conscientiousness, which is a marker for integrity and trustworthiness and diligence and dutifulness, is a very good predictor of long term economic productivity and so is general cognitive ability and that holds across sexes and races and the reason for that and this is the non-racist and non-sexist way of looking at the world, by the way, is that there is far more difference between individuals within groups than there are between groups because look, the fundamental racist, sexist, ethnocentric proposition is that there are more differences between groups of people than there are within groups of people. That’s essentially the racist doctrine and so we need some black people because you know all those black people are the same and unless we have a voice or two from a black person then we don’t have that set of identity issues represented. Well, it’s just simply not the case because most of the diversity comes at the level of individual personality and temperament and the literature on that is crystal clear. You know, these are pseudo-intellectual claims made by people on the radical left and they’re very dangerous because they’re easily shifted into the sorts of things that the radical right likes to enjoy which is, oh I see, there are immutable differences between the sexes and the races and they’re of substantial import and that we need to take them into account when we’re, what would you say, formulating such things as immigration policy. So no, there’s no evidence that those claims are correct and there’s counter evidence for much of it. For example, in Scandinavian, and this is as close to psychological fact as any facts that exist, is that as you increase equality of opportunity, which means you open the doors for more and more people and especially, let’s say, with regards to sex and that’s had a big effect because of course there’s far more women in the workforce than there once was. You increase the degree to which outcomes differ on multiple dimensions and that’s partly, there’s a variety of reasons for that, at least a dozen and they’re all important, one of which is that women, especially once they hit their 30s, prefer to work part-time and that’s not bad or wrong and it’s certainly not an indication of systemic sexism. So the radical types like to have one explanation, everyone isn’t exactly the same with regards to outcome, therefore the system is a corrupt patriarchy. It’s like you can learn that in one minute in a propaganda course in university and then you have an answer for every problem that ever besets you politically for the rest of your life and there’s no excuse for it. It’s appalling scholarship. I want to come back to that point. The other thing Bill, proposed Bill we have before our Parliament, is the idea of sex self-identification to make it easier for people to alter their birth certificates if they choose to identify as anything other than the sex they were born as. Your views on that sort of legislation? Well the first thing I would say it might be useful to address some important problems. That would be the first thing, because you’re dealing with an absolutely tiny minority of people, not that that’s completely without import, but the second thing is it has to be thought through and it’s not. I mean I don’t know if you’ve been following… Oh we’re just having a little hiccup there and we’re talking to Dr Jordan B Peterson who’s joining us from Skype from Sydney. Jordan we were talking about sex self-identification changes or proposed reforms in New Zealand. You said firstly it’s a tiny number of people affected and secondly you say we need to think it through in what way? Well one of the things that’s happened for example, so really what this is is an attempt by a certain ideological movement to put forth the insistence that sex is only a sociological construct, that it’s only something learned and so that it can be changed at whim, which is also a strange thing because if it’s learned it can’t really be changed at whim and also if it’s learned it could be unlearned, which is something that the people who are putting this legislation forward aren’t really thinking through because that opens up the opportunity for people who would like to reform people who would like to change their gender back to say normative behavior because if it’s learned it can be unlearned but more importantly sex roles are not only learned they’re partly learned and there’s plenty of biological differences between men and women and then and many of them aren’t trivial like men and women are more the same than they are different but the differences are quite marked at the extremes and so what we’re seeing partly as a consequence of this now is the movement of say trans women into female sports you saw this in Minnesota just the other day I think it was Minnesota where a newly transitioned trans woman has been shattering the weightlifting records for women’s sport in Minnesota. And indeed we’ve hit this issue here with a Commonwealth Games competitor who was a former male. Yes well it’s absolutely insane you know I mean first the fact that it’s allowed to begin with is beyond comprehension it’s a real sign of cultural insanity and the second is that psychologically it’s almost incomprehensible I can’t imagine how you could be a man who transformed himself into a woman in all the ways that that’s possible and then decided to go compete in a high level sports arena with women who’ve been training their whole lives to hit the peak of their ability and then to absolutely bloody demolish them say after a year of work and then to tout that as some sort of victory for the oppressed it’s completely what’s narcissistic beyond comprehension and it’s it’s it’s well it’s a sign of what happens when you don’t carefully think things through all sorts of unexpected consequences tend to manifest themselves and you see the same thing happening now with rapid onset gender dysphoria and the treatment of very young people with very powerful hormonal and surgical techniques designed to permanently alter their psychophysiological structure and like we’re going to pay for this in a big way in 15 years when these kids grow up and hit adulthood and start tossing out lawsuits as they certainly will and should we’re going to look back and wonder just exactly what the hell was wrong with us so it’s it’s it’s it’s well it’s driven by this ideology that’s been formulated by people like Judith Butler who absolutely insist because they have no biological knowledge whatsoever that all the differences between men and women are socially constructed and it’s just which is absolutely not true true absolutely in general terms Jordan and we have it in this country and indeed everywhere we look at the millennial generation they get a bit of stick here they’re called snowflakes they seem to get outraged not only on their own behalf but on behalf of others at the drop of a hat and they use social media as elsewhere in the world to call out the things they find offensive or that hurt their feelings do you think there is a collective generational psychosis occurring because of social media um i i don’t know if the millennial generation is any less sane than the baby boomers i mean the baby boomers had plenty of trouble and they caused plenty of grief and misery in the 1960s and experimented you know crazily with psychedelic drugs and a wild lifestyle and promiscuous sex and all of those things and i don’t think the millennials are any worse or any better i do think that um there is a small subset of them who are rather dependent and rather narcissistic and who are being encouraged in both of those by reprehensible adults in positions of authority primarily in the universities to make the most of their victimhood feelings and status and i do think that the social media platforms also allow for a disproportionate effect of social effect of people who have extreme views that also in combination with the with the increasing death of the of the standard collective media which is increasingly desperate for attention and so will spend more and more attention paying to people who paying spends more and more time paying attention to people who have extreme views on the right and the left making polarization might be the exception that proves that rule jordan to be honest well it’s it’s possible it’s possible i bet i mean i’ve certainly been represented as an extreme figure and that’s really something that apart from the fact that i’m adamant in my opposition to the radical leftists which is rather rare among intellectuals which brings us yeah rather nicely jordan to what i want to talk about i asked people to call in yesterday and it was remarkable the variety and number of people who sent me messages and rang in and said simply reading your book had changed their life and can i just put a call out if you want to talk to jordan we’ve got quarter an hour 0800 844 747 if you’d like to ask a question or send a message or just say something to jordan you can ring in now 0800 844 747 jordan it also seems to me as much as i see all the hatred against you and the controversy around you online geez there’s a lot of love there and there’s a lot of positivity and you seem to be engaging and smiling and with young people there’s some good stuff happening here isn’t there oh yeah way way more than the like the the the vitriol vitriolic aspect of it is only a sporadic bother to me usually in the aftermath of a particularly difficult interview with a journalist but the tour i mean i’ve been to about 140 cities now around the world and the average audience size is what’s varied between 2500 and 8000 with i would say an average of about 2500 to 3000 and there the events are unbelievably positive so most of the time i’m surrounded by nothing but positive responses and when i go out on the street now wherever i go you know in a typical hour i’ll be stopped by six or seven people they’re usually young men because the media has convinced young women actually gonna say yesterday we had just as many young woman and middle-aged woman and middle-aged men ringing in well that’s good i think that’s changed to some degree because of the book but all of the interactions that i have with people on the street or in airports or so on they’re all incredibly positive people are very polite they come up they’re usually apologetic for interrupting they introduce themselves they tell me that watching my lectures or listening to the audio or reading the book has changed their life they usually tell me a story about what’s changed they have a better job let’s do that in real time um jordan say hello to rachel hello rachel oh kia ora jordan um i’m very nervous to be talking to you um and i’m gonna not very be very good at being precise in my speech i’m gonna keep it very brief and just say um thank you is all i wanted to say um i’m one of the people whose life has been changed immeasurably by your book and your lectures and everything that you stand for has really had massive positive influence on me so i just wanted to tell you how grateful i am so what’s changed it would take a very long time to get into it but i have struggled with mental health issues for the majority of my life since puberty i’m 30 now and i’ve been through every type of treatment counseling therapy medication everything you can think of and you know things have helped me briefly for a little while and got better and got worse again but your book um i guess it’s the adoption of personal responsibility more than anything else and and the more responsibility i take on the more i find i’m able to and the more i’m able to get myself out there and put myself in situations i wouldn’t have normally had the confidence to i’m standing up straighter i’m not that great at keeping my room tidy yet but i’m working on it little things um everything just bit by bit the more i take on the more the bitter it gets yes well that’s a good rule that’s a good rule you know that’s a good psychotherapeutic rule is the more that you take on without overloading yourself you know because you have to be sensible about it the more you find that you have abilities that will manifest themselves that had been hidden up to that point because of fear and avoidance and so more power to you as far as i’m concerned and i’m very glad to hear that what i’ve been doing has been helpful good on you rachel um marie welcome um thank you very much for this opportunity um doctor i was staring into the abyss and now i’m not um i moved through my life now purposefully i consider every action and its reaction i treat myself like i’m someone i care for great it’s it’s been a revelation to me um encountering you i was in a very very very dark place and somehow i found you online i don’t know if it was through dave rubin or or or whether shapiro or or i’m not quite sure how it happened but i’ve seen your lectures i’ve listened to it your maps of meaning your your lectures on genesis um and it’s just been a remarkable turnaround in my life and my family’s life um and i just want to say thank you because hey man i’m thrilled to hear it so do you do you have any sense of what in particular did it like what was it that struck you like i think it was just the purposeful way that you spoke and it was just such plain english it was as you’ve described previously that was some rules are a sort of sort of cliches but they hadn’t been spoken of in a very long time and it was as the previous caller said the personal responsibility the the taking care of oneself and it just struck such a chord it was i knew some of the things that you were saying i’d heard them before but i hadn’t heard them in a very long time my father used to say stand up straight with your shoulders back and and finally there it was again but it was being seen in a different way and it yeah well the thing is you need to know why a that’s that’s the thing and that’s what i tried to do with my lectures and partly because i’m a behavioral psychologist is like we have all these moral rules and and people are told the rules but they’re very seldom given a multi-dimensional explanation of why the rules are necessary you know it’s well you should do it because that’s what people do or that’s because you know that’s what good people do or it’s your responsibility and all those things are true but an explanation of why it’s true and how it’s related to the responsibility that gives your life meaning and also improves the world your family and the community that’s that’s often lacking and so that’s what i was trying to provide and it’s clear and and and in english as clear as i could manage it and so you know it i’ve tried to make it practical and useful for people and i’m really very very happy to hear that it’s worked for you and for your family i’m thrilled to hear it as i always am when i hear a story like that um peter joins us now welcome peter how you doing there uh hello dr peterson hey um hello how are you doing peter very very well hey um have you in a moment of self-reflection had a look back on on this amazing and astounding following you’ve created and and wondered where it’s going to end up because at the risk of sounding oxymoronic you’re probably the closest thing a secular humanist has to a messiah well i’ve i’ve thought about that i wouldn’t say precisely in those terms um i mean one of the things i did learn from studying carl jung years ago was that if you’re going to talk about archetypal stories which i do all the time that you have to be very careful not to confuse yourself with the archetype you know and so i’m i’m i’m very cognizant of the danger of the kind of popularity that i’m experiencing and and i do mean the danger because the higher you fly the faster you can fall and and you have to be very careful to ensure that you’re not increasing the probability of that i try to make sure that i credit other people with many of the ideas that i formulated and and because i’ve learned a lot from reading the great clinicians and and philosophers of the last say 150 years and from my clinical practice and so on and so and i think of this endeavor not as something that i’m doing but as something that we’re all collectively engaged in because i know that you know that there’s an old idea that every person is the center of the world and that the weight of the world for better or worse weighs upon the shoulders of each person and i really believe that’s true and so if you know that then it keeps the egotism and the arrogance down partly out of sheer terror and it makes it much more effective to deal with people like when i’m lecturing in front of an audience i’m not lecturing to them you know i’m lecturing with them talking about problems that we all have including me and aims that we all all need to develop including me and you have to include yourself so to speak among the sinners and the and the reprehensible types in order to communicate with people properly and i do my best to ensure that i’m starkly aware of my shortcomings and faults that every moment i can possibly manage and i have family and friends who also help keep what i’m doing in check and and to make sure that it’s not going sideways in some manner that’s you know where i’m taking things for granted or becoming arrogant or any of that and so so far that’s worked out well and hopefully it will continue to joe welcome to the program oh hi joe thanks for talking with me uh jordan hi joe how are you doing good thank you so i’m a young academic in new zealand and one of the problems well one of the obsessions i would say we have in university is i’m focused on race and gender so i’m i would call i have a centrist position um somewhat liberal minded but what advice would you give a young academic pushing against the what i see is the far left agenda of the universities well the first thing i would say is there are a lot more moderate types of your sort than you think and so if you’re a careful person and you’re thinking things through and you have things to object to you can be sure virtually sure that a majority of people agree with you even though they’re too um cowed let’s say uh to to speak up um i would say get your thoughts in order you know so you know what you stand for and then i would also say don’t agree with anything that you don’t agree with because all that will happen and you’re a young academic all that will happen if you compromise your intellectual soul like increment by increment over the next 10 years is that you will end up alcoholic and bitter hating your job despised by your undergraduates and absolutely sick of your existence and you like you got to keep that really firmly in mind because every time you’re called upon to stand forth for something you believe in it’s a it’s a test of character and courage and it’s easy to put it off because it’s a lot of trouble you know it’s a lot of conflict and you might think oh god do i really have to go through with this i’ve got other things to do and if the answer is well i better stand up for what i believe in now because if i keep letting it go increment by increment for the next 10 years i’m going to end up in a position that that is absolutely dreadful you know you’ll be much older than you need to be and all of the thrill that should be part of teaching young people and doing research and staying on the cutting edge of knowledge all of that will have been taken away by the ideologues who already know everything and insist that they get to regulate what you think and say so they don’t have the small fights one by one. Va you are the lucky last of the callers um Jordan Sbithead. Yes Dr Jordan Peterson you are awesome man i read your book i’ve been following you i’m a student of psychology and philosophy myself i did a degree and i’m doing my post this year and a lot of what you say you know there’s a wee bit of Nietzsche in there and um you know and i totally agree because we live in a society where like for me i often say what i think and i have to moderate that but particularly today in our society when you do that you’re in way more trouble for offending someone or something and i love the fact that you kind of get it out there and i wish that you know i had that opportunity too just to get it out and people can just get over it. One question i was wanting to ask you though i mean i’m a i’m a christian but i studied um Marcus Aurelius and i read his book and a few of those books are you into stoicism? Um not i wouldn’t say specifically lots of people who have been studying stoicism have talked to me and suggested that i should be the overlap i think is that the stoic virtues have been radically underplayed in our society um because we have this idea that life is easy and that we should be happy and well first of all life isn’t easy and perhaps we should be happy but there’s lots of times when we’re not going to be. Hey Jordan i hate i hate to break this up but we’re coming up to the news we have got calls stacked up i’m hoping to meet you when you come here and i’d like to invite you now if you get any spare time in your schedule to come into the studio because literally our boards are full with people who want to talk to you i also want to thank you enormously for your time today and for assuring us that you will not you know lead to the your visit will not lead to the downfall of New Zealand civilization as we know it. Well i hope not i hope not because i think you have quite a civilization and it would i’d hate to be the springer of its downfall so we’ll hope that doesn’t happen. Lovely talking to you Jordan thank you very much for your time. So i’ll just end this video with a reminder that there are still tickets left to the 12 rules for life lecture tour if you’d like to see it in New Zealand at the Michael Fowler Centre Thursday February 21st that’s in Wellington at the Logan Campbell Centre Saturday February 23rd that’s in Auckland then back to Australia ICC Sydney Theatre at Darling Harbour Tuesday February 26th in Sydney Plenary Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre Wednesday February 27th in Melbourne and in Brisbane, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre Thursday February 28th you can find information about those tickets at jordanbpeterson.com forward slash events that’s jordanbpeterson.com forward slash events hope to see you there thank you very much bye bye