Jordan: So obviously, the canon is made up
of those books that have had the most influence
and so they're the most fundamental.
Whether you agree with them or not is beside
the point, you need to know them because they're
at the bottom of your culture.
And that's you.
Christina: Jordan Peterson.
Welcome to AEI.
Jordan: Thank you.
Nice to see you.
Christina: It's just so nice to find a fellow
traveler.
My God, I started out years ago with Camille
Paglia.
We've been fighting this battle, but we have
stronger and stronger allies and we've got
you.
And it's amazing.
And when I hear you talk about topics that
have concerned me for years, I mean, the politicization
of the curriculum, the madness that's taken
over feminism.
And...
Jordan: Think you're making any progress?
Christina: I don't know.
I get worried because 20 years ago or more
when Camille and I fought the first culture
war we thought we won and we did in the, you
know, court of public opinion, but they assumed
the assistant professorships.
So they've been the teachers.
They're in the schools of education and...
Jordan: Yeah, they're certainly in the schools
of education, that's for sure.
Christina: And so sometimes I feel like just
common sense, open discussion debate, it's
all imperiled.
And when you say so sometimes people think
you're a crank or you're overstating it.
And I have a lot of self-doubt so I think,
"Well, maybe I am."
Jordan: Well, it's not easy to tell.
Christina: Well, then James Damore happens,
you know, and he gets fired for saying...
Jordan: Saying what was true.
Christina: ...what was true.
Jordan: And what has been increasingly documented
as true since he got fired.
Right?
By huge scale studies.
Christina: And what everybody says and knows,
but now it's apparently dangerous to state
the obvious given the current orthodoxies.
So to me, it's just been wonderful that you
have found a way around it.
It's not that you were able to defeat what
was going on at the university because you
had maybe accidentally just this insane encounter
when you were told how you had to speak and
you protested, but now you've taken another
path and you're reaching millions of people
through your videos and then, you know, the
lectures and videos of lectures.
And I'm just wondering if that's not the future
of education is a kind of alternative learning
system.
Jordan: Well, I think it's the present of
education to some degree, I mean because people
you can find out about anything you want on
YouTube.
Now there's part of it that's a bit anarchic,
let's say because...
Christina: There are false prophets.
Jordan: Well, that's it.
That's it.
That's the thing.
It's not that easy to distinguish between
valid and invalid information.
I mean, when we had more reliable gatekeepers
in place.
Let's say back in the heyday of journalism
when Time magazine was still, you know, three-eighths
of an inch thick and 90% print.
Then there was some consensus on what constituted
reliable and valid information.
And YouTube you can learn anything about anything
and maybe that's not exactly optimal, but
I think it's reasonable to have faith in people's
ability to sift through the chaff and get
to the wheat.
And so maybe it's a good thing overall.
Christina: I mean, I do think, you know, in
the future people will look back and say,
"Well, that was anarchic.
And you know, it's amazing anybody got any,
like, education."
But I think people are discerning.
I don't think it's an accident that you sort
of rose to the top.
I mean, I accidentally happened upon one of
your videos and it's just amazing like, "Wow,
he's making so much sense."
And at the time you weren't addressing culture
war issues and feminism but maybe postmodernism
and some related issues.
And I found you on YouTube and then started
following you.
And I find, even if I look at the comments,
and I've looked at the comments on your videos,
I have a lot of very smart followers.
The comments are our civil.
I think, maybe you have better, but I think
I have some of the most intelligent comments
on YouTube.
Jordan: Yeah.
Well, YouTube can be quite the hell of comments.
Christina: But I don't get them.
Jordan: No.
And most of the comments on my YouTube videos
are civil and reasonable
Christina: Because people have to listen and
you know, it takes patience and attention.
So I think the trolls, you know, they lose
interest.
The attention span.
Jordan: Yeah, could be.
Well and you know, on this tour that I've
been doing, one of the things that makes me
optimistic is the fact that I'm presenting,
I would say difficult material and in a relatively
difficult way.
Certainly, I would say it's intellectually
challenging as I can manage and it's also
emotionally challenging and there's an immense
public demand for it and there's an immense
public hunger for long-form discussions of
the type that no one thought a television
audience so to speak was capable of engaging
in.
So I have a sneaking suspicion that people
are a lot smarter than our previous communication
technologies revealed and you know, people
are listening to podcasts like mad [SP] too
and lengthy ones and audiobook sales are spiking
because it looks like more people can listen
than can read.
And so, that's the positive end of the social
media explosion I would say.
The video and the podcast, in particular.
Christina: Yes.
And what amazes me is when I hear...
I'll listen to tapes, you know, if you will,
lectures with Sam Harris or I don't know,
the other day, you with Dave Rubin...
Jordan: And Ben Shapiro.
Christina: ...and Ben Shapiro.
And you do a little bit of politics, but then
it's onto minorities and you know, the Christian
theologians versus, you know, the Talmud actors.
It's very intellectual and...
Jordan: And that got a million views in some
already.
Christina: Even just instantly.
Jordan: Yeah, it's really something.
And I found I couldn't stop listening.
And some of what you do reminds me of just
the delight in college courses before the
curriculum became race, class, gender, you
know, and the humanities at NYU in the, I
don't wanna say late '60s, it was the late
'60s.
I took courses with Professor Jim Carson and
we would read Viktor Frankl and Mircea Eliade
and Paul Tillich, and Barth and the "Existentialism."
It was so stimulating and it was so thought-provoking
and wonderful.
And he was a great teacher.
And it seems like that's not there anymore.
Like it was everybody that was interested
in ideas could have a semester.
I mean, now if you take philosophy, it's a
little arid and analytic, but there was the
philosophy of religion and there was the religion
department where you could have that.
And his courses were so popular teaching these
writers.
I mean, he could have enrolled the entire
school and I just thought like, "Okay, that's
what we're doing."
Jordan: Well, you know, one of the advantages
to some degree, I've thought about this, is
that as the universities abandoned the classical
humanities, they leave that material around
for anyone else to pick up.
Christina: To us.
Jordan: Yeah.
But that's it.
So, you know, there was a rule that I wrote,
"12 Rules for Life" was derived from an original
list of 42 rules that I put on Quora and one
of them was, "Opportunity exists where responsibility
has been abdicated."
And I think that's really the case.
It's like maybe the postmodernists are right
and the classic humanities, the Western canon
has no value.
It's only arbitrary.
It's like, "So fine, they can abandon it.
Well, if it has no value, it'll disappear.
If it has value, then other people will find
the value and start to capitalize on it."
Let's say in terms of ability to attract audiences
and...
Christina: Yeah.
And the works of art will fight for themselves.
Because as people read them, to read, you
know, Henry James or to read, you know, some
forgotten author that, you know, they're not
assigning.
I've just been reading Saul Bellow.
He was just so good.
And I...
Jordan: Yeah.
These people were actually good.
I mean, I have people all the time now who
come up to me and thank me because they've
started to read great literature, but often
they've started with Dostoyevsky because I'm
such a Dostoyevsky fan and you know, they're
just completely knocked over well, by "Crime
and Punishment," which is a book that will
definitely knock you over.
Christina: I'm afraid to read it again.
It knocked me over and is probably responsible
for me becoming so interested in philosophy
in 11th grade.
We had it with Ms. Sullivan and wow, it was
powerful.
Now I prefer, you know, Tolstoy and I told
my friend and she said, "Well, Dostoevsky's
for teenagers and Tolstoy is very
when you're—" but... You don't agree?
Jordan: Well, I don't know.
I mean, I have read a couple of the books
of Dostoyevsky's books the second time and
I would say they didn't have the same impact
the second time, but I think that's also partly
because they had such an impact the first
time, you know.
And Tolstoy is more sociological in orientation
and, you know, maybe that is something that's
more interesting in some sense as you get
older.
It's hard for me to say.
I always preferred Dostoyevsky to Tolstoy
because I'm more psychologically minded.
But...
Christina: I love the idiot.
When I read that, I mean, not recently but
more recently.
And so I'm gonna give Dostoyevsky more of
a chance, but what you say is so important
today.
I think it was Andrea Gilles said that everything
important to say has been said but nobody's
listening.
So you have to say it again and again and
again.
And that's how I feel.
I feel like I have to introduce college audiences
to the, you know, western political, you know,
classical, liberal tradition.
They may not have been acquainted with the
arguments for free speech and due process.
Jordan: Very likely they're acquainted with
very little.
Yeah, well, and that is a real opportunity
because those things are actually unbelievably
exciting if you can get into the spirit of
them, you know.
And so that's something that I'm hoping to
do a lot more of in the upcoming years is
to revitalize some of the fundamental classics
of the Western canon.
I've also thought about the idea of the canon,
you know, because that's come under criticism.
And I have a couple of associates who were
working with me on online education system
and we've been trying to define what constitutes
the canon technically.
And you can actually do that.
We don't have to argue about what the canon
is because imagine that you could rank order
books in terms of the number of other books
that they've influenced?
So obviously, the canon is made up of those
books that have had the most influence and
so they're the most fundamental.
Whether you agree with them or not is beside
the point, you need to know them because they're
at the bottom of your culture and that's you.
And I mean, it's so funny because it's what
the social constructions claim, you're a product
of your culture.
It's like, well then you should probably know
it's fundamental writings since they make
up
a huge part of your being.
Christina: And you should know something about
a conversation that has been taking place
among creative geniuses, over the centuries
with one another and how...
Jordan: Who else would you wanna listen to?
Christina: Of course.
And I always felt that I was just giving my
students this gift that they could sort of
listen in and help them you know, approach
it.
And then suddenly, "Oh no, you know, we're
not teaching that anymore."
But I'm still hopeful that...
Jordan: Well, I think the statement you made,
you know, that great art will speak for itself,
will fight for itself.
Christina: Will fight for itself.
Jordan: Yeah, I think that's part of what
makes it great.
Christina: We keep having secret meetings
with the intellectual dark web but we haven't
had any, it's not a very good conspiracy.
Jordan: No, no, it's like herding cats fundamentally.
Christina: Yeah.
But I think the success of it is owed not
because we feel like we're oppressed and we
have to speak in the dark but because I think
we give voice to ideas that many people have
thought themselves, but maybe you didn't feel
confident to say.
Jordan: I think there's a difference too,
between being oppressed and being attacked
by a minority.
Like, you know, I certainly don't feel oppressed.
I have more media reach than I know what to
do with.
And most of what I've experienced from people
has been overwhelming support.
There's a minority of noisy journalists, some...
Christina: Yeah, some snarky journalists and
some [crosstalk 00:12:37]
Jordan: ...you know, kids on university campuses
that are deluded by their idiot professors.
But other than that, it's been...
And I shouldn't minimize that because I was
under quite a lot of stress for the first
year and a half or so that this all took place.
But most of the consequences of that has been
extraordinarily positive.
And I get to come here and talk to you, so
that's a good thing.
Christina: Oh, it' so nice, finally, to be
able to sit down and talk with you.
So thank you so much for coming to AEI.
I hope you come back and I'll meet you out
there at the IDW.
Jordan: Great, great.
Very nice to see you.
Yeah.
Christina: Hey everyone.
That's the end of our discussion with Jordan
Peterson.
Thanks for watching.
And if you've enjoyed what you saw, remember
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