WEBVTT 00:00:01.639 --> 00:00:04.719 "Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #2180. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Clinical Psychology, Western Philosophy, and Modern Societal Transformation." Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan 00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:07.780 Experience. Showing by day, Joe Rogan Podcast 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:14.800 by night, all day. You don't use headphones, 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.199 huh? Messes up my hair. Good to see you. What's 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:23.100 going on in your coat today? Every day is a new 00:00:23.100 --> 00:00:27.820 one. Yeah, well, I've got this suit maker, LGFG. 00:00:28.179 --> 00:00:31.600 Dimitri, the crazy Russian, and he... He pays 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:34.700 attention to what I'm doing and makes me the 00:00:34.700 --> 00:00:38.700 suits that he thinks are suitable. You've gotten 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:41.679 quite extravagant, though. Sometimes one half 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:44.859 of the suit is one color. It looks like you're 00:00:44.859 --> 00:00:46.820 getting bored. You just want to switch it up 00:00:46.820 --> 00:00:48.979 a lot. He sends me these damn things, and I get 00:00:48.979 --> 00:00:51.420 them, and I think, there's no way I'll wear that. 00:00:51.460 --> 00:00:53.039 There's no way I'll wear that. And then I put 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:57.929 it on, and I think, huh. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, 00:00:57.969 --> 00:01:00.369 yeah. And Tammy puts up with it. Is it everyday 00:01:00.369 --> 00:01:03.329 suits now with you? I'm in a suit pretty much 00:01:03.329 --> 00:01:06.349 all the time. Is there a reason for that? Well, 00:01:06.390 --> 00:01:09.549 the original reason was probably because of my 00:01:09.549 --> 00:01:13.959 father. He was a teacher. He always wore a suit, 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:15.959 even in the 70s when that started to become, 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:19.659 you know, like 1950s thing. And I asked him one 00:01:19.659 --> 00:01:22.140 time why he did that, and he said it was to show 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:24.719 respect for his students. And then when I was 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:29.280 a professor, well, when you start to be a professor, 00:01:29.379 --> 00:01:32.060 you're not that much difference in age from your 00:01:32.060 --> 00:01:34.480 students to begin with. It's a good way of laying 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:37.560 out a demarcation. And that was helpful. That's 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:40.370 useful. You know, people like to know. how the 00:01:40.370 --> 00:01:43.150 hierarchies are delineated. And professors like 00:01:43.150 --> 00:01:45.430 to think that they're everybody's buddy, but 00:01:45.430 --> 00:01:48.030 that's not the right relationship. And so that 00:01:48.030 --> 00:01:51.569 was helpful. And then when I went on tour in 00:01:51.569 --> 00:01:54.989 2018, I realized that I was going to speak live 00:01:54.989 --> 00:01:57.969 in front of several hundred thousand people over 00:01:57.969 --> 00:01:59.750 the course of the tour. And I thought, you've 00:01:59.750 --> 00:02:01.290 got to think when you have an opportunity like 00:02:01.290 --> 00:02:04.549 that, that if you had the least amount of sense, 00:02:04.650 --> 00:02:07.189 you'd pull out all the stops. So I bought some 00:02:07.189 --> 00:02:11.159 expensive suits. Then one of the things that 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:13.439 happened in consequence of that was that people 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:15.780 started to come to the lectures in suits. And 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:18.300 so about, I'd say about 40 % of the audience 00:02:18.300 --> 00:02:20.939 dresses formally. And lots of the young guys 00:02:20.939 --> 00:02:23.199 who come, they tell me when I meet them afterwards 00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:24.979 in the meet and greets, for example, that they 00:02:24.979 --> 00:02:27.120 bought their first suit to come to the lectures. 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:30.159 And so, you know, I wouldn't have ever expected 00:02:30.159 --> 00:02:32.300 that. And then Dimitri showed up about two years 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:35.180 ago with this portfolio of suits. He designed 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:37.379 one for each of the rules for my first book. 00:02:37.479 --> 00:02:40.620 And he put the rule. underneath the collar at 00:02:40.620 --> 00:02:43.560 the back and designed the lining custom lining 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:46.259 on all the suits as well and so i gave him a 00:02:46.259 --> 00:02:48.280 crack at it because he put so much work into 00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:50.979 it and and that worked out real well he's very 00:02:50.979 --> 00:02:55.520 very creative yeah that two uh color suit there's 00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:58.500 lamb's wool on one side and goat's wool on the 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:02.300 other and it's a heaven and hell suit so yeah 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:06.500 no kidding hey this is covered with iconography 00:03:07.900 --> 00:03:10.680 Christian or Catholic and Orthodox, I've got 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:13.840 one of each. And that's because I was out on 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:16.080 tour with my new book, for my new book, which 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:18.180 is called We Who Wrestle With God, which we will 00:03:18.180 --> 00:03:22.199 talk about today, I hope. So that's the same 00:03:22.199 --> 00:03:24.699 story, man. How does one wrestle with God? Do 00:03:24.699 --> 00:03:30.699 you wrestle with God? With every word. So what 00:03:30.699 --> 00:03:34.060 does that mean? Well, look, man. Well, you know, 00:03:34.180 --> 00:03:37.879 look, here. Part of the reason that you're so 00:03:37.879 --> 00:03:41.120 successful, in my opinion, is because you actually 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:43.900 say what you think. Like, you're not putting 00:03:43.900 --> 00:03:46.039 on a show. Actually, you have no reason to put 00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:48.659 on a show. You put on a whole bunch of shows 00:03:48.659 --> 00:03:51.219 and they've already been successful. You know, 00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:53.699 and you're actually asking the questions that 00:03:53.699 --> 00:03:55.800 are genuine questions and people can trust you 00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:58.780 because of that. And that means that you're letting 00:03:58.780 --> 00:04:02.759 the words emerge as they come to you. Doing that 00:04:02.759 --> 00:04:04.560 with each word, that's a decision, you know, 00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:06.219 because you can use your language to manipulate 00:04:06.219 --> 00:04:09.460 and you can use your language to, for your own, 00:04:09.460 --> 00:04:12.759 say, hedonistic purposes or to gain power. Or 00:04:12.759 --> 00:04:15.659 you can just say what you think. Every, like 00:04:15.659 --> 00:04:17.720 all of those different choices are a decision. 00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:19.680 That's a wrestling. That's a moral decision. 00:04:19.939 --> 00:04:23.540 And it shines in every word. And so it's super 00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:25.560 important. That's part of the reason why in the 00:04:25.560 --> 00:04:29.220 Christian canon. The word is the basis of reality, 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:31.800 right? It's the force that, it's the process 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:35.600 that generates the order that's good out of possibility 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:38.860 and chaos, right? And so that's, and Israel, 00:04:38.980 --> 00:04:43.639 the word Israel means we who wrestle with God. 00:04:43.819 --> 00:04:46.839 So that's the chosen people, right? And so what 00:04:46.839 --> 00:04:50.639 that means at a deeper level even is that if 00:04:50.639 --> 00:04:52.959 you're genuinely wrestling with your conscience, 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:58.500 then you're... Someone who's chosen by God. And 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:03.319 I think that's right. That's accurate. It's interesting 00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:06.699 what you just said. One of Terence McKenna's 00:05:06.699 --> 00:05:10.420 lectures, he talked about a very profound psychedelic 00:05:10.420 --> 00:05:13.459 experience that he had where he was given this 00:05:13.459 --> 00:05:16.800 revelation that the world is made out of words. 00:05:18.360 --> 00:05:20.819 that everything is made out of words. He had 00:05:20.819 --> 00:05:24.399 just some sort of a profound understanding of 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:28.100 what words really mean. Well, how much of the 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:31.660 reality that surrounds you has been, what would 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:36.240 you say, has emerged out of the realm of possibility 00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.980 because of what you've said? A lot. And you have 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:42.120 this huge influence on the world that's all a 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:46.279 consequence, all, almost all a consequence of 00:05:46.279 --> 00:05:49.189 what you've said. And so there's an insistence 00:05:49.189 --> 00:05:53.810 in the Judeo -Christian canon that the capacity 00:05:53.810 --> 00:05:58.529 that words have to shape possibility is akin 00:05:58.529 --> 00:06:01.850 or identical to the process that generates reality 00:06:01.850 --> 00:06:06.470 itself. And I think that's true. That's why in 00:06:06.470 --> 00:06:10.810 the opening chapters of Genesis we're described 00:06:10.810 --> 00:06:14.290 as... formulated in the image of God. We're like 00:06:14.290 --> 00:06:17.209 a microcosm of the process that gives rise to 00:06:17.209 --> 00:06:19.470 order itself. It's a very different view than 00:06:19.470 --> 00:06:23.350 the bottom -up materialistic view, let's say, 00:06:23.389 --> 00:06:25.910 of the enlightenment in the scientific world. 00:06:26.089 --> 00:06:28.290 It's a different way of looking at things. It's 00:06:28.290 --> 00:06:31.149 the notion that what is in front of you is a 00:06:31.149 --> 00:06:33.930 field of indeterminate possibility. It's got 00:06:33.930 --> 00:06:36.550 some implicit structure, as the scientists insist, 00:06:36.930 --> 00:06:42.350 but it's open, and you... grapple with it, like 00:06:42.350 --> 00:06:45.449 you grapple with your dawning consciousness in 00:06:45.449 --> 00:06:49.129 the morning. What confronts you in the morning 00:06:49.129 --> 00:06:53.629 is a field of possibility. And you approach that 00:06:53.629 --> 00:06:58.449 with a certain kind of orientation. And you use 00:06:58.449 --> 00:07:01.629 your words and your linguistic capacity to think 00:07:01.629 --> 00:07:04.170 to shape that possibility. And if you do that 00:07:04.170 --> 00:07:06.610 properly, then you make... This is the Genesis 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:09.389 1 insistence. Again, you make the order that's 00:07:09.389 --> 00:07:11.829 good or very good, and that depends on your orientation. 00:07:12.449 --> 00:07:15.569 So in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, which 00:07:15.569 --> 00:07:19.110 is an instruction manual, Christ tells his listeners 00:07:19.110 --> 00:07:22.370 how to orient themselves in the world properly. 00:07:22.550 --> 00:07:26.949 So he says first, aim with all your heart at 00:07:26.949 --> 00:07:29.750 the highest good you can imagine. Now, you'll 00:07:29.750 --> 00:07:31.529 get better at that as your vision clears, but 00:07:31.529 --> 00:07:35.220 that's the orientation, to do what's right. You 00:07:35.220 --> 00:07:38.079 might say, like Pontius Pilate said, well, what 00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:41.779 is right? What is truth? But most people know 00:07:41.779 --> 00:07:44.279 the difference between right and wrong. You know 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:46.800 at least step by step what would move you forward 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:50.000 and upward. So you orient yourself to the highest 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:53.740 possible upward place. Then you make the assumption 00:07:53.740 --> 00:07:55.980 that other people have the same intrinsic value 00:07:55.980 --> 00:07:59.579 that you do. So that's your initial aim and presumption. 00:07:59.699 --> 00:08:02.160 And then you pay attention to the moment. And 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:05.660 that's... Well, that's often the statement that 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:07.759 gets Christ confused with the hippies, you know, 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:11.139 to consider the lilies of the field who don't 00:08:11.139 --> 00:08:14.019 toil or spin. But that's not the instruction. 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:17.079 The instruction is to aim up with everything 00:08:17.079 --> 00:08:20.720 and then having that firmly in mind, to pay attention, 00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:23.379 as much attention as you can to each moment, 00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:26.589 to allow the words to come. to you that best 00:08:26.589 --> 00:08:29.610 suit that upward aim, not to subordinate your 00:08:29.610 --> 00:08:33.049 language to your own machinations or manipulations 00:08:33.049 --> 00:08:36.490 or your own hedonistic desire, but towards what's 00:08:36.490 --> 00:08:39.490 right. And if you do that, then what emerges 00:08:39.490 --> 00:08:42.690 out of possibility is akin to the garden, to 00:08:42.690 --> 00:08:47.929 the original garden in Genesis 1, and it's the 00:08:47.929 --> 00:08:51.269 order that's good. Truthful language brings about 00:08:51.269 --> 00:08:56.669 the order that's good. And that's... Well, that's 00:08:56.669 --> 00:09:00.830 a very accurate way of portraying the role consciousness 00:09:00.830 --> 00:09:05.750 plays in bringing about reality. And that viewpoint, 00:09:06.889 --> 00:09:09.210 by the way, isn't limited to the Judeo -Christian 00:09:09.210 --> 00:09:13.049 canon. You see the same thing in the Taoist representation, 00:09:13.289 --> 00:09:16.210 because in the Taoist world you have a domain 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:19.320 of order. That's the black serpent, and you have 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:21.299 a domain of chaos. Sorry, I have it reversed. 00:09:21.419 --> 00:09:23.639 The domain of order is the white serpent, and 00:09:23.639 --> 00:09:26.840 the domain of chaos or possibility is the black 00:09:26.840 --> 00:09:30.440 serpent in the Taoist image, the two snakes head 00:09:30.440 --> 00:09:33.500 to tail. And your job is to walk the line between 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:35.220 them, and you can tell when you're walking that 00:09:35.220 --> 00:09:37.120 line because that's where things are maximally 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:40.279 meaningful. And so that's another element of 00:09:40.279 --> 00:09:43.860 this vision, which is that if you orient yourself 00:09:43.860 --> 00:09:47.710 with upward aim, and you straddle the line between 00:09:47.710 --> 00:09:52.490 order and chaos, then things become maximally 00:09:52.490 --> 00:09:55.870 meaningful around you. And Musk, you know, I 00:09:55.870 --> 00:09:59.090 just did a podcast with Elon Musk, and he talked 00:09:59.090 --> 00:10:04.429 about resolving his existential crisis, the existential 00:10:04.429 --> 00:10:06.950 crisis that he experienced when he was about 00:10:06.950 --> 00:10:09.389 11 or 12. It was a crisis of faith, essentially. 00:10:09.730 --> 00:10:13.789 And the way that he resolved that, and then... 00:10:14.439 --> 00:10:18.159 motivated himself so intensely was by understanding 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:21.519 that if he pursued the path of the expansion 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:24.899 of knowledge, that that would be intrinsically 00:10:24.899 --> 00:10:27.419 meaningful. That's the path of growth. That's 00:10:27.419 --> 00:10:30.159 the path of adventure. All of that. It's aligned 00:10:30.159 --> 00:10:34.360 with what matures you and makes you more responsible 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:38.279 and sets the world in order. And the instinct 00:10:38.279 --> 00:10:42.639 of meaning signifies all that. And so I've written 00:10:42.639 --> 00:10:45.679 a lot about that. in this new book, We Who Wrestle 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:47.519 With God. And that's what I've been lecturing 00:10:47.519 --> 00:10:50.279 about in 60 different cities, walking through 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:54.460 these biblical stories one by one, partly because 00:10:54.460 --> 00:10:58.759 we have this wrestling match going on in our 00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:01.879 culture, let's say, between the nihilists and 00:11:01.879 --> 00:11:05.279 the atheists and the true believers, you might 00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:10.240 say. And one of the faults of that war is that 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:16.230 no one stops to... elucidate or delineate exactly 00:11:16.230 --> 00:11:19.370 what it is that we're arguing about. So you have 00:11:19.370 --> 00:11:24.289 people like Dawkins, they parody the traditional 00:11:24.289 --> 00:11:30.110 conceptions of God, a superstitious being, nothing 00:11:30.110 --> 00:11:32.529 more than a defense against death, anxiety, or 00:11:32.529 --> 00:11:35.529 the opiate of the masses, the old man in the 00:11:35.529 --> 00:11:39.629 sky. The conceptualization of God in the Old 00:11:39.629 --> 00:11:41.549 Testament and the New Testament is unbelievably 00:11:41.549 --> 00:11:45.019 sophisticated. And to reduce it to that kind 00:11:45.019 --> 00:11:48.620 of parity is a stunning disservice. Dawkins is 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:51.759 an odd duck. He's an odd duck because I think 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:55.740 he knows also that there is some value in psychedelic 00:11:55.740 --> 00:11:59.139 experiences, but he's scared to have them. He 00:11:59.139 --> 00:12:01.980 won't look through Galileo's telescope. But, 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:05.539 you know, he's had major health crises, right? 00:12:05.620 --> 00:12:08.610 Didn't he have some sort of a stroke? I don't 00:12:08.610 --> 00:12:10.629 know. I don't know. I believe he did. I believe 00:12:10.629 --> 00:12:14.490 he had a major health crisis. It's like, how 00:12:14.490 --> 00:12:17.529 much time do you have left? What are you going 00:12:17.529 --> 00:12:20.210 to do? Are you going to just not try it forever? 00:12:20.690 --> 00:12:23.350 Are you just going to dismiss everything forever? 00:12:23.850 --> 00:12:28.750 And I feel like people that dismiss things like 00:12:28.750 --> 00:12:31.389 that, this reductionist perspective, you're essentially 00:12:31.389 --> 00:12:39.500 saying you have the answers. To dismiss the whole 00:12:39.500 --> 00:12:43.720 question of God or of whatever you want to call 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:47.259 it, higher power, a creator of the universe, 00:12:47.320 --> 00:12:51.019 the universe itself as a conscious entity, whatever 00:12:51.019 --> 00:12:55.200 it is, to dismiss it just because you're trying 00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:01.299 to decipher the writings of fairly comparatively 00:13:01.299 --> 00:13:03.779 unsophisticated people. Because we're talking 00:13:03.779 --> 00:13:05.480 about people from many, many thousands of years 00:13:05.480 --> 00:13:07.419 ago without access to the information we have 00:13:07.419 --> 00:13:09.820 today. And then you're also dealing with the 00:13:09.820 --> 00:13:12.940 fact that many of these stories were of an oral 00:13:12.940 --> 00:13:15.759 tradition for over a thousand years before they 00:13:15.759 --> 00:13:19.299 were ever written down. So to just dismiss that 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:22.840 as superstition and silliness without any curiosity 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:27.019 about the root. of these things why they resonate 00:13:27.019 --> 00:13:31.899 with people and to just say that this is superstitious 00:13:31.899 --> 00:13:35.500 nonsense that people choose to believe in and 00:13:35.500 --> 00:13:39.019 this reductionist perspective of the known reality 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:43.580 that we currently exist in it's it's a foolish 00:13:43.580 --> 00:13:46.980 way of interfacing with something and it's shocking 00:13:46.980 --> 00:13:51.200 when a obviously brilliant man has a foolish 00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:54.620 way of interfacing with a very complex situation. 00:13:55.159 --> 00:13:57.539 Well, it's especially odd in his case because 00:13:57.539 --> 00:14:00.480 he's also the formulator of the idea of meme. 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:06.759 And a religious story is a meme that's been selected 00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:11.879 by time and crowd. That's a good way of thinking 00:14:11.879 --> 00:14:14.940 about it. It strikes to the heart of the matter 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:19.600 in ways that are sophisticated beyond... Conscious 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:22.159 understanding. Can I tell you a story? Sure. 00:14:22.419 --> 00:14:25.059 Okay. It's a good story for the psychedelic experience, 00:14:25.340 --> 00:14:29.120 perhaps, at least as an analog. So in the story 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:32.679 of Exodus, there's a number of circumstances 00:14:32.679 --> 00:14:35.159 under which Moses has an encounter with God. 00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:39.399 And they're very useful stories to understand 00:14:39.399 --> 00:14:42.700 because they point you to how that can make itself 00:14:42.700 --> 00:14:45.299 manifest in your own life. So the first real 00:14:45.299 --> 00:14:48.620 encounter that Moses has with God is... in the 00:14:48.620 --> 00:14:51.120 story of the burning bush. And by this time, 00:14:51.220 --> 00:14:56.000 Moses is an adult. He's left his home. He's gone 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:58.799 out and he's got married. He's apprenticed as 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.320 a shepherd, which was a very, very hard job in 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:03.960 those days because shepherds not only had to 00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:06.759 protect the weakest and serve them, but also 00:15:06.759 --> 00:15:09.259 keep the lions and the wolves at bay by themselves 00:15:09.259 --> 00:15:11.519 out in the wilderness. It was a very hard job. 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:14.080 And Moses has mastered this. So he's grown up 00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:18.240 and he's adopted. a role that's like a standard 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:22.220 social role. You know, he's a husband, he's a 00:15:22.220 --> 00:15:26.720 shepherd, he's an adult. Okay, and so kudos to 00:15:26.720 --> 00:15:29.919 him. But then one day he's out in the wilderness 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:33.440 by the Holy Mountain. I think it's Horeb in that 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:35.740 story, but the Holy Mountain is always the place 00:15:35.740 --> 00:15:38.419 where heaven and earth touch. And so there are 00:15:38.419 --> 00:15:40.379 all sorts of transformation stories that occur 00:15:40.379 --> 00:15:43.700 in the biblical accounts at Mount Horeb or at 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:47.820 Mount Sinai where God and... earth meet and he's 00:15:47.820 --> 00:15:50.700 out near the holy mountain and something attracts 00:15:50.700 --> 00:15:53.779 his attention and he goes off the beaten path 00:15:53.779 --> 00:15:55.980 to investigate okay so that's the first thing 00:15:55.980 --> 00:15:58.960 that's the first bit of wisdom to derive from 00:15:58.960 --> 00:16:02.000 the story you'll have your role and you should 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:05.139 have your role as a socialized adult right so 00:16:05.139 --> 00:16:07.500 you're kind of a type that way you're maybe even 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:09.919 a cookie cutter type but you've adopted this 00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:14.860 this this mature social role It doesn't make 00:16:14.860 --> 00:16:17.039 you a full individual, but it's better than being 00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:20.179 immature and staying in your father's tent, for 00:16:20.179 --> 00:16:22.340 example, which is what Abraham does until he's 00:16:22.340 --> 00:16:26.120 very old. So something attracts Moses' attention, 00:16:26.399 --> 00:16:30.580 and he goes off to investigate. And then he sees 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:32.919 that it's a burning bush. And so what's a burning 00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:35.080 bush? Well, it's the tree of life, and life is 00:16:35.080 --> 00:16:37.759 often represented as a branching tree. And it's 00:16:37.759 --> 00:16:40.120 on fire because it's compelling, because fire 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:43.820 is compelling. And fire is alive. It's a symbol 00:16:43.820 --> 00:16:45.980 of life because everything that is alive burns. 00:16:46.200 --> 00:16:48.580 That's what metabolism is. And so a burning bush 00:16:48.580 --> 00:16:51.500 is like life itself intensified to the ultimate 00:16:51.500 --> 00:16:54.000 degree. And that's what attracts Moses' attention. 00:16:54.159 --> 00:16:56.120 And he gets closer and closer to it, which means 00:16:56.120 --> 00:16:59.399 he investigates more and more deeply. And as 00:16:59.399 --> 00:17:01.740 he... investigates more deeply. He starts to 00:17:01.740 --> 00:17:03.919 understand that he's nearing the depths. He's 00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:07.579 on sacred ground. He takes off his shoes. And 00:17:07.579 --> 00:17:09.859 that's an indication of his willingness to transform 00:17:09.859 --> 00:17:12.859 in identity. And he continues to investigate. 00:17:13.140 --> 00:17:16.059 And then the voice of being itself speaks to 00:17:16.059 --> 00:17:19.559 him from the depths. And it tells him that it 00:17:19.559 --> 00:17:23.460 reveals itself to him as the ground of being 00:17:23.460 --> 00:17:26.460 itself. And it transforms him into the leader 00:17:26.460 --> 00:17:31.140 who invites his people away from slavery and 00:17:31.140 --> 00:17:34.339 who stands up against tyranny. And so that's 00:17:34.339 --> 00:17:38.579 the story of Moses' baptism. And so what does 00:17:38.579 --> 00:17:41.079 that mean for the ordinary person? Well, it means 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:44.359 that you need to grow up and adopt a role. You 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:46.180 need to mature. You need to become an adult. 00:17:46.500 --> 00:17:49.680 You need to be a good man in your time. But then 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:51.940 you have to pay attention to see what attracts 00:17:51.940 --> 00:17:54.579 your attention, what calls to you, because there's 00:17:54.579 --> 00:17:56.819 an autonomy about that, right? You don't get 00:17:56.819 --> 00:18:00.059 to pick what interests you. It picks you. And 00:18:00.059 --> 00:18:02.579 you can... respond to that call and investigate 00:18:02.579 --> 00:18:04.619 or reject it. Those are your options. And if 00:18:04.619 --> 00:18:07.220 you reject it, you stay in your box. But if you 00:18:07.220 --> 00:18:09.539 follow it, something will call to you. And then 00:18:09.539 --> 00:18:12.440 if you investigate that, that will transform 00:18:12.440 --> 00:18:14.720 you. And if you investigate it deeply enough, 00:18:14.900 --> 00:18:17.599 it'll transform you into the person who can stand 00:18:17.599 --> 00:18:20.839 up against tyranny and who can lead his people 00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:23.839 away from slavery. And that's how God is defined 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:26.980 in that story. God is the thing that calls to 00:18:26.980 --> 00:18:31.759 you to take you out of your role shape the manner 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:34.779 in which your psyche transforms itself as a consequence 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:38.420 of your diligent investigation into what calls 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:41.420 to you. And so that's the God that's portrayed. 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:44.259 That's one. image of the god that's portrayed 00:18:44.259 --> 00:18:46.839 in the old testament are you aware of uh some 00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:49.880 of the more recent um work that's been done by 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:53.559 scholars in israel where these guys have now 00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:56.319 come up with this hypothesis that the burning 00:18:56.319 --> 00:19:00.319 bush was actually uh it was a dmt experience 00:19:00.319 --> 00:19:03.460 and that the burning bush was most likely an 00:19:03.460 --> 00:19:05.960 acacia tree that the acacia tree is apparently 00:19:05.960 --> 00:19:09.190 rich with dmt and they think you know the way 00:19:09.190 --> 00:19:11.589 you get a DMT experience is you smoke it, right? 00:19:11.690 --> 00:19:15.509 And that they had some method of achieving psychedelic 00:19:15.509 --> 00:19:17.869 states through this. And this is where Moses 00:19:17.869 --> 00:19:21.990 is encountering God. Have you read any of that 00:19:21.990 --> 00:19:25.069 stuff? I know about the theorizing, and it's 00:19:25.069 --> 00:19:27.130 certainly the case that people have been using 00:19:27.130 --> 00:19:29.869 psychedelic experiences for we don't know how 00:19:29.869 --> 00:19:32.809 long. Hundreds of thousands of years, no doubt. 00:19:32.970 --> 00:19:36.670 And they've had a profound cultural consequence. 00:19:38.170 --> 00:19:40.170 One of the things that a psychedelic experience 00:19:40.170 --> 00:19:44.630 does is amplify that sense of intrinsic interest, 00:19:44.829 --> 00:19:48.750 right? So it strips your perceptions of their 00:19:48.750 --> 00:19:51.069 inhibition by memory. That's a good way of thinking 00:19:51.069 --> 00:19:55.009 about it. So that you see what's there instead 00:19:55.009 --> 00:19:58.250 of your habits of perception. And so it's a way 00:19:58.250 --> 00:20:01.009 of amplifying, you could think of it as a way 00:20:01.009 --> 00:20:03.569 of amplifying what's represented in the biblical 00:20:03.569 --> 00:20:07.089 corpus as a calling. And the thing that's odd 00:20:07.089 --> 00:20:09.730 about the calling, well, you know, when you're, 00:20:09.730 --> 00:20:11.769 you can think about it this way. When you're 00:20:11.769 --> 00:20:15.269 laying out a podcast, when you're participating 00:20:15.269 --> 00:20:18.069 in a podcast, you're following a golden thread, 00:20:18.230 --> 00:20:20.630 right? You're following where your interest takes 00:20:20.630 --> 00:20:23.190 you and your curiosity takes you. And that's 00:20:23.190 --> 00:20:25.250 not something you can pre -plan, right? It's 00:20:25.250 --> 00:20:27.990 something that happens in the moment. So imagine 00:20:27.990 --> 00:20:31.710 that you're focused on your goal of having the 00:20:31.710 --> 00:20:35.200 most interesting. Conversation possible and communicating 00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:38.200 what's derived to the broadest number of people. 00:20:38.299 --> 00:20:40.759 So that's the overarching goal. Okay, now you 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:43.900 focus on the moment and a spirit arises within 00:20:43.900 --> 00:20:45.779 you. That's a good way of thinking about it. 00:20:45.819 --> 00:20:48.299 That's the logos. A spirit arises within you 00:20:48.299 --> 00:20:51.259 that leads you on a pathway that's an investigation 00:20:51.259 --> 00:20:53.720 into the truth. That's part of that calling. 00:20:54.619 --> 00:21:01.180 The psychedelic chemicals, they heighten that. 00:21:01.869 --> 00:21:04.369 They heighten the manifestation of the underlying 00:21:04.369 --> 00:21:06.450 mystery. That's another way of thinking about 00:21:06.450 --> 00:21:09.950 it. They do that neurochemically. And so now 00:21:09.950 --> 00:21:12.130 what's the association between that and religious 00:21:12.130 --> 00:21:14.809 revelation in the Bible? We don't know. We don't 00:21:14.809 --> 00:21:18.490 know. Have you read any of Marco Allegro's stuff? 00:21:18.849 --> 00:21:23.769 No, no, no. John Marco Allegro wrote a book called 00:21:23.769 --> 00:21:25.930 The Sacred Mushroom of the Cross. Oh, yes. Yeah, 00:21:26.069 --> 00:21:30.590 yeah, yeah. I read that back. Oh, my God. 1974? 00:21:30.590 --> 00:21:33.490 So you probably read it before it was bought 00:21:33.490 --> 00:21:36.170 up by the Catholic Church. Oh, I didn't even 00:21:36.170 --> 00:21:38.190 know about that. Yeah, it was bought up by the, 00:21:38.210 --> 00:21:41.009 like you used to have to get old copies of it 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:42.930 if you wanted to buy it. And then it was recently 00:21:42.930 --> 00:21:45.730 republished. Yeah, yeah, I read that a long, 00:21:45.809 --> 00:21:47.549 long time ago. I had no idea what to make of 00:21:47.549 --> 00:21:50.009 it when I read it. I thought, oh, huh, I have 00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:52.130 no idea what to do with this. It's a problem 00:21:52.130 --> 00:21:54.829 because to really understand what he's saying, 00:21:54.890 --> 00:21:56.710 you'd have to have a deep understanding of those 00:21:56.710 --> 00:21:58.779 ancient languages. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's a 00:21:58.779 --> 00:22:01.160 very difficult book to evaluate. Because there's 00:22:01.160 --> 00:22:03.599 very few people that are even qualified to... 00:22:03.599 --> 00:22:08.700 Many people have disputed some of his... He has 00:22:08.700 --> 00:22:11.819 one claim that the word Christ can be traced 00:22:11.819 --> 00:22:14.339 etymologically... How do you say that? Etymologically. 00:22:14.559 --> 00:22:18.200 Etymologically to an ancient Sumerian word that 00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:21.779 means a mushroom covered in God's semen. And 00:22:21.779 --> 00:22:24.740 so it was his assertion that the idea was that 00:22:24.740 --> 00:22:28.000 they thought when it rained that rain was the 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:30.660 giver of life and it was literally God's semen 00:22:30.660 --> 00:22:33.119 that made things grow and that these mushrooms, 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:36.059 because they would show up so quickly. You know, 00:22:36.099 --> 00:22:37.940 if it rains, if you go to bed, you could look 00:22:37.940 --> 00:22:40.680 out at just your lawn and it's complete grass, 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:43.259 not a mushroom in sight. And you can go to bed 00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:44.640 and then wake up in the morning and there'll 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:47.279 be big mushrooms there. It's really weird. And 00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:50.440 that these things, when they would eat these 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:52.180 psilocybin mushrooms that would appear out of 00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:55.640 nowhere, they genuinely were referring to them 00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:59.759 as God. That this was like a gift from God and 00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:02.640 that that was tracing back to the origin of the 00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:05.799 word Christ. But it's very tortured, like to 00:23:05.799 --> 00:23:08.039 really understand and to be able to dispute it. 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:11.440 You'd have to have a deep understanding of Aramaic. 00:23:11.619 --> 00:23:14.339 You'd have to have a deep understanding of Aramaic. 00:23:14.940 --> 00:23:18.940 You'd have to have a deep understanding of the 00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:21.420 original doctrines. Like, what is the actual 00:23:21.420 --> 00:23:23.579 translation? What does it mean? You'd have to 00:23:23.579 --> 00:23:26.500 understand the ancient Hebrew version of it. 00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:29.200 How does it differ? All the webs of associations. 00:23:29.859 --> 00:23:32.059 Oh, God, it's so crazy. When we read it in English, 00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:37.039 I mean, what was the original version? The original 00:23:37.039 --> 00:23:40.619 version, all the ancient letters in ancient Hebrew 00:23:40.619 --> 00:23:43.980 also doubled as numbers, right? So words had 00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:47.059 numerical value, like the word God and the word 00:23:47.059 --> 00:23:49.680 love apparently have the same numerical value. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:53.900 That is a bizarre concept for us to try to wrap 00:23:53.900 --> 00:23:57.579 our heads around, a language which you know that 00:23:57.579 --> 00:24:02.160 words also have numbers in them, that your letters 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:06.789 also mean numbers, and that there's value. certain 00:24:06.789 --> 00:24:10.329 numerical value to certain words and that you 00:24:10.329 --> 00:24:12.329 would use them in the context of these conversations 00:24:12.329 --> 00:24:14.750 you would understand where I don't understand 00:24:14.750 --> 00:24:18.650 I don't have that I have English it's like we 00:24:18.650 --> 00:24:21.869 have math we have language they're separate and 00:24:21.869 --> 00:24:25.049 you're missing something in what they're trying 00:24:25.049 --> 00:24:28.130 to say so what John Marco Allegro is doing he's 00:24:28.130 --> 00:24:31.279 taking The oldest version of these stories on 00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:34.559 record, right? He's taking the Dead Sea Scrolls. 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:37.200 He's taking stuff that's literally written on 00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:40.779 animal skins. And one of the ways that they deciphered 00:24:40.779 --> 00:24:42.779 it to try to put it all together, they had to 00:24:42.779 --> 00:24:47.000 take the DNA samples of these parchments to try 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:49.299 to figure out which ones are from which cows, 00:24:49.559 --> 00:24:52.210 if they're from different cows. And that's part 00:24:52.210 --> 00:24:54.410 of the way they figured out how to put all the 00:24:54.410 --> 00:24:57.089 stuff together. This guy studies this for 14 00:24:57.089 --> 00:25:01.109 years. And he was the only ordained minister 00:25:01.109 --> 00:25:03.789 that was a part of this deciphering committee. 00:25:04.069 --> 00:25:06.829 I think there was 14 people. I don't remember 00:25:06.829 --> 00:25:08.529 how many people. It might have been 20. But it 00:25:08.529 --> 00:25:11.609 was the only one of them that was agnostic. So 00:25:11.609 --> 00:25:15.250 he had become, when he had started studying theology. 00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:18.619 He kind of lost his faith apparently, you know, 00:25:18.619 --> 00:25:20.420 we started realizing there's so many versions 00:25:20.420 --> 00:25:22.119 of these stories They're coming from different 00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:25.920 places. He became sort of like hey, I think I'm 00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:28.660 agnostic I'm just gonna like step back and have 00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:31.759 this approach of not knowing not not not having 00:25:31.759 --> 00:25:34.579 a doctrine not having an ideology that I'm attaching 00:25:34.579 --> 00:25:38.539 myself to And so then when he goes through all 00:25:38.539 --> 00:25:40.299 of this, this is a straight -laced scientist, 00:25:40.420 --> 00:25:41.720 by the way. This is not like some guy looking 00:25:41.720 --> 00:25:44.519 for psychedelics to be a part of everything. 00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:46.200 Yes, it's a very serious book. Right. And there's 00:25:46.200 --> 00:25:48.059 a lot of those people that are doing that. They're 00:25:48.059 --> 00:25:50.119 looking for psychedelics to be a part of everything, 00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:52.880 sort of to validate or justify their own use 00:25:52.880 --> 00:25:55.079 of these things. He wasn't doing that at all. 00:25:55.680 --> 00:25:58.220 And he wasn't like Wasson, where a guy who went 00:25:58.220 --> 00:26:00.900 down and experienced the psychedelic experiences 00:26:00.900 --> 00:26:03.579 in Mexico and then came back and described them 00:26:03.579 --> 00:26:06.779 for mainstream. literature this guy was doing 00:26:06.779 --> 00:26:11.220 it like a scholar and his whole purpose was just 00:26:11.220 --> 00:26:13.500 to decipher the dead sea scrolls but it was so 00:26:13.500 --> 00:26:15.940 compelling to him when it was over he like had 00:26:15.940 --> 00:26:18.119 to break ranks and he had to write this book 00:26:18.119 --> 00:26:22.180 and then they they took that book out of circulation 00:26:22.180 --> 00:26:26.480 i believe find out what happened with the sacred 00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:29.119 mushroom in the cross how it was because he published 00:26:29.119 --> 00:26:33.990 another book shortly afterwards that was the 00:26:33.990 --> 00:26:37.069 Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian myth and I 00:26:37.069 --> 00:26:39.769 think it felt to me when I read that one it's 00:26:39.769 --> 00:26:41.769 almost like he has to write a book because they 00:26:41.769 --> 00:26:43.690 took the other one away because it's kind of 00:26:43.690 --> 00:26:47.910 like saying most of the same stuff but he believed 00:26:47.910 --> 00:26:50.390 that it was that what they were writing about 00:26:50.390 --> 00:26:54.190 a lot of it was fertility rituals and psychedelic 00:26:54.190 --> 00:26:56.849 experiences and that he would they were hiding 00:26:56.849 --> 00:27:00.910 a lot of these stories Like they're hiding the 00:27:00.910 --> 00:27:03.490 knowledge underneath these stories to try to, 00:27:03.509 --> 00:27:05.329 in parables and all these different ways, to 00:27:05.329 --> 00:27:07.910 try to obscure it from the Romans and obscure 00:27:07.910 --> 00:27:10.049 it from the people that conquered them. So they 00:27:10.049 --> 00:27:13.829 wouldn't know the secrets of this thing, this 00:27:13.829 --> 00:27:18.829 ritual in which they would experience God. So 00:27:18.829 --> 00:27:22.509 why is it that psychedelic use has played the 00:27:22.509 --> 00:27:25.230 role that it's played in your interests and your 00:27:25.230 --> 00:27:27.529 pursuit of knowledge? What do you think it's 00:27:27.529 --> 00:27:32.460 done for you that... That's been valuable. I 00:27:32.460 --> 00:27:36.160 think we're in a weird place in society where 00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:41.519 the term drug is a is a blanket and it covers 00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.539 things that have vastly different effects. It 00:27:45.539 --> 00:27:49.559 covers caffeine. It covers nicotine and it covers 00:27:49.559 --> 00:27:52.839 dimethyltryptamine, which is crazy. It's crazy 00:27:52.839 --> 00:27:55.099 that all those things are drugs. Adderall is 00:27:55.099 --> 00:28:01.319 a drug. Benzodiazepine is a drug. There's a million 00:28:01.319 --> 00:28:03.480 of them. They're all different and they're all 00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:07.779 drugs. And the idea that psychedelics are a drug, 00:28:07.980 --> 00:28:11.859 for lack of a better term, that's what we use. 00:28:11.940 --> 00:28:15.099 I don't think that's what they are at all. I 00:28:15.099 --> 00:28:18.460 think they are probably why we became people. 00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:22.259 I think they are probably why society advanced. 00:28:22.680 --> 00:28:27.559 And I think every great ancient culture. probably 00:28:27.559 --> 00:28:30.500 celebrated them and used them. It seems like 00:28:30.500 --> 00:28:33.680 there's so much evidence out of Egypt of the 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:37.819 use of psilocybin, various different drugs, various 00:28:37.819 --> 00:28:43.220 different psychedelic experiences. The iconography 00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:48.000 of the pineal gland seems to be a big part of 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.180 multiple cultures, not just Egyptian, but even 00:28:51.180 --> 00:28:55.660 Catholicism. If you go to the Vatican, There's 00:28:55.660 --> 00:28:59.619 this enormous pine cone that is a statue there. 00:28:59.819 --> 00:29:01.960 And I was very lucky when I went to the Vatican. 00:29:02.019 --> 00:29:04.299 We got a guide. We hired a private guide that 00:29:04.299 --> 00:29:07.720 was a scholar from France. And when he's not 00:29:07.720 --> 00:29:10.700 working in the summers, he gives these tours. 00:29:10.819 --> 00:29:14.240 And they're very thorough. And he was a brilliant 00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:17.039 guy. I wish I could remember his name. I should 00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:18.920 probably find it out to give him credit. Brilliant 00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:20.900 guy. So he takes us through showing us all this 00:29:20.900 --> 00:29:24.000 artwork. It's incredible explaining why they 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:26.619 had little penises and that there's, it was explained 00:29:26.619 --> 00:29:28.740 the whole thing that big penises were thought 00:29:28.740 --> 00:29:31.319 to be barbaric and it was not representative 00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:34.160 of like somewhat of class and dignity and education. 00:29:34.579 --> 00:29:38.339 And so we get to this pine cone and he says to 00:29:38.339 --> 00:29:40.359 me, he goes, do you know what this represents? 00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:43.380 And I said, is it the pineal gland? And he goes, 00:29:43.480 --> 00:29:47.529 yes. And then we start this conversation of why 00:29:47.529 --> 00:29:52.069 these Catholics would have this enormous representation 00:29:52.069 --> 00:29:55.869 of the pineal gland, which they reference as 00:29:55.869 --> 00:29:59.960 the seed of the soul. And that this gland, which 00:29:59.960 --> 00:30:03.160 is in the center of your brain, is thought to 00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:06.480 be literally a third eye. And on reptiles, it 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:10.200 actually has a cornea and a lens, this gland. 00:30:10.519 --> 00:30:13.079 Like, literally, it's exactly where the third 00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:15.480 eye of Eastern mysticism is. And they've got 00:30:15.480 --> 00:30:17.880 a representation of it right here. And it's thought 00:30:17.880 --> 00:30:21.819 to be where dimethyltryptamine is produced. And 00:30:21.819 --> 00:30:26.059 this whole... This whole connection to it is 00:30:26.059 --> 00:30:31.460 so old that it seems like you go back to the 00:30:31.460 --> 00:30:33.559 John Marko Allegro stuff. You go back to the 00:30:33.559 --> 00:30:35.980 Dead Sea Scrolls, which are the oldest version 00:30:35.980 --> 00:30:38.240 of the Bible. The only version that I believe 00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:40.740 the only version they have in Aramaic of all 00:30:40.740 --> 00:30:44.960 those stories. And if he's right, if John Marko 00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:47.519 Allegro is right. It all kind of makes sense 00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:51.420 that these people were having these experiences, 00:30:51.500 --> 00:30:54.980 much like the Greeks were with the Eleusinian 00:30:54.980 --> 00:30:58.680 mysteries, much like multiple different cultures 00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:01.380 in the Amazon, all over the world have experienced 00:31:01.380 --> 00:31:07.500 these profound ceremony. These experiences that 00:31:07.500 --> 00:31:09.759 lead to these journeys into the spirit world, 00:31:09.900 --> 00:31:11.980 these connections with higher consciousness, 00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:15.079 this something that when you're experiencing, 00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:19.380 it seems very, very real, but also very preposterous 00:31:19.380 --> 00:31:21.599 when you try to explain it to people that aren't 00:31:21.599 --> 00:31:24.200 experienced. You know, it's like Hendrix. Like, 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:26.519 are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? 00:31:26.740 --> 00:31:30.359 Well, I have. Like, it's that. Like, with that 00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:34.160 understanding that that's possible, the world 00:31:34.160 --> 00:31:36.779 changes. Because now you know that that's possible. 00:31:36.900 --> 00:31:39.460 You could live your whole life and not know that 00:31:39.460 --> 00:31:45.480 the most shocking, profound thing in existence 00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:49.180 is three hits away. Three hits away. And all 00:31:49.180 --> 00:31:51.279 of a sudden you're in a completely different 00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:56.099 universe in 20, 30 seconds. That's nuts. And 00:31:56.099 --> 00:32:01.349 the fact that that is dismissed. That people 00:32:01.349 --> 00:32:04.069 look at it as like, oh, you're just escaping 00:32:04.069 --> 00:32:09.269 reality. It might be the source of civilization 00:32:09.269 --> 00:32:12.809 itself. It might be the source of language. It 00:32:12.809 --> 00:32:15.829 might be the source of the expansion of the human 00:32:15.829 --> 00:32:18.089 mind over a period of two million years, the 00:32:18.089 --> 00:32:21.049 doubling of the human brain. over a period of 00:32:21.049 --> 00:32:23.150 two million years, which Terence McKenna felt 00:32:23.150 --> 00:32:27.170 directly coincides with the shifting of the tropical 00:32:27.170 --> 00:32:29.990 rainforest turning into grasslands, which would 00:32:29.990 --> 00:32:32.509 force these primates to experiment with new food 00:32:32.509 --> 00:32:36.049 sources, and these undulate cows that were everywhere 00:32:36.049 --> 00:32:39.369 that would shit, and then these psilocybin mushrooms 00:32:39.369 --> 00:32:43.829 would grow in their shit. Observed primates flipping 00:32:43.829 --> 00:32:45.990 over these cow patties, looking for beetles and 00:32:45.990 --> 00:32:48.589 grubs and things to eat. It's everywhere. You 00:32:48.589 --> 00:32:50.730 could see it all over Africa. If there's something 00:32:50.730 --> 00:32:53.289 on that, they're going to try it out. And if 00:32:53.289 --> 00:32:55.029 these things are trying it out and they're doing 00:32:55.029 --> 00:32:57.809 this over a period of two million years and they 00:32:57.809 --> 00:33:00.390 develop language and culture and weapons and 00:33:00.390 --> 00:33:02.009 they start thinking about things and they become 00:33:02.009 --> 00:33:05.869 different than every animal around them. And 00:33:05.869 --> 00:33:07.829 this was McKenna's stone date theory, which I'm 00:33:07.829 --> 00:33:10.170 sure you're familiar with. And Dennis McKenna, 00:33:10.210 --> 00:33:14.349 who is a legitimate scientist, Dennis explains 00:33:14.349 --> 00:33:17.609 it even better. Because he explains it with the 00:33:17.609 --> 00:33:21.609 actual mechanisms that your brain – the things 00:33:21.609 --> 00:33:24.470 that fire up when you encounter high -dose psilocybin 00:33:24.470 --> 00:33:26.109 experiences that would lead you to the development 00:33:26.109 --> 00:33:29.869 of language. Glossolalia, the connection of sounds 00:33:29.869 --> 00:33:33.269 and objects and bringing things together in a 00:33:33.269 --> 00:33:37.319 manner of communication. Also – They realize 00:33:37.319 --> 00:33:40.480 that in low doses, it increases visual acuity. 00:33:40.579 --> 00:33:44.099 It makes people more amorous, makes people hornier. 00:33:44.200 --> 00:33:45.720 They're going to have more sex. They're going 00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:47.400 to be better hunters because they could see better. 00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:50.779 They're going to be more sensitive to the environment. 00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:53.799 They're going to be more aware. Edge detection 00:33:53.799 --> 00:33:55.319 is different. There's like so many different 00:33:55.319 --> 00:33:58.000 things that happen that if you're thinking about 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.460 what made people people. It's a mystery. We want 00:34:01.460 --> 00:34:03.539 to pretend that we understand things because 00:34:03.539 --> 00:34:05.400 of the fossil record and this and that. Sure, 00:34:05.480 --> 00:34:07.279 we kind of understand. But every now and then 00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:09.300 we find a new human that we didn't even know 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:12.460 exists, like Denisovans. What was that? Not even 00:34:12.460 --> 00:34:15.000 20 years ago, I don't think. So now there's a 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:18.019 whole other branch of human beings that they 00:34:18.019 --> 00:34:20.400 weren't even aware of 20 years ago. Whatever 00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:24.420 the fuck happened that took us from all the other 00:34:24.420 --> 00:34:27.559 primates that are still here and made us this, 00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:32.369 it's pretty profound. And I have a feeling that 00:34:32.369 --> 00:34:35.429 psychedelics were at least involved in that process. 00:34:36.090 --> 00:34:40.230 That's my belief. And my belief is that the sweeping 00:34:40.230 --> 00:34:44.289 psychedelics act of 1970 that they passed essentially 00:34:44.289 --> 00:34:47.250 to target civil rights activists and anti -war 00:34:47.250 --> 00:34:49.710 activists. That's what they did. They wanted 00:34:49.710 --> 00:34:51.789 to go after the hippies. And they went after 00:34:51.789 --> 00:34:54.750 the hippies with MK Ultra, with Tom O 'Neill 00:34:54.750 --> 00:34:58.170 so brilliantly. outlines in his book chaos they 00:34:58.170 --> 00:35:00.610 went after it and they created the manson family 00:35:00.610 --> 00:35:03.369 they created that family they they taught that 00:35:03.369 --> 00:35:05.630 guy how to do that so that that guy would kill 00:35:05.630 --> 00:35:08.809 people and he would be a psychopath and now hippies 00:35:08.809 --> 00:35:11.449 would be psychopaths and then all this anti -war 00:35:11.449 --> 00:35:13.769 shit would just get stopped by sensible people 00:35:13.769 --> 00:35:18.989 then schedule one everything everything psilocybin 00:35:18.989 --> 00:35:22.289 marijuana all down the board everything becomes 00:35:22.289 --> 00:35:24.849 schedule one the most illegal of illegal things 00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:27.860 So all these people who are experiencing all 00:35:27.860 --> 00:35:31.739 these Ken Kesey people and, you know, all the 00:35:31.739 --> 00:35:34.840 LSD people of the 60s, all those people become 00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:37.280 criminals instantly. And they just threw water 00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:40.079 on the whole movement. And it worked. It really 00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:43.059 worked. It was Nixon and all the people that 00:35:43.059 --> 00:35:45.280 were in charge back then. If you look at what 00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:50.599 happened from 1960 to 1980, this confusing era 00:35:50.599 --> 00:35:53.239 of the 70s where the effects are wearing off. 00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:55.000 And then you get into the 80s and everybody's 00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:57.039 doing coke and they have makeup on and big hair 00:35:57.039 --> 00:36:00.039 and the music sucks. It's like something happened. 00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:03.610 Something happened. And what happened was. They 00:36:03.610 --> 00:36:08.349 completely removed the very thing that had changed 00:36:08.349 --> 00:36:11.570 culture so radically from the 50s to the 60s. 00:36:11.570 --> 00:36:16.570 Like, I'm a gigantic fan of 1960s automobiles. 00:36:16.610 --> 00:36:21.349 I love them. There's something about the shapes 00:36:21.349 --> 00:36:24.559 of them. The way they sound. Part of it is that 00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:27.179 I grew up in the 80s, and those were the cars 00:36:27.179 --> 00:36:30.000 we all wanted. When we were kids, if a guy drove 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:32.940 by in a 1969 Camaro, we would all be like, whoa, 00:36:33.159 --> 00:36:37.039 look at it. Look at that thing. There's something 00:36:37.039 --> 00:36:40.179 about those shapes. There's something about the 00:36:40.179 --> 00:36:43.539 designs of those cars that resonates so strongly 00:36:43.539 --> 00:36:47.079 today. A 1990 car ain't worth shit. Nobody wants 00:36:47.079 --> 00:36:50.679 your fucking 1990 car. 1990 Camaro, get the fuck 00:36:50.679 --> 00:36:52.260 out of here with that thing. But if you have 00:36:52.260 --> 00:36:55.800 a 1968 Camaro, people will stop in a parking 00:36:55.800 --> 00:36:59.480 lot and stare at it. What is that? I think those 00:36:59.480 --> 00:37:01.980 guys were on drugs. I think all those guys were 00:37:01.980 --> 00:37:04.639 on drugs. I think the guy who created a Corvette 00:37:04.639 --> 00:37:07.980 had to be on drugs. These guys were, they felt 00:37:07.980 --> 00:37:11.260 something the same way Hendrix felt something 00:37:11.260 --> 00:37:13.639 when he was on stage playing guitar in a way 00:37:13.639 --> 00:37:16.559 nobody had ever heard before. That guy came out 00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:18.980 of nowhere and everybody was like, what the fuck 00:37:18.980 --> 00:37:22.019 is he doing? It was so different that Eric Clapton 00:37:22.019 --> 00:37:25.079 watched him for the first time and was like. 00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:27.579 I should probably quit playing guitar. Like, 00:37:27.579 --> 00:37:29.619 what the fuck am I doing compared to this guy? 00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:32.239 Like, Jesus Christ. Everybody was, like, humbled 00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:36.980 and confused by it. Psychedelic, inspired, 100%. 00:37:36.980 --> 00:37:42.019 100%. And there's something about throwing water 00:37:42.019 --> 00:37:45.000 on that in the 1970s that I think has done a 00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.000 massive disservice to our civilization. A massive 00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:51.940 disservice. Because it's equated these things 00:37:51.940 --> 00:37:54.639 with people that have poor discipline and bad. 00:37:54.800 --> 00:37:58.199 social skills and ne 'er -do -wells who fail 00:37:58.199 --> 00:38:02.059 in society, and that's not true. And all these 00:38:02.059 --> 00:38:04.500 people that I know that are billionaires, I know 00:38:04.500 --> 00:38:08.920 people that are super rich people that run these 00:38:08.920 --> 00:38:12.860 financial institutions, and I know a lot of brilliant 00:38:12.860 --> 00:38:16.619 venture capitalist guys and brilliant tech guys. 00:38:17.469 --> 00:38:21.110 Almost all of them are enthusiasts. Almost all 00:38:21.110 --> 00:38:23.130 of them have had these experiences and they're 00:38:23.130 --> 00:38:25.730 all kind of quiet about it. And it's very unfortunate. 00:38:25.909 --> 00:38:28.550 It's very unfortunate because of these stupid 00:38:28.550 --> 00:38:31.670 laws that were passed 50 years ago. We've gotten 00:38:31.670 --> 00:38:35.610 ourselves in this weird crunch where we've made 00:38:35.610 --> 00:38:40.190 things illegal that could. massively help people 00:38:40.190 --> 00:38:44.269 progress in life and sort things out if we could 00:38:44.269 --> 00:38:47.429 figure out how to manage them correctly if we 00:38:47.429 --> 00:38:50.610 could run proper studies about what is the correct 00:38:50.610 --> 00:38:54.230 dose is there a person that has a certain sort 00:38:54.230 --> 00:39:00.150 of biological makeup that makes these drugs problematic? 00:39:00.489 --> 00:39:03.150 Should we find out? Maybe someone's allergic 00:39:03.150 --> 00:39:05.989 to them. There's many medications and many different 00:39:05.989 --> 00:39:08.670 compounds and many plants and natural things 00:39:08.670 --> 00:39:11.750 that people are allergic to. Let's avoid that. 00:39:11.929 --> 00:39:14.150 Let's try to figure out what works for some people, 00:39:14.190 --> 00:39:17.409 what doesn't work. Let's have legitimate counselors 00:39:17.409 --> 00:39:20.610 that could guide people through experiences, 00:39:20.769 --> 00:39:23.710 people that have experienced it themselves and 00:39:23.710 --> 00:39:26.349 can understand how to do this with intent. and 00:39:26.349 --> 00:39:29.210 possibly aid your life. They have been shown 00:39:29.210 --> 00:39:32.829 to be hugely beneficial for soldiers, for our 00:39:32.829 --> 00:39:35.829 military men and women coming back from overseas 00:39:35.829 --> 00:39:39.309 experiencing horrific trauma to help them get 00:39:39.309 --> 00:39:43.869 past that. And yet they're illegal still. We're 00:39:43.869 --> 00:39:47.349 both middle -aged men, right? So who is telling 00:39:47.349 --> 00:39:50.829 us what we can and can't do? This is preposterous. 00:39:50.909 --> 00:39:55.179 This is... Other men our age that haven't had 00:39:55.179 --> 00:39:59.019 these experiences maintaining this control on 00:39:59.019 --> 00:40:02.000 them in a completely ignorant way. They don't 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:04.079 even know what they are. They don't know what 00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:06.179 these things are. They don't know what the experience 00:40:06.179 --> 00:40:08.699 is. And yet they want it to be kept out of the 00:40:08.699 --> 00:40:11.159 hands of kids. We've got to keep it off the streets. 00:40:11.440 --> 00:40:14.300 We've got to keep drugs away from our society. 00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:16.780 And you don't know what you're talking about. 00:40:16.940 --> 00:40:20.289 It might be why we're here. And it also. The 00:40:20.289 --> 00:40:23.150 absence of it might be why we're so fucked up. 00:40:23.250 --> 00:40:26.230 It might be why we're so disconnected, why we're 00:40:26.230 --> 00:40:30.809 so disjointed. And our society is so hypocritical. 00:40:31.090 --> 00:40:34.570 I mean, the most pro -life people are also pro 00:40:34.570 --> 00:40:37.630 -death penalty. It's like across the board, everything. 00:40:37.789 --> 00:40:40.690 The people that, you know, want no crime but 00:40:40.690 --> 00:40:44.489 don't want to stop the emergence of crime by 00:40:44.489 --> 00:40:47.650 funding programs to try to fix the inner cities. 00:40:49.739 --> 00:40:53.039 Our whole thing is disconnected. And I have a 00:40:53.039 --> 00:40:56.400 feeling that a big part of that is that we have 00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:59.699 not been given access to tools that have helped 00:40:59.699 --> 00:41:03.320 people literally become what we are today. And 00:41:03.320 --> 00:41:07.139 if you read Brian Murrow Rescu's work and if 00:41:07.139 --> 00:41:09.760 he's correct and these people that are studying 00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:13.000 the Eleusinian mysteries and the literal emergence 00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:16.940 of democracy as we know it, probably all of it 00:41:16.940 --> 00:41:21.110 came out of psychedelic experiences. So I had 00:41:21.110 --> 00:41:26.110 Timothy Leary's old job at Harvard. That comes 00:41:26.110 --> 00:41:29.030 with a lot of weight. Yeah, and I knew some of 00:41:29.030 --> 00:41:32.989 the people that knew him. And so you could say 00:41:32.989 --> 00:41:35.269 that what happened in the 1960s, and this is 00:41:35.269 --> 00:41:37.630 relevant to the psychedelic experience, let's 00:41:37.630 --> 00:41:41.389 say, is that the emergence of mushrooms in particular 00:41:41.389 --> 00:41:45.789 and then LSD indicated to a swath of the population 00:41:45.789 --> 00:41:50.960 like Leary and like Ken Kesey our perceptions 00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:54.639 were locked in kind of a box, in a box that we 00:41:54.639 --> 00:41:59.019 weren't even conscious of. I suppose that's the 00:41:59.019 --> 00:42:04.179 box of conformity. And the psychedelics released 00:42:04.179 --> 00:42:08.900 a wave of non -conformity. And Leary crystallized 00:42:08.900 --> 00:42:11.519 that with his tune -in, turn -on, and drop -out. 00:42:11.679 --> 00:42:14.519 Now, there was a major problem with that, and 00:42:14.519 --> 00:42:17.219 that was partly what... led to the kickback. 00:42:17.460 --> 00:42:20.159 So you might say that the first stage of something 00:42:20.159 --> 00:42:23.559 approximating a religious revelation is the understanding 00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:29.219 that your perceptions have been constrained by 00:42:29.219 --> 00:42:32.559 forms of conformity that were so extensive that 00:42:32.559 --> 00:42:34.500 you didn't even understand them. You didn't even 00:42:34.500 --> 00:42:37.059 know they were there. And so you're freed from 00:42:37.059 --> 00:42:39.579 that. And then maybe the first response to that 00:42:39.579 --> 00:42:44.019 is the celebration of an unlimited hedonistic 00:42:44.019 --> 00:42:49.800 freedom. But the problem with that is that freedom 00:42:49.800 --> 00:42:53.239 from constraint and hedonism is not freedom. 00:42:54.119 --> 00:42:58.239 It's just subjugation to a kind of instinctive 00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:00.760 chaos. And that emerged with the hippie culture. 00:43:01.219 --> 00:43:05.519 And Leary in particular made a huge mistake when 00:43:05.519 --> 00:43:08.539 he said, tune in, turn on, and drop out. He should 00:43:08.539 --> 00:43:12.360 have said, tune in, turn on, and grow up. I'm 00:43:12.360 --> 00:43:15.519 dead serious about that because there's... There's 00:43:15.519 --> 00:43:18.239 a different form of responsibility that emerges 00:43:18.239 --> 00:43:23.840 once you realize that you were constrained by 00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:26.699 a conformist box, let's say like Moses when he 00:43:26.699 --> 00:43:30.139 was being a normal shepherd, that you can step 00:43:30.139 --> 00:43:33.019 outside of that. But you don't step outside of 00:43:33.019 --> 00:43:35.920 that into worship of the golden calf like in 00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:39.159 hedonistic orgies. You step outside of that with 00:43:39.159 --> 00:43:46.659 a more conscious upward aim. technologies like 00:43:46.659 --> 00:43:49.800 psychedelics isn't accompanied by that framework 00:43:49.800 --> 00:43:52.980 of enhanced responsibility, then it can degenerate 00:43:52.980 --> 00:43:55.519 into a kind of hedonistic chaos. And that's what 00:43:55.519 --> 00:43:57.920 the Nixon types were reacting to. They were terrified 00:43:57.920 --> 00:44:00.519 by it. And they had the reasons to be terrified 00:44:00.519 --> 00:44:04.599 because as you're intimating, these technologies 00:44:04.599 --> 00:44:08.880 are unbelievably, unbelievably potent and destabilizing. 00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:13.420 Now, that destabilization can be... used for 00:44:13.420 --> 00:44:15.780 better let's say for better or for worse right 00:44:15.780 --> 00:44:18.179 and it should be used for better that's complex 00:44:18.179 --> 00:44:23.360 it's a very complex thing to manage and so Carl 00:44:23.360 --> 00:44:26.199 Jung said that the one of the main functions 00:44:26.199 --> 00:44:28.920 of religion was to stop people from having religious 00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:33.280 experiences and what he meant by that was that 00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:36.139 a direct experience of the transcendent is enough 00:44:36.139 --> 00:44:40.239 to shake you to the foundation and to destabilize 00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:42.699 not only you but your culture this is why for 00:44:42.699 --> 00:44:45.300 there's another scene in the story of exodus 00:44:45.300 --> 00:44:47.539 but could you explain further like expand on 00:44:47.539 --> 00:44:50.480 what he was meaning by that but they keep you 00:44:50.480 --> 00:44:54.179 from having religious experiences well if everybody 00:44:54.179 --> 00:44:56.980 goes their own enlightened way let's say there's 00:44:56.980 --> 00:45:00.719 no there's no social cohesion there's no unity 00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:03.210 of purpose There's nothing but fragmentation. 00:45:03.530 --> 00:45:05.769 And part of the danger of the hippie movement 00:45:05.769 --> 00:45:10.150 in the 1960s was a counter -social fragmentation. 00:45:10.630 --> 00:45:13.369 Now, so you can imagine, you know, things get 00:45:13.369 --> 00:45:15.590 so constrained that everybody's exactly the same, 00:45:15.670 --> 00:45:17.429 and that's a complete totalitarian catastrophe. 00:45:17.570 --> 00:45:19.809 But you can imagine the opposite catastrophe, 00:45:19.929 --> 00:45:22.550 which is that, well, everyone's letting it all 00:45:22.550 --> 00:45:24.889 hang out and doing their own thing, and that's 00:45:24.889 --> 00:45:27.929 equally. Right. And so there's some balance in 00:45:27.929 --> 00:45:29.449 the middle. Well, that's that balance between 00:45:29.449 --> 00:45:31.510 chaos and order that we were referring to earlier. 00:45:31.769 --> 00:45:34.110 It's also an ignorance of the structure that's 00:45:34.110 --> 00:45:36.929 involved in maintaining a society. Definitely. 00:45:36.929 --> 00:45:39.530 You need discipline and people need to work to 00:45:39.530 --> 00:45:41.769 maintain the society that you enjoy to be so 00:45:41.769 --> 00:45:44.389 free and to be a hippie. Well, you can imagine 00:45:44.389 --> 00:45:49.349 that that complex social order can be maintained 00:45:49.349 --> 00:45:52.710 by something like mindless obedience. Right. 00:45:52.809 --> 00:45:55.360 That's suboptimal. What you'd really want is 00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:59.260 enlightened responsibility. Right. That's a great 00:45:59.260 --> 00:46:00.860 way to put it. Right. That's a very hard thing 00:46:00.860 --> 00:46:02.920 to pull off, though, because it means that you 00:46:02.920 --> 00:46:08.500 have to leap out of the box of social constraint 00:46:08.500 --> 00:46:11.139 and you have to take the responsibility onto 00:46:11.139 --> 00:46:13.340 yourself. Now, that's a hell of a lot better 00:46:13.340 --> 00:46:15.099 if you can manage it, but that is definitely 00:46:15.099 --> 00:46:20.170 not what... Kesey or Leary, for example, were 00:46:20.170 --> 00:46:21.389 preaching to the masses. But what you're saying 00:46:21.389 --> 00:46:23.570 is like an admirable thing that people should 00:46:23.570 --> 00:46:27.309 aspire to. It's the best possible. It's the highest 00:46:27.309 --> 00:46:29.210 goal. Let me give you another example of this, 00:46:29.269 --> 00:46:31.489 if you don't mind. I'm going to use another biblical 00:46:31.489 --> 00:46:34.050 story. Why are you biblicaling? The lights are 00:46:34.050 --> 00:46:36.289 flickering behind you, almost like God is interacting 00:46:36.289 --> 00:46:38.369 with us. There's spirits in the room, Jamie. 00:46:38.929 --> 00:46:41.079 Have you noticed the light flickering? If you 00:46:41.079 --> 00:46:43.139 haven't noticed it, keep an eye on it. Hopefully 00:46:43.139 --> 00:46:46.099 they're the right spirits. Well, I think they 00:46:46.099 --> 00:46:50.960 always are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the story 00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:55.960 of Abraham, Abraham is an old man when the story 00:46:55.960 --> 00:46:57.360 starts. As soon as you start talking about Abraham, 00:46:57.460 --> 00:47:00.219 start flickering again. It's going now. It's 00:47:00.219 --> 00:47:01.699 one of my tricks, man. I'm telling you, dude, 00:47:01.780 --> 00:47:05.119 it's never happened before. This is wild. So 00:47:05.119 --> 00:47:07.840 Abraham is like 70 years old when the story starts, 00:47:07.960 --> 00:47:09.739 and we don't know anything about him. He's completely 00:47:09.739 --> 00:47:12.559 nondescript. He's a case of failure to launch. 00:47:12.820 --> 00:47:14.800 So he has rich parents, and he has everything 00:47:14.800 --> 00:47:17.199 he needs at hand. So he can live the life of 00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:20.920 a satiated infant. Like he's in the throes of, 00:47:21.019 --> 00:47:24.440 what would you say, materialistic plenty. And 00:47:24.440 --> 00:47:26.760 the voice of God comes to him. But it's characterized 00:47:26.760 --> 00:47:30.480 in a very particular manner. So God comes to 00:47:30.480 --> 00:47:33.510 Abraham as the call to adventure. And that's 00:47:33.510 --> 00:47:35.230 a very useful thing to know. So in the Moses 00:47:35.230 --> 00:47:37.809 story, God comes to Moses as that which attracts 00:47:37.809 --> 00:47:39.889 his interest and takes him off the beaten path. 00:47:40.289 --> 00:47:42.789 In the story of Abraham, God comes as the spirit 00:47:42.789 --> 00:47:49.530 of adventure. And God makes Abraham a deal. It's 00:47:49.530 --> 00:47:52.570 a very specific deal. And it's the best possible 00:47:52.570 --> 00:47:54.670 deal. This is the covenant, by the way. This 00:47:54.670 --> 00:47:59.150 is the covenant. So God tells Abraham, if you 00:47:59.150 --> 00:48:02.309 leave your zone of comfort, If you remove yourself 00:48:02.309 --> 00:48:04.610 from your father's tent, if you move away from 00:48:04.610 --> 00:48:07.730 infantile materialistic satiation and go out 00:48:07.730 --> 00:48:11.010 into the terrible world, and you do that voluntarily, 00:48:11.389 --> 00:48:13.769 you have the adventure of your life. This is 00:48:13.769 --> 00:48:16.369 what will happen. You'll be a blessing to yourself 00:48:16.369 --> 00:48:20.070 that's genuine. So instead of being racked with 00:48:20.070 --> 00:48:22.590 self -doubt and being self -conscious and taking 00:48:22.590 --> 00:48:25.289 yourself apart with guilt and shame, you'll ride 00:48:25.289 --> 00:48:27.409 the wave of adventure and you'll feel that your 00:48:27.409 --> 00:48:29.250 life is a blessing. Not only will you feel that, 00:48:29.289 --> 00:48:31.010 it will be a blessing. That's the first thing 00:48:31.010 --> 00:48:33.369 that will happen. The second thing that will 00:48:33.369 --> 00:48:36.010 happen is that other people will notice and your 00:48:36.010 --> 00:48:37.989 name will become renowned and that will be valid. 00:48:38.449 --> 00:48:40.250 You'll be a blessing to other people in that 00:48:40.250 --> 00:48:44.440 regard. Your name will be upheld. So you'll stand 00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:46.880 out among your peers, but in a justifiable manner 00:48:46.880 --> 00:48:49.780 that's a consequence of your own intrinsic merit. 00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:53.000 The third thing that'll happen is that you'll 00:48:53.000 --> 00:48:55.320 have the opportunity to establish something permanent. 00:48:55.400 --> 00:48:57.420 For Abraham, it's a dynasty, right? He's offered 00:48:57.420 --> 00:48:59.400 the possibility of being the father of nations. 00:48:59.940 --> 00:49:01.900 And the fourth thing that happens is you'll do 00:49:01.900 --> 00:49:04.239 it in a way that's of cardinal benefit to everyone. 00:49:04.559 --> 00:49:06.739 And so what happens in that story, this is so 00:49:06.739 --> 00:49:10.239 cool. It's so remarkable. It's the answer to 00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:13.030 the selfish gene, by the way, as well. So what 00:49:13.030 --> 00:49:15.269 this story does is it takes the call to adventure, 00:49:15.510 --> 00:49:19.429 which is the instinct that makes children move 00:49:19.429 --> 00:49:22.610 out into the world. It's the spirit that you 00:49:22.610 --> 00:49:26.230 encourage if you're a good father. It lines that 00:49:26.230 --> 00:49:28.949 up and it says if you follow that and let it 00:49:28.949 --> 00:49:32.070 pull you out of your zone of comfort, your life 00:49:32.070 --> 00:49:34.409 will be a blessing to you, your reputation will 00:49:34.409 --> 00:49:36.929 grow, you'll establish something permanent, and 00:49:36.929 --> 00:49:38.570 you'll do that in a way that's good for everyone. 00:49:39.309 --> 00:49:42.469 Right. So that's a hell of a good deal. And that's 00:49:42.469 --> 00:49:45.070 that's the story of Abraham. OK, so why is that 00:49:45.070 --> 00:49:47.610 relevant to the psychedelic debate? Because if 00:49:47.610 --> 00:49:50.489 you're going to move into the zone of the transcendent, 00:49:50.489 --> 00:49:53.630 you have to take on the requisite responsibility 00:49:53.630 --> 00:49:57.570 or the process of transcendence turns into something 00:49:57.570 --> 00:50:00.469 like a descent into unstructured chaos. And that's 00:50:00.469 --> 00:50:02.849 not an improvement. It's just a movement from 00:50:02.849 --> 00:50:05.610 tyranny into the desert. That's a good way of 00:50:05.610 --> 00:50:08.769 thinking about it symbolically. What happens 00:50:08.769 --> 00:50:12.050 in the Exodus story, because it also details 00:50:12.050 --> 00:50:14.530 out how this should be structured, is that Moses 00:50:14.530 --> 00:50:18.010 has a vision of individual responsibility and 00:50:18.010 --> 00:50:22.150 social organization that's maximally responsibility 00:50:22.150 --> 00:50:26.150 -based. So Moses tells the Pharaoh to let his 00:50:26.150 --> 00:50:28.469 people go, but that's not the phrase. The phrase 00:50:28.469 --> 00:50:31.309 is, God tells Moses to say this. He says, let 00:50:31.309 --> 00:50:35.090 my people go, so they may worship me in the desert. 00:50:35.670 --> 00:50:38.250 And so you move out of the tyranny. That's what 00:50:38.250 --> 00:50:40.190 happens, let's say, in the throes of a psychedelic 00:50:40.190 --> 00:50:42.690 experience is that the preconceptions are shattered. 00:50:42.949 --> 00:50:46.510 Now you're somewhere unstructured. Okay, well, 00:50:46.630 --> 00:50:49.909 you can't worship what's unstructured. You have 00:50:49.909 --> 00:50:53.190 to find the proper structuring for your new freedom. 00:50:53.309 --> 00:50:55.769 The vision that's put forward in the book of 00:50:55.769 --> 00:51:00.090 Exodus is a vision of multidimensional responsible 00:51:00.090 --> 00:51:04.329 identity. So you take on responsibility for your 00:51:04.329 --> 00:51:07.500 own life. You take on responsibility for the 00:51:07.500 --> 00:51:10.340 life of your wife or your husband. You take on 00:51:10.340 --> 00:51:12.940 responsibility for your family. You're a model 00:51:12.940 --> 00:51:15.719 for your community. You serve your state. You 00:51:15.719 --> 00:51:17.579 do what you can for your nation, and that's all 00:51:17.579 --> 00:51:20.239 united under your highest upward orientation. 00:51:20.639 --> 00:51:24.260 And that's ordered freedom. That's ordered freedom. 00:51:24.440 --> 00:51:26.900 It's not the same as the hedonistic freedom that 00:51:26.900 --> 00:51:29.260 the people like Nixon and the sort of right -wing 00:51:29.260 --> 00:51:32.980 conservatives of the 1960s were terrified by, 00:51:33.019 --> 00:51:36.260 that kind of hedonistic anarchy. It's not freedom. 00:51:36.260 --> 00:51:39.980 It erupted out of nowhere. I mean, we're right 00:51:39.980 --> 00:51:46.280 now in 2024. I want you to imagine 2014. It's 00:51:46.280 --> 00:51:49.639 the same. It's the same. There's nothing different 00:51:49.639 --> 00:51:52.519 other than the threat of AI and war and socially. 00:51:52.719 --> 00:51:58.119 The world's the same. You go from 1956 to 1966, 00:51:58.219 --> 00:52:01.239 you have a completely different world. Completely 00:52:01.239 --> 00:52:04.199 different world. Everyone's going crazy. The 00:52:04.199 --> 00:52:07.079 opposition to the Vietnam War has got people 00:52:07.079 --> 00:52:11.159 in the streets. Ken Kesey, Tim Leary, tune in, 00:52:11.239 --> 00:52:14.719 drop out, all that. This world is changing in 00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:17.780 this radical way. There'd been nothing like it. 00:52:17.900 --> 00:52:21.960 And a lot of what you're saying about these experiences 00:52:21.960 --> 00:52:25.860 happening and people just disconnecting and not 00:52:25.860 --> 00:52:29.000 having discipline and structure and just experiencing 00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:31.940 these things and just... disconnecting completely 00:52:31.940 --> 00:52:35.639 from society was the problem that was the problem 00:52:35.639 --> 00:52:38.940 it's a major problem well it's still a problem 00:52:38.940 --> 00:52:41.940 now to some degree because people who are pursuing 00:52:41.940 --> 00:52:45.099 let's say non -conformist freedom don't understand 00:52:45.099 --> 00:52:47.380 that the replacement for freedom isn't hedonistic 00:52:47.380 --> 00:52:50.099 anarchy and that's partly because it's self -defeating 00:52:50.099 --> 00:52:53.199 it's also pointless it's also pointless and meaningless 00:52:53.199 --> 00:52:56.340 and it's partly pointless and meaningless because 00:52:56.340 --> 00:52:59.489 imagine then this is part of the implication 00:52:59.489 --> 00:53:02.789 of the story of Abraham is that the instinct 00:53:02.789 --> 00:53:05.989 of meaning comes to you when you pursue a pathway 00:53:05.989 --> 00:53:10.969 that specifies, what would you say, the limitless 00:53:10.969 --> 00:53:14.190 development of your integrated psyche. But it's 00:53:14.190 --> 00:53:16.090 not just the psyche, it's the integration of 00:53:16.090 --> 00:53:18.110 the psyche with all the different levels of society. 00:53:18.369 --> 00:53:21.849 Like, for example, insofar as you're well put 00:53:21.849 --> 00:53:24.130 together, you're going to be a highly functional 00:53:24.130 --> 00:53:27.849 husband to your wife, right? Like your own psychological 00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:31.199 Organization, integration cannot be divorced 00:53:31.199 --> 00:53:34.820 from the union that you make with your wife. 00:53:34.980 --> 00:53:36.659 They're the same thing. And then you can extend 00:53:36.659 --> 00:53:39.280 that to your kids. For you to get your act together 00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:42.380 means simultaneously that you establish the proper 00:53:42.380 --> 00:53:44.639 relationship with your wife and with your children. 00:53:44.780 --> 00:53:47.159 Those are the same thing. And then if you can 00:53:47.159 --> 00:53:49.079 manage that, you do the same thing with the broader 00:53:49.079 --> 00:53:53.460 community. It all stacks up musically. And so 00:53:53.460 --> 00:53:56.460 then mental health doesn't become how your psyche 00:53:56.460 --> 00:54:00.039 is organized internally, which is what the clinical 00:54:00.039 --> 00:54:03.280 psychologists misled people into believing. It's 00:54:03.280 --> 00:54:08.719 more like the harmony that obtains from the psyche 00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:11.260 upward through society when everything is stacked 00:54:11.260 --> 00:54:14.000 up properly to the... up to the highest level 00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:16.739 possible of being. And that's another definition 00:54:16.739 --> 00:54:19.440 of God. So one of the things I tried to do in 00:54:19.440 --> 00:54:22.460 this book is to actually define what it is that 00:54:22.460 --> 00:54:25.260 we're arguing about. Because the old man in the 00:54:25.260 --> 00:54:27.300 sky superstition doesn't cover the territory. 00:54:27.900 --> 00:54:31.019 So, for example, if you look at God in the story 00:54:31.019 --> 00:54:33.579 of Abraham and you say, do you believe in that 00:54:33.579 --> 00:54:36.239 God? What you're asking, even though you might 00:54:36.239 --> 00:54:39.260 not know it, is do you believe that there is 00:54:39.260 --> 00:54:42.849 a call to adventure? following that call will 00:54:42.849 --> 00:54:45.769 not only integrate you, but serve society in 00:54:45.769 --> 00:54:48.349 the highest possible manner. And that's a very, 00:54:48.429 --> 00:54:50.849 that's a pretty straightforward question. It 00:54:50.849 --> 00:54:52.730 has very little to do with anything that's even 00:54:52.730 --> 00:54:55.769 vaguely superstitious. Like, is that call there? 00:54:56.170 --> 00:54:58.489 You certainly reward it in your children if you 00:54:58.489 --> 00:55:02.349 have the least bit of sense. And so I've been 00:55:02.349 --> 00:55:05.150 trying to define what it is that we're arguing 00:55:05.150 --> 00:55:08.389 about. And so there's another definition, too, 00:55:08.449 --> 00:55:11.230 that you see this in... the story of Adam and 00:55:11.230 --> 00:55:14.789 Eve. So in the story of Adam and Eve, one of 00:55:14.789 --> 00:55:20.010 the ways God is characterized is as the spirit 00:55:20.010 --> 00:55:23.969 that calls you on your pride and presumption. 00:55:25.170 --> 00:55:26.949 So then you ask yourself, well, do you believe 00:55:26.949 --> 00:55:29.630 that exists? It's like, how often in your own 00:55:29.630 --> 00:55:33.269 life has pride gone before a fall? Is there some 00:55:33.269 --> 00:55:40.849 spirit that's operative in being that... shows 00:55:40.849 --> 00:55:43.130 you the error of your ways when you get ahead 00:55:43.130 --> 00:55:46.130 of yourself or not? And if the answer to that 00:55:46.130 --> 00:55:47.869 is no, you say, well, you have no conscience? 00:55:48.150 --> 00:55:51.769 Nothing calls you on your moral impropriety, 00:55:51.809 --> 00:55:54.809 your overreaching? No one wants to be near you 00:55:54.809 --> 00:55:56.889 if you're one of those people. That's for sure. 00:55:57.130 --> 00:56:00.849 And is that real? So one of the ways God is presented 00:56:00.849 --> 00:56:04.500 in the Old Testament is this. dynamic between 00:56:04.500 --> 00:56:06.539 calling and conscience, right? So there's the 00:56:06.539 --> 00:56:09.179 calling that is indicated in the story of Abraham 00:56:09.179 --> 00:56:11.559 and Moses that pulls you forward to the adventure 00:56:11.559 --> 00:56:14.420 of your life. And the other side of that is the 00:56:14.420 --> 00:56:16.480 constraint of conscience that tells you when 00:56:16.480 --> 00:56:18.800 you're wandering off the straight and narrow 00:56:18.800 --> 00:56:22.139 path. That's more the voice of negative emotion 00:56:22.139 --> 00:56:24.920 and threat detection. And calling is more like 00:56:24.920 --> 00:56:27.699 the voice of positive emotion that pulls you 00:56:27.699 --> 00:56:30.260 forward and invites you. But you need the dynamic 00:56:30.260 --> 00:56:33.840 between those two. That's the... Pillar of light 00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:35.940 and the pillar of darkness that guides the Israelites 00:56:35.940 --> 00:56:38.860 across the desert. Jonathan Paggio helped me 00:56:38.860 --> 00:56:42.219 figure that out. Just flattened me when he laid 00:56:42.219 --> 00:56:44.599 it out. Because I could see the Taoist view of 00:56:44.599 --> 00:56:46.739 the world and the ancient Jewish view of the 00:56:46.739 --> 00:56:49.239 world stack on top of each other. And the implication 00:56:49.239 --> 00:56:51.719 of the story is very straight. It's like you 00:56:51.719 --> 00:56:54.519 leave a tyranny and you're lost. What guides 00:56:54.519 --> 00:56:57.099 you when you're lost? The interaction between 00:56:57.099 --> 00:57:00.539 what calls you forward and upward and the constraints. 00:57:01.179 --> 00:57:03.480 of your own conscience that warn you when you're 00:57:03.480 --> 00:57:05.440 deviating from the straight and narrow path. 00:57:05.719 --> 00:57:08.360 That's a definition of God that emerges from 00:57:08.360 --> 00:57:11.320 Exodus. And the balance of the mind to be able 00:57:11.320 --> 00:57:14.239 to figure out which is which and how to apply 00:57:14.239 --> 00:57:17.960 them. And the balance of the mind, this is why 00:57:17.960 --> 00:57:19.679 you have to have the least amount of problems 00:57:19.679 --> 00:57:22.039 in your life and keep your body as healthy as 00:57:22.039 --> 00:57:24.500 possible so you don't have all these other things 00:57:24.500 --> 00:57:26.880 that are influencing the way you interact with 00:57:26.880 --> 00:57:29.690 the world. You got to have a balance of everything. 00:57:29.869 --> 00:57:31.969 All of it has to be kind of balanced together 00:57:31.969 --> 00:57:36.030 in order for you to have the judgment. Yes. Otherwise, 00:57:36.369 --> 00:57:39.789 you can't see. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You 00:57:39.789 --> 00:57:41.809 have to be able to see it. And it's hard. And 00:57:41.809 --> 00:57:43.750 you have to want to see it. Yeah. So why do you 00:57:43.750 --> 00:57:47.869 want to see it? Me? Yeah. It's just my instinct. 00:57:48.110 --> 00:57:50.250 That's just I follow my instincts with everything. 00:57:50.809 --> 00:57:54.050 I always have. Why? I don't know. I think because 00:57:54.050 --> 00:57:56.690 I didn't have a lot of guidance when I was young. 00:57:57.309 --> 00:58:00.170 And because, you know, I was a latchkey kid and 00:58:00.170 --> 00:58:03.530 parents divorced, split, you know, a lot, a lot 00:58:03.530 --> 00:58:08.909 of moving. I think I developed my own appreciation 00:58:08.909 --> 00:58:12.110 of my instincts, of my thought. And I had seen 00:58:12.110 --> 00:58:16.670 enough people by the time I was a young boy ruin 00:58:16.670 --> 00:58:20.039 their lives. And I'd seen these poor decisions 00:58:20.039 --> 00:58:23.320 right in front of me. I'd seen poor thinking 00:58:23.320 --> 00:58:25.679 and excuse making and laziness. Right, so you 00:58:25.679 --> 00:58:27.679 could see the negative consequences. Yes, I'd 00:58:27.679 --> 00:58:29.460 seen all these things. And because I didn't feel 00:58:29.460 --> 00:58:33.800 protected, I genuinely felt like I was on my 00:58:33.800 --> 00:58:35.480 own and I had to figure things out on my own. 00:58:35.960 --> 00:58:40.400 I developed a very early trust and recognition 00:58:40.400 --> 00:58:43.019 of the importance of that. And it's led me through 00:58:43.019 --> 00:58:46.409 my entire life. Everything that I ever did that 00:58:46.409 --> 00:58:49.130 was like a big risk was like a calling to me. 00:58:49.409 --> 00:58:51.929 Every single thing that I ever did. From getting 00:58:51.929 --> 00:58:56.170 into martial arts, I went from not doing it to 00:58:56.170 --> 00:58:59.530 doing it every day, all day, seven days a week. 00:58:59.789 --> 00:59:06.190 It was a calling. It was like my mind interfaced 00:59:06.190 --> 00:59:08.889 with whatever that was, martial arts was, and 00:59:08.889 --> 00:59:11.150 said, this is my ticket out of here. This is 00:59:11.150 --> 00:59:12.610 my ticket to be a different person. Was that 00:59:12.610 --> 00:59:15.090 discipline? What was the ticket do you think 00:59:15.090 --> 00:59:17.110 I don't even know if you call it discipline back 00:59:17.110 --> 00:59:20.269 then because it was more of an obsession So when 00:59:20.269 --> 00:59:22.050 you're obsessed with something it doesn't require 00:59:22.050 --> 00:59:24.550 discipline because you can't wait to do it again 00:59:24.550 --> 00:59:28.489 Discipline Mike Tyson said it was a real calling 00:59:28.489 --> 00:59:30.909 for you Mike Tyson said best He said discipline 00:59:30.909 --> 00:59:33.150 is doing something you hate but doing it like 00:59:33.150 --> 00:59:36.389 you love it. Mm -hmm, you know like When you're 00:59:36.389 --> 00:59:38.869 in training camp like Mike Tyson was for a big 00:59:38.869 --> 00:59:41.650 heavyweight fight, you're pushing the limits 00:59:41.650 --> 00:59:44.989 of your physical endurance and recovery because 00:59:44.989 --> 00:59:49.190 you're trying to achieve an adaptation. You can't 00:59:49.190 --> 00:59:52.650 maintain fight -ready fitness all year round. 00:59:52.869 --> 00:59:54.829 One thing that people don't understand about 00:59:54.829 --> 00:59:59.170 fight -ready, when a guy like Islam Makachev, 00:59:59.289 --> 01:00:02.309 who is the UFC lightweight champion, the pound 01:00:02.309 --> 01:00:05.690 -for -pound best fighter on earth, When that 01:00:05.690 --> 01:00:08.590 guy is fighting, when he gets into the cage on 01:00:08.590 --> 01:00:10.809 the day, whatever it is, that Saturday night, 01:00:10.949 --> 01:00:15.639 this is a peak. performance and training that 01:00:15.639 --> 01:00:18.840 cannot be maintained you want he wants to catch 01:00:18.840 --> 01:00:21.340 it right when he's right there when the body 01:00:21.340 --> 01:00:24.119 hasn't broken down yet the immune system hasn't 01:00:24.119 --> 01:00:26.699 broken down yet the endocrine system isn't fried 01:00:26.699 --> 01:00:29.619 the adrenals aren't fried you you're getting 01:00:29.619 --> 01:00:32.860 it to right when your body can recover and is 01:00:32.860 --> 01:00:36.019 forced to maintain this insane level of fitness 01:00:36.860 --> 01:00:39.119 And then you have to take a break. Like you cannot 01:00:39.119 --> 01:00:41.780 maintain fight camp all year round. You will 01:00:41.780 --> 01:00:44.000 not be able to do it. Your body will break down. 01:00:44.539 --> 01:00:49.139 So you. My point is that requires discipline. 01:00:49.480 --> 01:00:53.260 Right. Because you're no longer in the inspiration 01:00:53.260 --> 01:00:56.199 realm. You're not in the obsession realm. You 01:00:56.199 --> 01:00:59.239 are, I'm sure, as well. But there's no fucking 01:00:59.239 --> 01:01:01.619 way you want to do it. There's no way you want 01:01:01.619 --> 01:01:03.800 to do more sprints. There's no way you want to 01:01:03.800 --> 01:01:06.119 do all this stuff. You must do it, though. You 01:01:06.119 --> 01:01:08.780 must do the calisthenics. You must do the live 01:01:08.780 --> 01:01:10.619 wrestling drills. You must do the shark tank 01:01:10.619 --> 01:01:13.940 where they throw in a new fresh opponent every 01:01:13.940 --> 01:01:16.929 round. for five rounds so you're dealing with 01:01:16.929 --> 01:01:19.969 rested killers and you're exhausted you have 01:01:19.969 --> 01:01:23.610 to do that and that's not that's pure discipline 01:01:23.610 --> 01:01:26.590 and generally enforced discipline by coaches 01:01:26.590 --> 01:01:29.969 because it's so rigid it's so hard to do that 01:01:29.969 --> 01:01:32.170 you need someone over you with a stopwatch go 01:01:32.170 --> 01:01:34.489 let's go let's go let's go and everybody has 01:01:34.489 --> 01:01:36.750 to get up and go at it because even the most 01:01:36.750 --> 01:01:39.369 disciplined their body recognizes they need a 01:01:39.369 --> 01:01:43.920 break right so that's pure discipline What I 01:01:43.920 --> 01:01:48.019 had was this obsession that made that hard work 01:01:48.019 --> 01:01:50.679 easy. Right, right. So that's a key thing. So 01:01:50.679 --> 01:01:53.840 that's a key thing. Okay, so now imagine that 01:01:53.840 --> 01:01:57.920 underneath that, there's an implicit or unconscious 01:01:57.920 --> 01:02:01.619 goal. Okay, so I'm saying this for a very specific 01:02:01.619 --> 01:02:05.579 reason. So the positive emotion that motivates 01:02:05.579 --> 01:02:08.059 people is always experienced in relationship 01:02:08.059 --> 01:02:10.590 to a goal. Now this is a very important thing 01:02:10.590 --> 01:02:12.210 for everyone to understand, because it means 01:02:12.210 --> 01:02:14.869 that if you don't have a goal, you have no positive 01:02:14.869 --> 01:02:18.090 emotion. And it also means that the higher your 01:02:18.090 --> 01:02:20.389 goal, the more positive emotion you experience 01:02:20.389 --> 01:02:22.349 when you're moving towards it, because positive 01:02:22.349 --> 01:02:25.190 emotion signifies progress towards a goal. So 01:02:25.190 --> 01:02:29.530 you need a goal. The goal of the deepest religious 01:02:29.530 --> 01:02:34.369 traditions is the ultimate goal, by definition. 01:02:34.670 --> 01:02:38.320 So the idea is that you need a goal. And so you 01:02:38.320 --> 01:02:41.380 should pick the utmost possible goal. That's 01:02:41.380 --> 01:02:43.780 another good definition of something like the 01:02:43.780 --> 01:02:45.840 kingdom of heaven or the realm of the divine, 01:02:46.039 --> 01:02:48.880 the ultimate goal. Now, you have a goal, and 01:02:48.880 --> 01:02:50.820 every time you see movement towards it, you're 01:02:50.820 --> 01:02:54.119 going to get, what would you say, you're riding 01:02:54.119 --> 01:02:56.260 on the energy that's associated with movement 01:02:56.260 --> 01:02:58.960 towards that goal. That's dopaminergically mediated. 01:02:59.079 --> 01:03:01.099 That's the same systems that are affected by 01:03:01.099 --> 01:03:03.360 cocaine and methamphetamine and so forth, all 01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:05.719 the positive emotion drugs. So you need a goal. 01:03:07.050 --> 01:03:09.469 That goal, now you can imagine this, that if 01:03:09.469 --> 01:03:12.670 you're attentive to the action of your own instincts, 01:03:12.829 --> 01:03:15.630 or the divine voice, I don't think those are 01:03:15.630 --> 01:03:18.030 distinguishable, then a goal is going to emerge 01:03:18.030 --> 01:03:21.090 that catalyzes a series of transformations. This 01:03:21.090 --> 01:03:24.670 is what happens to Abraham. So, he has a series 01:03:24.670 --> 01:03:26.670 of adventures after he decides that he's going 01:03:26.670 --> 01:03:29.050 to go out in the world. And every adventure is 01:03:29.050 --> 01:03:31.849 marked by the erection of a sacrificial altar. 01:03:32.300 --> 01:03:35.119 and a recommitment of his upward aim. Now, there's 01:03:35.119 --> 01:03:37.480 two reasons for that. One is that he reminds 01:03:37.480 --> 01:03:40.000 himself that he's aiming upward, and he's on 01:03:40.000 --> 01:03:42.380 an adventure. And the second is, he admits to 01:03:42.380 --> 01:03:44.780 himself that with every transformation of character, 01:03:44.920 --> 01:03:48.159 something has to be sacrificed. So, you know, 01:03:48.239 --> 01:03:51.059 so, now, I'm curious about this in your own life, 01:03:51.179 --> 01:03:55.900 right? So, you started obsessively committing 01:03:55.900 --> 01:03:58.699 to martial arts. What did you have to give up 01:03:58.699 --> 01:04:03.360 to do that? Social life. Okay. What else? That's 01:04:03.360 --> 01:04:05.579 basically it. I was a kid. Okay, social life. 01:04:05.699 --> 01:04:07.579 I didn't really have responsibilities other than 01:04:07.579 --> 01:04:10.300 school, so I would leave from school and go right 01:04:10.300 --> 01:04:13.380 to training. Okay, so there's an emergent idea 01:04:13.380 --> 01:04:17.440 in that story of adventure -led transformation 01:04:17.440 --> 01:04:20.800 that with every profound transformation of character, 01:04:21.099 --> 01:04:24.059 something that's not appropriate has to be let 01:04:24.059 --> 01:04:26.960 go of. That's why, by the way, that's why Abraham's 01:04:26.960 --> 01:04:29.019 story culminates in the sacrifice of his son. 01:04:29.610 --> 01:04:32.269 Because the sacrifices get higher in value as 01:04:32.269 --> 01:04:35.050 the developmental progression upward continues. 01:04:35.510 --> 01:04:37.630 And that's basically the story of individual 01:04:37.630 --> 01:04:40.750 development, right? Follow the call of adventure. 01:04:42.309 --> 01:04:47.309 Aim upward. Continually remind yourself of your 01:04:47.309 --> 01:04:50.429 fundamental goal. And then let go of everything 01:04:50.429 --> 01:04:52.489 that isn't appropriate as you transform forward. 01:04:52.730 --> 01:04:55.250 So Abraham ends up with a new name because of 01:04:55.250 --> 01:04:57.070 doing that. That's how different he becomes in 01:04:57.070 --> 01:04:59.420 the course of his adventure. It's like Jacob. 01:04:59.460 --> 01:05:02.619 Jacob becomes Israel and Abram becomes Abraham 01:05:02.619 --> 01:05:06.119 because the consequence of him following the 01:05:06.119 --> 01:05:08.920 pathway of adventure, the calling, is a transformation 01:05:08.920 --> 01:05:10.880 that's so complete it's as if he's a different 01:05:10.880 --> 01:05:14.599 person. And those stories are maps of that transformative 01:05:14.599 --> 01:05:20.199 process. So they culminate in the Christian view 01:05:20.199 --> 01:05:23.679 of things with the ultimate sacrificial offering. 01:05:24.099 --> 01:05:27.159 So that's the idea that lurks in the New Testament 01:05:27.159 --> 01:05:31.480 is that The ultimate in transformation is brought 01:05:31.480 --> 01:05:33.880 about by your willingness to put absolutely everything 01:05:33.880 --> 01:05:37.760 on the line, no matter what. Right. And that's 01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:39.460 a very different view of the religious enterprise 01:05:39.460 --> 01:05:42.579 than something like defense against death anxiety. 01:05:43.019 --> 01:05:45.340 Right. It's the ultimate adventure. And that's 01:05:45.340 --> 01:05:49.480 the willingness to welcome everything about life 01:05:49.480 --> 01:05:52.219 that's terrible and painful and malevolent, to 01:05:52.219 --> 01:05:54.920 welcome that with open arms, to accept that. 01:05:55.019 --> 01:05:57.559 And that's predicated on a deeper idea even. 01:05:57.929 --> 01:06:00.670 which is that sacrifice is the basis of community, 01:06:00.989 --> 01:06:04.650 which is exactly right. Because you have to give 01:06:04.650 --> 01:06:07.230 up something to be in relationship to the future 01:06:07.230 --> 01:06:10.530 and to other people. Right. So the biblical corpus 01:06:10.530 --> 01:06:15.329 is an examination of, what would you say, levels 01:06:15.329 --> 01:06:18.170 of sacrifice moving downward to the ultimate 01:06:18.170 --> 01:06:21.170 possible level of sacrifice. So in the Abrahamic 01:06:21.170 --> 01:06:24.429 story, Abraham is requested by God to offer up 01:06:24.429 --> 01:06:27.719 his son. Right now he does it. He gets them back. 01:06:28.360 --> 01:06:31.760 The threat isn't carried through. And what does 01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:38.480 that mean? It means, first of all, that everything 01:06:38.480 --> 01:06:40.300 in your life, no matter what it is, including 01:06:40.300 --> 01:06:42.639 your relationships, should be made subservient 01:06:42.639 --> 01:06:45.519 to the highest possible aim. It also means that 01:06:45.519 --> 01:06:49.179 a good father sacrifices his children to what's 01:06:49.179 --> 01:06:51.679 highest. That's the offering of your child to 01:06:51.679 --> 01:06:53.960 the world. The faithful offering of your child 01:06:53.960 --> 01:06:56.880 to the world. That's what Mary does. It's a famous 01:06:56.880 --> 01:07:01.840 statue of Mary in St. Peter's in Rome. Michelangelo 01:07:01.840 --> 01:07:04.420 made it when he was like 23, some ridiculous 01:07:04.420 --> 01:07:08.199 early age, brilliant statue. Mary is holding 01:07:08.199 --> 01:07:11.480 the body of her son broken in her arms, looking 01:07:11.480 --> 01:07:16.420 serene. He's an adult off the cross. It's like 01:07:16.420 --> 01:07:19.219 the female crucifixion. And the idea is that 01:07:19.219 --> 01:07:24.630 the good mother, the proper father. offers their 01:07:24.630 --> 01:07:27.489 children to be broken by the world in the pursuit 01:07:27.489 --> 01:07:30.289 of what's highest. There it is. Yeah, yeah. He 01:07:30.289 --> 01:07:34.769 was 23 when he made that? That is insane. What 01:07:34.769 --> 01:07:37.889 were you doing when you were 23? Telling shitty 01:07:37.889 --> 01:07:42.030 jokes. Single block of marble. Isn't that insane? 01:07:43.030 --> 01:07:47.139 That's an indication of sacred femininity. See, 01:07:47.219 --> 01:07:49.000 the psychoanalysts said in the early part of 01:07:49.000 --> 01:07:50.840 the 20th century that the good mother necessarily 01:07:50.840 --> 01:07:53.800 fails. And so what does that mean? Well, every 01:07:53.800 --> 01:07:56.000 woman who brings a child into the world knows 01:07:56.000 --> 01:07:58.880 that the child is going to be broken by death 01:07:58.880 --> 01:08:02.159 and malevolence. Right? And so motherhood in 01:08:02.159 --> 01:08:06.760 its highest aspect is the offering of the child 01:08:06.760 --> 01:08:09.059 to the world to be broken. That's what's portrayed 01:08:09.059 --> 01:08:11.320 in the Abrahamic story too with regards to Abraham. 01:08:12.340 --> 01:08:15.099 To get your child back, you offer them to the 01:08:15.099 --> 01:08:19.739 world. That's a profound indication of faith, 01:08:19.920 --> 01:08:22.260 right? That life is worthwhile despite its suffering 01:08:22.260 --> 01:08:26.340 and its evil. And it's so good. Like the work, 01:08:26.579 --> 01:08:30.060 like look at his foot. Just look at the detail 01:08:30.060 --> 01:08:35.739 on the way the toe bends, the heel. It's insane 01:08:35.739 --> 01:08:40.699 how good it is. He was so good. The fact that 01:08:40.699 --> 01:08:43.159 he figured out how to be that good at 23 years 01:08:43.159 --> 01:08:48.500 of age is just so shocking. Well, also so inspiring. 01:08:48.760 --> 01:08:52.439 So inspiring. But stunning. Like stunning how 01:08:52.439 --> 01:08:56.500 good it is. Yes, and stunning what it means and 01:08:56.500 --> 01:08:59.340 where it's placed. And the understanding of anatomy. 01:09:00.479 --> 01:09:09.220 Did he really? Wow. Insane. I mean, that guy 01:09:09.220 --> 01:09:11.720 left behind so much. Like, what is that about? 01:09:11.899 --> 01:09:17.140 What is it about these unique individuals? like 01:09:17.140 --> 01:09:22.699 him, that their work transcends time. That's 01:09:22.699 --> 01:09:26.220 life eternal, that ability to transcend time. 01:09:26.420 --> 01:09:29.619 Yes. Thousands of years later, people will be 01:09:29.619 --> 01:09:31.079 looking at those. So what happens in the Abrahamic 01:09:31.079 --> 01:09:32.840 story, because it's relevant to your question, 01:09:32.939 --> 01:09:38.159 so God offers Abraham the opportunity to be the 01:09:38.159 --> 01:09:40.680 father of nations. Okay, so imagine this, imagine 01:09:40.680 --> 01:09:44.460 this as a father. So we use father as a generic 01:09:44.460 --> 01:09:46.539 word, right? Everybody has a father. So there's 01:09:46.539 --> 01:09:49.119 a generic aspect to it. There's a role that you 01:09:49.119 --> 01:09:51.180 play if you're a father. And then you could imagine 01:09:51.180 --> 01:09:53.159 there's a role you could play as a good father. 01:09:53.479 --> 01:09:56.140 And if you're a good father, you're radically 01:09:56.140 --> 01:09:59.359 encouraging. And you encourage your children 01:09:59.359 --> 01:10:01.960 to go out into the world and prevail. You teach 01:10:01.960 --> 01:10:04.800 them to handle serpents. You don't protect them. 01:10:04.859 --> 01:10:07.659 You don't shelter them. You push them out and 01:10:07.659 --> 01:10:09.739 you say, no matter what comes your way, kid, 01:10:09.920 --> 01:10:12.560 I've got confidence that you can handle it. No 01:10:12.560 --> 01:10:14.699 matter how terrible it is, no matter how challenging 01:10:14.699 --> 01:10:17.739 or daunting or malevolent it is, you've got it. 01:10:17.819 --> 01:10:19.880 And when you see your children doing that, if 01:10:19.880 --> 01:10:22.800 you're a good father, it fills you with what? 01:10:23.039 --> 01:10:29.479 It fills you with gratitude and love. To see 01:10:29.479 --> 01:10:31.220 your children acting that out, even at an early 01:10:31.220 --> 01:10:34.140 age, to taking the risks of their first steps 01:10:34.140 --> 01:10:36.739 or climbing their first play structure or going 01:10:36.739 --> 01:10:38.720 out in the playground to make new friends when 01:10:38.720 --> 01:10:41.500 they're strangers or going off to school alone, 01:10:41.760 --> 01:10:44.619 all of that, you think, it's dangerous out there. 01:10:44.680 --> 01:10:47.779 It's like, good, go. I know you can handle it. 01:10:47.859 --> 01:10:50.539 Okay, so that's what Abraham plays out. He plays 01:10:50.539 --> 01:10:53.460 out that archetypal role. And the idea there, 01:10:53.539 --> 01:10:55.840 this is... why I made reference earlier to the 01:10:55.840 --> 01:10:58.380 idea of the selfish gene. Dawkins characterized 01:10:58.380 --> 01:11:01.779 human reproduction as selfish. That's wrong, 01:11:02.039 --> 01:11:05.180 because the human reproductive pattern is multigenerational. 01:11:05.340 --> 01:11:08.939 And if you want to establish the pattern of fatherhood 01:11:08.939 --> 01:11:11.600 that's going to cascade down the generations, 01:11:11.739 --> 01:11:14.579 that will make your descendants successful in 01:11:14.579 --> 01:11:17.100 the multigenerational manner, then you follow 01:11:17.100 --> 01:11:19.939 the spirit of adventure, and you imbue your children 01:11:19.939 --> 01:11:23.239 with that confidence. And that's how that... 01:11:23.479 --> 01:11:25.960 pattern that establishes the dynasty. So Abraham 01:11:25.960 --> 01:11:29.220 is the father of nations is established. So human 01:11:29.220 --> 01:11:31.859 reproduction is way more complex than just sex. 01:11:32.399 --> 01:11:35.800 Far more complex. It's a multi -generational 01:11:35.800 --> 01:11:40.100 commitment. So now the promise that God makes 01:11:40.100 --> 01:11:42.840 to Abraham in part is that if you fall into that 01:11:42.840 --> 01:11:46.140 pattern of maximal adventure and courageous movement 01:11:46.140 --> 01:11:49.479 forward, that your life is imbued with a meaning 01:11:49.479 --> 01:11:51.979 that... with the meaning that transcends time, 01:11:52.079 --> 01:11:54.479 and that you embody something like an archetypal 01:11:54.479 --> 01:11:56.739 and eternal spirit, and that's the spirit of 01:11:56.739 --> 01:11:59.399 the Father. That's why Abraham understands that 01:11:59.399 --> 01:12:02.479 he's made contact with the God of his ancestors. 01:12:02.819 --> 01:12:05.619 And if you're a good father, you have that spirit 01:12:05.619 --> 01:12:08.680 dwelling within you. And the Christian insistence 01:12:08.680 --> 01:12:12.100 is that that spirit's identical to the Logos 01:12:12.100 --> 01:12:15.199 that bears the weight of the world on its shoulders 01:12:15.199 --> 01:12:18.460 voluntarily, and that that's what brings everything 01:12:18.460 --> 01:12:23.399 into being. Stunning. It's a stunning conceptualization. 01:12:23.859 --> 01:12:26.600 And I think it's right. It looks right to me. 01:12:26.960 --> 01:12:29.619 And the idea that sacrifice is the basis of the 01:12:29.619 --> 01:12:33.100 community, that's just obvious. Like, the fact 01:12:33.100 --> 01:12:35.300 that you're married, so what's the sacrificial 01:12:35.300 --> 01:12:38.760 gesture there? Well, all other women. That's 01:12:38.760 --> 01:12:41.600 sacrifice number one. Then it's not about you. 01:12:42.340 --> 01:12:44.779 It's also not about your wife. It's about the 01:12:44.779 --> 01:12:47.850 stability of your union across time. And it's 01:12:47.850 --> 01:12:50.010 about the stability of that union insofar as 01:12:50.010 --> 01:12:53.449 that's a reliable foundation for your children. 01:12:53.750 --> 01:12:57.250 So that's sacrificial too. You give up your whims 01:12:57.250 --> 01:12:59.189 in the present so that the future is stabilized. 01:12:59.829 --> 01:13:02.289 You give up your immaturity so that your children 01:13:02.289 --> 01:13:05.670 can thrive. That's all sacrificial gesture. And 01:13:05.670 --> 01:13:08.449 we figured that out. That's why we put the crucifix 01:13:08.449 --> 01:13:11.390 at the center of our society. Because we figured 01:13:11.390 --> 01:13:12.890 out, even though we didn't know it, we figured 01:13:12.890 --> 01:13:17.270 out that... The stability of the community is 01:13:17.270 --> 01:13:20.510 predicated on the willingness of the individual 01:13:20.510 --> 01:13:24.510 to sacrifice. And the exploration in the New 01:13:24.510 --> 01:13:27.510 Testament is the limits of sacrifice, right? 01:13:28.270 --> 01:13:30.390 So do you think that that's what people think 01:13:30.390 --> 01:13:34.119 of when they think of the cross? It's very hard 01:13:34.119 --> 01:13:37.300 to know what people think about. I would say 01:13:37.300 --> 01:13:39.199 it depends on their level of sophistication. 01:13:39.260 --> 01:13:41.140 Right, that's what I'm getting at. I don't think 01:13:41.140 --> 01:13:44.180 it's ever been explained to me that way, and 01:13:44.180 --> 01:13:47.159 I don't think most people think about it that 01:13:47.159 --> 01:13:48.800 way. When they think about it, they think Jesus 01:13:48.800 --> 01:13:52.380 died for our sins. There he is. Praise Jesus. 01:13:52.640 --> 01:13:56.960 Right, right, right. It's a very formulaic, surface 01:13:56.960 --> 01:13:59.520 -level understanding of what it is we're talking 01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:00.699 about. Well, I think it's partly because it's 01:14:00.699 --> 01:14:03.720 partly... And there's a merciful element of it. 01:14:03.760 --> 01:14:05.960 And this is what Jung was referring to when he 01:14:05.960 --> 01:14:08.979 said that religion helps protect people against 01:14:08.979 --> 01:14:13.439 religious experience. The full revelation of 01:14:13.439 --> 01:14:15.380 the significance, let's say, of the imitation 01:14:15.380 --> 01:14:17.439 of Christ, which is supposed to be the foundation 01:14:17.439 --> 01:14:22.720 of Christian belief, is in fact the demand that 01:14:22.720 --> 01:14:27.579 you walk the same pathway. And it's the most 01:14:27.579 --> 01:14:32.060 terrifying demand. So Jung described the Christian 01:14:32.060 --> 01:14:35.739 passion as an archetypal tragedy. Now, there 01:14:35.739 --> 01:14:38.380 was a reason for that. So think about it this 01:14:38.380 --> 01:14:41.199 way. Think about it technically. So imagine that 01:14:41.199 --> 01:14:45.000 a hundred great storytellers told the most painful 01:14:45.000 --> 01:14:49.399 possible story. And then imagine that you aggregated 01:14:49.399 --> 01:14:51.300 all those stories and you distilled them into 01:14:51.300 --> 01:14:53.739 one story where all the terrible elements were 01:14:53.739 --> 01:14:56.439 present. Okay, so now you have a representation. 01:14:57.260 --> 01:15:00.140 You have a representation of the worst life can 01:15:00.140 --> 01:15:03.100 throw at you. Okay, so let's take that apart 01:15:03.100 --> 01:15:06.159 a bit. So the first thing that makes a tragedy 01:15:06.159 --> 01:15:11.199 tragic is that the tragedy befalls a good person. 01:15:11.640 --> 01:15:14.840 Because if a tragedy befalls a villain, it's 01:15:14.840 --> 01:15:18.220 just justice. It's not a tragedy. So it has to 01:15:18.220 --> 01:15:21.060 be a good person. So then to amplify that, you 01:15:21.060 --> 01:15:23.279 would not only have the tragedy befall a good 01:15:23.279 --> 01:15:25.770 person, you'd have it befall... A good person 01:15:25.770 --> 01:15:28.210 that everyone knew was good, but was not only 01:15:28.210 --> 01:15:31.149 good, was the best, and that was persecuted because 01:15:31.149 --> 01:15:33.729 he was good. So that sort of limits it out in 01:15:33.729 --> 01:15:35.829 that direction. And then you might say, well, 01:15:35.890 --> 01:15:38.130 what does he have to face? Well, and the answer 01:15:38.130 --> 01:15:40.430 would be, well, the worst life has to offer. 01:15:40.590 --> 01:15:44.750 Okay. Early death. Early painful death. Early, 01:15:44.850 --> 01:15:49.529 painful, humiliating, unjust death at the hands 01:15:49.529 --> 01:15:52.329 of his friends, at the hands of the mob, under 01:15:52.329 --> 01:15:56.510 the thumb of a tyrant. Right. brought about by 01:15:56.510 --> 01:15:59.470 people who knew that he was not only good, but 01:15:59.470 --> 01:16:02.289 the best of men. That's an archetypal tragedy. 01:16:02.449 --> 01:16:04.930 And then it doesn't limit out. So then you have 01:16:04.930 --> 01:16:08.210 the death that occurs in consequence of that 01:16:08.210 --> 01:16:10.029 and its voluntary acceptance. But that's not 01:16:10.029 --> 01:16:12.930 where it ends, because the mythology surrounding 01:16:12.930 --> 01:16:17.729 the crucifixion story insists that Christ harrowed 01:16:17.729 --> 01:16:20.890 hell after the crucifixion, which meant that 01:16:20.890 --> 01:16:24.369 he confronted not only death, but malevolence. 01:16:25.059 --> 01:16:29.539 and in consequence transcended both. And so what's 01:16:29.539 --> 01:16:31.920 the underlying psychological message? It's something 01:16:31.920 --> 01:16:39.119 like the calling and the voice of conscience 01:16:39.119 --> 01:16:42.720 informing people that in order to thrive properly 01:16:42.720 --> 01:16:45.619 in life and to become who you could be, if you 01:16:45.619 --> 01:16:48.460 could be everything you could be, you have to... 01:16:48.960 --> 01:16:51.520 voluntarily take on the weight of the worst life 01:16:51.520 --> 01:16:54.600 has to offer, including the depths of malevolence 01:16:54.600 --> 01:16:57.300 itself. And you think, well, obviously, Joe, 01:16:57.399 --> 01:16:59.159 you know this. Like, how are you going to adapt 01:16:59.159 --> 01:17:02.479 to a situation you won't even admit to? Right. 01:17:02.640 --> 01:17:05.399 Well, so how could it be otherwise than for you 01:17:05.399 --> 01:17:08.039 to become everything that you could be? You have 01:17:08.039 --> 01:17:11.140 to embrace all of the catastrophes that life 01:17:11.140 --> 01:17:14.699 has to offer. How could it be other than that? 01:17:14.760 --> 01:17:16.640 You're going to hide? You're going to pretend? 01:17:17.020 --> 01:17:19.409 Right. How's that going to work? No one thinks 01:17:19.409 --> 01:17:22.229 that'll work. Right. And so, and you're right, 01:17:22.270 --> 01:17:26.930 there is this defensive element to the, particularly 01:17:26.930 --> 01:17:29.010 the Protestant religious tradition, although 01:17:29.010 --> 01:17:31.250 I don't want to single out the Protestants specifically, 01:17:31.409 --> 01:17:34.250 that insists that, you know, the work has already 01:17:34.250 --> 01:17:36.670 been done. But there's a lot of ambivalence about 01:17:36.670 --> 01:17:38.670 that in the Christian canon because there's an 01:17:38.670 --> 01:17:41.930 equal insistence that, no, you're supposed to, 01:17:42.010 --> 01:17:46.010 you're supposed to take all this on voluntarily. 01:17:46.779 --> 01:17:49.640 And that not only that, not only that, that it's 01:17:49.640 --> 01:17:52.060 such an interesting idea because it makes so 01:17:52.060 --> 01:17:55.020 much sense psychologically. So imagine that as 01:17:55.020 --> 01:17:58.199 your courage grows so that you can confront more 01:17:58.199 --> 01:18:02.180 and more of the horror of life, that a spirit 01:18:02.180 --> 01:18:05.119 begins to develop within you that gives you a 01:18:05.119 --> 01:18:07.100 strength that's commensurate with your daring. 01:18:07.619 --> 01:18:10.699 That's walking with God. That's the same thing. 01:18:10.800 --> 01:18:13.659 So the promise is that if you had the courage, 01:18:13.880 --> 01:18:19.350 something would be with you to... allow you to 01:18:19.350 --> 01:18:23.029 bear up nobly under the burden and all the clinical 01:18:23.029 --> 01:18:25.569 evidence supports that proclamation because what 01:18:25.569 --> 01:18:28.710 you see in people in the therapeutic transformation 01:18:28.710 --> 01:18:31.329 is that insofar as they're willing to confront 01:18:31.329 --> 01:18:34.010 what terrifies them voluntarily they get stronger 01:18:34.010 --> 01:18:37.949 and then imagine that there's no there's nothing 01:18:37.949 --> 01:18:42.050 but a metaphysical limit to that and i think 01:18:42.050 --> 01:18:44.819 that's right I can't see how it cannot be right. 01:18:44.960 --> 01:18:48.220 It makes sense. It resonates with how we know 01:18:48.220 --> 01:18:50.479 people that have overcome great things in their 01:18:50.479 --> 01:18:53.199 life and become these very unusual and unique 01:18:53.199 --> 01:18:55.100 people. I've got to pause because I have to use 01:18:55.100 --> 01:18:57.199 the restroom. But let's jump right back into 01:18:57.199 --> 01:19:00.500 it. Where were we? Well, we were kind of bringing 01:19:00.500 --> 01:19:03.340 We Who Wrestle With God to a close, I would say. 01:19:03.800 --> 01:19:05.619 I've got other projects I want to talk to you 01:19:05.619 --> 01:19:08.180 about. Okay. All right? Sure. We're launching 01:19:08.180 --> 01:19:12.710 Peterson Academy today. So online university, 01:19:13.029 --> 01:19:18.130 we hope. We'll see. We've got, we're launching 01:19:18.130 --> 01:19:20.590 with 20 courses. Best lectures in the world. 01:19:20.829 --> 01:19:23.869 Very, very high quality production. We invited 01:19:23.869 --> 01:19:27.109 the best lectures I could find down to Miami. 01:19:27.789 --> 01:19:31.029 Eight hour courses on the topic they really want. 01:19:31.149 --> 01:19:36.729 Highest possible production. Quality. And we're 01:19:36.729 --> 01:19:39.670 hoping we'll make a high level university level. 01:19:41.030 --> 01:19:43.590 university -equivalent education available to 01:19:43.590 --> 01:19:46.329 everyone for approximately one -twentieth the 01:19:46.329 --> 01:19:49.689 cost. So that's the plan. You want to see the 01:19:49.689 --> 01:19:54.449 opening salvo? Sure. Yeah. Put it up, Jamie. 01:19:54.550 --> 01:19:57.090 Yeah, yeah. Let's take a look. I ran this before 01:19:57.090 --> 01:20:00.170 my lectures, this last tour. You've got to put 01:20:00.170 --> 01:20:01.310 the headphones on if you want to hear it. Yeah, 01:20:01.310 --> 01:20:04.229 yeah, okay. Why did I decide to build an online 01:20:04.229 --> 01:20:10.510 university? Well... There is a crisis now in 01:20:10.510 --> 01:20:13.109 higher education. The president of Harvard University 01:20:13.109 --> 01:20:16.029 resigned today. Does calling for the genocide 01:20:16.029 --> 01:20:20.050 of Jews violate Penn's code of conduct? We have 01:20:20.050 --> 01:20:22.750 a problem of affordability and cost, spiraling 01:20:22.750 --> 01:20:25.310 student loans. We have a groupthink emerging, 01:20:25.489 --> 01:20:28.329 and that warps the entire academic enterprise. 01:20:28.729 --> 01:20:31.590 I experimented with putting my lectures online 01:20:31.590 --> 01:20:34.689 and found that I could teach far more people 01:20:34.689 --> 01:20:37.250 at very low cost than I could at the university. 01:20:38.220 --> 01:20:44.380 And I thought, well, why not scale that? What 01:20:44.380 --> 01:20:46.939 I'm hoping to do is to find the best lectures 01:20:46.939 --> 01:20:51.529 in the world. and to bring them to as wide as 01:20:51.529 --> 01:20:53.970 possible an audience. He came to me and he basically 01:20:53.970 --> 01:20:56.750 said, I want you to do the best course that you've 01:20:56.750 --> 01:20:59.430 always wanted to do. We want to bring you the 01:20:59.430 --> 01:21:02.130 highest quality education possible at the lowest 01:21:02.130 --> 01:21:04.529 possible price. It's extremely high level content 01:21:04.529 --> 01:21:06.909 that anybody can use to educate themselves and 01:21:06.909 --> 01:21:08.850 it's available to everybody. Well, that would 01:21:08.850 --> 01:21:13.569 be good. I think it's funny because I got cancelled 01:21:13.569 --> 01:21:15.670 at the university so I could try to return the 01:21:15.670 --> 01:21:22.109 favour. I think they're doing that to themselves, 01:21:22.350 --> 01:21:25.210 right? Yeah, well, we couldn't have a better 01:21:25.210 --> 01:21:27.470 marketing campaign than the universities themselves. 01:21:28.229 --> 01:21:30.270 It's similar to what's going on with mainstream 01:21:30.270 --> 01:21:32.989 media. Yeah? It really is kind of the same thing. 01:21:33.090 --> 01:21:35.130 Yeah, well, it all derives from the same source, 01:21:35.270 --> 01:21:37.689 right, is the capture of higher education by 01:21:37.689 --> 01:21:41.609 this godforsaken ideology that's... Bizarre. 01:21:41.810 --> 01:21:46.710 Yeah? Bizarre how successful it is and how many 01:21:46.710 --> 01:21:51.310 people just are compliant. Yeah. That's for sure. 01:21:51.430 --> 01:21:54.750 That's for sure. Do you see it turning around, 01:21:54.829 --> 01:21:57.310 though? It seems like it is a little. It seems 01:21:57.310 --> 01:21:59.909 like more people are pushing back against it 01:21:59.909 --> 01:22:04.069 now than ever. When you have institutions that 01:22:04.069 --> 01:22:05.750 are thoroughly captured, it's very difficult 01:22:05.750 --> 01:22:07.949 to retrieve them. You know, we've been arguing 01:22:07.949 --> 01:22:10.470 about this. I've been arguing about this with 01:22:10.470 --> 01:22:16.789 my team, Fort Peterson Academy. I mean, is it 01:22:16.789 --> 01:22:19.489 possible to rejuvenate the bricks and mortars? 01:22:20.309 --> 01:22:22.770 institutions of higher education and well one 01:22:22.770 --> 01:22:27.630 answer to that is things that are dead rot and 01:22:27.630 --> 01:22:29.649 the universities seem to be rotting everywhere 01:22:29.649 --> 01:22:32.449 and maybe that's because they're dead maybe it's 01:22:32.449 --> 01:22:34.770 because their time has come and it could be that 01:22:34.770 --> 01:22:38.750 that's the case I mean I I hope not I loved working 01:22:38.750 --> 01:22:41.949 at Harvard in particular it was a amazing institution 01:22:41.949 --> 01:22:44.109 I had a very good time at McGill I had a good 01:22:44.109 --> 01:22:45.909 time at the University of Toronto it's a real 01:22:45.909 --> 01:22:49.409 pain to see these institutions degenerate but 01:22:49.930 --> 01:22:52.770 They're ideologically captured. That's not good. 01:22:52.810 --> 01:22:55.090 And thoroughly. And it's a very rotten ideology. 01:22:55.590 --> 01:22:58.350 It's the spirit of Cain, the resentful spirit 01:22:58.350 --> 01:23:01.130 of Cain. It's not good. They're unbelievably 01:23:01.130 --> 01:23:03.729 expensive. They take terrible advantage of their 01:23:03.729 --> 01:23:08.069 students. Plus, the average quality of the educational 01:23:08.069 --> 01:23:10.869 experience is actually very low at most places, 01:23:10.890 --> 01:23:13.489 not everywhere. Hillsdale College, I think, is 01:23:13.489 --> 01:23:16.109 a marked exception. But most places, the lectures 01:23:16.109 --> 01:23:19.760 aren't good. And we're in a situation now. It's 01:23:19.760 --> 01:23:21.479 kind of like what happened with YouTube in a 01:23:21.479 --> 01:23:25.800 way. YouTube enabled you, for example, and Spotify 01:23:25.800 --> 01:23:28.460 as well, to emerge as an independent commentator, 01:23:28.539 --> 01:23:31.560 and you've cornered the market in some ways on 01:23:31.560 --> 01:23:34.340 that. There's no reason. The universities could 01:23:34.340 --> 01:23:36.880 have seen this coming 20 years ago. They could 01:23:36.880 --> 01:23:38.939 have found their best lecturers, and they could 01:23:38.939 --> 01:23:41.680 have filmed their courses in the highest possible 01:23:41.680 --> 01:23:44.939 quality manner and taken advantage of this new 01:23:44.939 --> 01:23:49.300 communication technology, and they didn't. That's 01:23:49.300 --> 01:23:53.180 not a good sign. It's so funny, we bring our 01:23:53.180 --> 01:23:56.060 professors down to Miami, professors from Oxford 01:23:56.060 --> 01:23:58.039 and Cambridge, and they're so relieved to come 01:23:58.039 --> 01:24:00.939 there. And the reason they're relieved to come 01:24:00.939 --> 01:24:03.319 there is because they're treated badly by their 01:24:03.319 --> 01:24:05.939 own institutions, these great professors. They're 01:24:05.939 --> 01:24:08.380 treated with contempt. They're paid miserably. 01:24:08.399 --> 01:24:12.140 That's especially the case in the UK. All we 01:24:12.140 --> 01:24:15.479 have to do is... appreciate them. I tell the 01:24:15.479 --> 01:24:17.260 professors who come to Peterson Academy, like, 01:24:17.279 --> 01:24:19.579 here's the deal. You can say exactly what you 01:24:19.579 --> 01:24:22.899 want in exactly the way you want. You can teach 01:24:22.899 --> 01:24:25.680 what you love. We'll put a studio audience together 01:24:25.680 --> 01:24:28.699 that actually wants to listen to you. That's 01:24:28.699 --> 01:24:30.619 the only reason they're there. We'll offer you 01:24:30.619 --> 01:24:32.619 a financial deal that's better than you can get 01:24:32.619 --> 01:24:34.739 with any book. We'll give you more reach than 01:24:34.739 --> 01:24:36.760 you could ever also hope to get with any published 01:24:36.760 --> 01:24:38.960 manuscript. You can bring what you know to the 01:24:38.960 --> 01:24:41.939 world for next to nothing. We figure we can offer 01:24:41.939 --> 01:24:45.149 a university, quality, high level university 01:24:45.149 --> 01:24:49.010 quality equivalent for about $2 ,000 over four 01:24:49.010 --> 01:24:52.109 years. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We have a great social 01:24:52.109 --> 01:24:54.390 media platform. So I don't know, you tell me 01:24:54.390 --> 01:24:57.430 what you think about this. So we've been wrestling 01:24:57.430 --> 01:24:59.949 with price, right? Because pricing something 01:24:59.949 --> 01:25:02.449 is very difficult. And part of the problem with 01:25:02.449 --> 01:25:04.609 social media platforms is that they're free. 01:25:04.909 --> 01:25:06.689 And you might say, well, that's not a problem. 01:25:06.810 --> 01:25:08.770 It's like, it is a problem because things that 01:25:08.770 --> 01:25:11.550 are free get overrun by parasites instantly. 01:25:11.869 --> 01:25:15.069 And so You get the trolls, you get the bots, 01:25:15.289 --> 01:25:17.489 you get the bad corporate actors, you get the 01:25:17.489 --> 01:25:20.829 scam artists, because there's no barrier to their 01:25:20.829 --> 01:25:27.270 participation. And so we put a $450 cost on our 01:25:27.270 --> 01:25:31.069 offering per year for the early adopters. That's 01:25:31.069 --> 01:25:34.590 available now. And we're hoping that the fact 01:25:34.590 --> 01:25:36.770 that there has to be a bit of a financial sacrifice 01:25:36.770 --> 01:25:39.289 on the front end will make our social media network 01:25:39.289 --> 01:25:45.399 high quality. clean because there's a little 01:25:45.399 --> 01:25:48.359 bit of skin in the game to participate so we've 01:25:48.359 --> 01:25:51.199 taken the best elements of the popular social 01:25:51.199 --> 01:25:53.819 media networks and amalgamated that and we're 01:25:53.819 --> 01:25:56.260 hoping that we can produce a community of people 01:25:56.260 --> 01:25:58.920 who are responsible and achievement oriented 01:25:58.920 --> 01:26:02.380 and upwards striving and intellectually curious 01:26:02.380 --> 01:26:04.880 and bring them together so they can form their 01:26:04.880 --> 01:26:07.760 own communities as well as participating in the 01:26:07.760 --> 01:26:12.239 lectures and so I'm extremely excited about this. 01:26:12.319 --> 01:26:16.319 We got lucky, too, because we set up a production 01:26:16.319 --> 01:26:20.319 studio in Miami, and we have state -of -the -art 01:26:20.319 --> 01:26:25.659 film crew and editors. But just when we started 01:26:25.659 --> 01:26:28.800 to film, the AI illustration capacity came online, 01:26:29.000 --> 01:26:31.460 and we filmed everyone against a white background. 01:26:31.680 --> 01:26:34.699 And so we can fill the whole background with... 01:26:35.079 --> 01:26:37.859 with imagery and graphs and comments. Can you 01:26:37.859 --> 01:26:40.180 run a trailer for, just pick one of the courses 01:26:40.180 --> 01:26:42.159 at random, because this is actually how the courses 01:26:42.159 --> 01:26:44.479 look. So the trailers are very tightly edited, 01:26:44.579 --> 01:26:49.399 but so are the courses. And so let me show you 01:26:49.399 --> 01:26:50.880 one of them so you get a sense of what we've 01:26:50.880 --> 01:26:57.890 managed to accomplish. A lot of fascinating questions. 01:26:58.310 --> 01:27:00.390 Where do we come from? Where are we going? What 01:27:00.390 --> 01:27:03.010 is the universe made of? How can we possibly 01:27:03.010 --> 01:27:05.489 understand the grand landscape of the cosmos? 01:27:06.470 --> 01:27:09.289 When you look back in space, you look back in 01:27:09.289 --> 01:27:13.630 time. It's amazing we've been able to do this, 01:27:13.630 --> 01:27:16.409 to study the properties of the cosmos, time scales 01:27:16.409 --> 01:27:19.189 of billions of years, size scales billions of 01:27:19.189 --> 01:27:21.149 times bigger than our own. And now the question 01:27:21.149 --> 01:27:24.050 is, can we go back to time equals zero? Can we 01:27:24.050 --> 01:27:26.949 go back to before time equals zero? And what 01:27:26.949 --> 01:27:30.510 does that even mean? I hope in this course to 01:27:30.510 --> 01:27:32.609 keep striving and asking these great questions, 01:27:32.630 --> 01:27:34.470 because without great questions, there can be 01:27:34.470 --> 01:27:36.670 no great answers. And without great answers, 01:27:36.770 --> 01:27:41.670 there can be no understanding. Wow. Brian Keating. 01:27:43.569 --> 01:27:45.869 Fonjo. Pretty badass. Yeah, well, and I was so 01:27:45.869 --> 01:27:47.789 happy when I saw the trailers, you know, because 01:27:47.789 --> 01:27:51.189 Michaela and her husband, Jordan Fuller, they've 01:27:51.189 --> 01:27:53.050 been working very diligently on this for about 01:27:53.050 --> 01:27:54.770 three years, and they basically built it from 01:27:54.770 --> 01:27:57.270 scratch, you know. And I didn't have any idea 01:27:57.270 --> 01:27:59.170 how the courses would look, you know, because 01:27:59.170 --> 01:28:00.850 that's actually a pretty difficult thing to pull 01:28:00.850 --> 01:28:03.590 off. But I'm very happy with the trailers. They're 01:28:03.590 --> 01:28:08.069 extremely... Every course has its own style sheet. 01:28:08.250 --> 01:28:11.130 So each course has its – there's an overarching 01:28:11.130 --> 01:28:13.689 style to the platform. But every single course 01:28:13.689 --> 01:28:17.109 has its own illustration, ethos, and quality. 01:28:17.310 --> 01:28:19.050 Yeah, well, you can see them. Now, would you 01:28:19.050 --> 01:28:23.409 be – is this just for personal education? Or 01:28:23.409 --> 01:28:27.010 will you be giving degrees? We're going to approach 01:28:27.010 --> 01:28:31.670 that in two ways. So we'll offer certification 01:28:31.670 --> 01:28:35.409 at different – time spans so you know generally 01:28:35.409 --> 01:28:37.210 it takes you four years to get a degree but you 01:28:37.210 --> 01:28:38.989 could imagine that it would be useful to have 01:28:38.989 --> 01:28:41.029 a one -year certificate a two -year certificate 01:28:41.029 --> 01:28:43.090 three -year certificate four -year certificate 01:28:43.090 --> 01:28:45.970 like there's no compelling reason why it has 01:28:45.970 --> 01:28:49.609 to be four years we'll keep very detailed records 01:28:49.609 --> 01:28:52.930 of our students academic progress and they'll 01:28:52.930 --> 01:28:56.430 be able to offer them directly to employers so 01:28:56.430 --> 01:28:59.109 we want to be able to assure employers that anybody 01:28:59.109 --> 01:29:01.720 who's gone through The certification process 01:29:01.720 --> 01:29:04.239 that's part and parcel of Peterson Academy has 01:29:04.239 --> 01:29:06.399 done the work and met the standards, and the 01:29:06.399 --> 01:29:08.619 standards will be high. Now, simultaneously, 01:29:08.859 --> 01:29:12.119 we're working on technical accreditation, right, 01:29:12.180 --> 01:29:14.800 so that we can pull this, so that we can have 01:29:14.800 --> 01:29:17.420 this operate as a standard university. Now, there's 01:29:17.420 --> 01:29:19.819 trade -offs in that because the accreditation 01:29:19.819 --> 01:29:22.979 processes themselves are captured by the same 01:29:22.979 --> 01:29:25.260 forces that have captured the universities. And 01:29:25.260 --> 01:29:27.060 we're not going to compromise the quality of 01:29:27.060 --> 01:29:30.600 the offerings by kowtowing to... accreditation 01:29:30.600 --> 01:29:32.659 processes that are producing the same problem 01:29:32.659 --> 01:29:35.739 that we're trying to address. Now, I'm in discussion 01:29:35.739 --> 01:29:38.220 with a number of different jurisdictions to move 01:29:38.220 --> 01:29:41.079 accreditation forward. And if that happens, it 01:29:41.079 --> 01:29:43.739 can also be applied retroactively. So if we can 01:29:43.739 --> 01:29:46.949 figure out how to do it without... with an administration 01:29:46.949 --> 01:29:49.430 or a jurisdiction that's willing to do it, and 01:29:49.430 --> 01:29:51.270 we don't have to compromise the quality, then 01:29:51.270 --> 01:29:54.109 we'll go the classic accreditation route. Otherwise, 01:29:54.189 --> 01:29:56.510 I'm just going to go directly to employers and 01:29:56.510 --> 01:29:58.750 say, look, we're going to be very, very careful 01:29:58.750 --> 01:30:02.670 about who we grant certification to, and you'll 01:30:02.670 --> 01:30:05.689 be able to rely on the certification from Peterson 01:30:05.689 --> 01:30:07.909 Academy as an indication of intellectual ability 01:30:07.909 --> 01:30:10.770 and also work ethic, and we'll document that 01:30:10.770 --> 01:30:14.130 by the record -keeping process that we use as 01:30:14.130 --> 01:30:16.439 part and parcel of the platform. So I think we 01:30:16.439 --> 01:30:18.279 can do it. We're going to do it one way or another. 01:30:18.579 --> 01:30:21.739 How are you going to be able to assure that these 01:30:21.739 --> 01:30:24.119 students, because it's all remote, right? Yeah. 01:30:24.180 --> 01:30:25.859 How are you going to be able to assure that they're 01:30:25.859 --> 01:30:27.779 actually doing the work, that they're not utilizing 01:30:27.779 --> 01:30:30.520 AI? Like, are you going to have them write things? 01:30:30.520 --> 01:30:33.359 I can't tell you how, but we are going to. Oh, 01:30:33.359 --> 01:30:36.579 okay. Yeah, well, look, I've tested. Tens of 01:30:36.579 --> 01:30:40.000 thousands of people online. So I set up an online 01:30:40.000 --> 01:30:42.640 testing service that was used primarily by a 01:30:42.640 --> 01:30:44.960 company called the Founder Institute. And we 01:30:44.960 --> 01:30:48.140 tested 50 ,000 people, 60 ,000 people over five 01:30:48.140 --> 01:30:50.420 years in about seven different languages. And 01:30:50.420 --> 01:30:53.199 we built and developed technology to capture 01:30:53.199 --> 01:30:56.119 people who are cheating. So they don't know how 01:30:56.119 --> 01:30:58.000 we're capturing them. And I'm not going to tell 01:30:58.000 --> 01:31:00.479 you, but we know how to do it. And, you know, 01:31:00.500 --> 01:31:03.300 and that's obviously a problem, but it isn't 01:31:03.300 --> 01:31:05.300 an insoluble problem. And I think we've already 01:31:05.300 --> 01:31:09.220 solved it. So and then once we move towards more 01:31:09.220 --> 01:31:12.199 formal and stable accreditation, there are lots 01:31:12.199 --> 01:31:15.720 of companies have emerged as a consequence of 01:31:15.720 --> 01:31:19.060 the COVID lockdowns to make sure that. remote 01:31:19.060 --> 01:31:21.560 compliance with testing requirements can be achieved. 01:31:21.680 --> 01:31:23.920 So there's lots of ways to solve that problem. 01:31:24.680 --> 01:31:29.020 It's very exciting. It's really exciting. There's 01:31:29.020 --> 01:31:30.920 all sorts of weird possibilities that emerge 01:31:30.920 --> 01:31:33.060 from this too because the technology now exists 01:31:33.060 --> 01:31:34.979 and we've had some of the videos converted already 01:31:34.979 --> 01:31:38.340 to have the lectures translated into the world's 01:31:38.340 --> 01:31:42.380 major languages. The technology that's cutting 01:31:42.380 --> 01:31:45.539 edge uses the professor's voice and intonation 01:31:45.539 --> 01:31:47.680 in the second language and matches the mouth 01:31:47.680 --> 01:31:48.939 movements to the language. Yeah, they're going 01:31:48.939 --> 01:31:51.220 to do that at Spotify. Yeah, it's seamless, man. 01:31:51.260 --> 01:31:53.039 It's seamless. They're doing it with podcasts. 01:31:53.180 --> 01:31:55.979 I think they're initially going to do Spanish, 01:31:56.340 --> 01:31:58.960 German, and French, I believe. Those are the 01:31:58.960 --> 01:32:00.800 first three languages, but they eventually will 01:32:00.800 --> 01:32:03.420 scale out. Yeah, yeah. So that's just like, that's 01:32:03.420 --> 01:32:05.920 just laying there. It is unbelievable. Have someone 01:32:05.920 --> 01:32:08.920 teach a lecture in Russian and actually make 01:32:08.920 --> 01:32:12.640 the mouth movements. Everything. Well, it's extremely 01:32:12.640 --> 01:32:16.140 exciting, especially in regard to the developing 01:32:16.140 --> 01:32:20.579 world. Because there'll be more people in Nigeria 01:32:20.579 --> 01:32:24.899 by 2100 than in China. And the median age of 01:32:24.899 --> 01:32:28.800 African is 19. So there's an immense opportunity 01:32:28.800 --> 01:32:30.979 in the developing world to capture the market 01:32:30.979 --> 01:32:33.380 for higher education. And it would be a wonderful 01:32:33.380 --> 01:32:35.180 thing to be able to bring this to the world. 01:32:35.199 --> 01:32:38.430 And I just can't see why not. You know, the courses 01:32:38.430 --> 01:32:41.590 are very efficiently taught. We have AI -mediated 01:32:41.590 --> 01:32:44.210 testing services, and we can use the tests themselves 01:32:44.210 --> 01:32:47.369 as educational tools. You know, so imagine you 01:32:47.369 --> 01:32:50.090 have a test, you get a question wrong, and you 01:32:50.090 --> 01:32:51.770 get feedback that it's wrong, and it'll tell 01:32:51.770 --> 01:32:53.390 you where in the lecture or the reading material 01:32:53.390 --> 01:32:55.649 that you made the mistake, so you can go back 01:32:55.649 --> 01:32:58.970 and review. And so even the testing itself will 01:32:58.970 --> 01:33:01.430 be educational. And, you know, we're hoping to 01:33:01.430 --> 01:33:04.600 develop a community that... is composed of people 01:33:04.600 --> 01:33:07.020 who want to engage in lifelong learning. And 01:33:07.020 --> 01:33:09.520 it also means that you don't have to be like 01:33:09.520 --> 01:33:12.819 18 to 22 to attend this university. You can stay 01:33:12.819 --> 01:33:15.369 a part of it for the rest of your life. And we're 01:33:15.369 --> 01:33:17.750 hoping that spontaneous communities will develop 01:33:17.750 --> 01:33:19.829 and that we can bring people together for conventions. 01:33:19.949 --> 01:33:21.970 So, you know, if we can get enough people on 01:33:21.970 --> 01:33:24.390 the platform, we'll have conventions in different 01:33:24.390 --> 01:33:26.729 cities where we bring our lecturers, you know, 01:33:26.750 --> 01:33:29.789 to a stadium or to a theater for a weekend. And 01:33:29.789 --> 01:33:31.590 everybody who's part of the university can come 01:33:31.590 --> 01:33:34.210 and listen to their favorite lecturers. And we've 01:33:34.210 --> 01:33:36.470 got educational institutions who are already 01:33:36.470 --> 01:33:39.630 interested in partnering in that regard so that 01:33:39.630 --> 01:33:41.689 they can be brought to their institution for 01:33:41.689 --> 01:33:45.779 like summer. time three -day courses and so and 01:33:45.779 --> 01:33:48.979 it's so fun too because we can use video and 01:33:48.979 --> 01:33:51.500 audio and that's a wonderful thing as well because 01:33:51.500 --> 01:33:54.439 as you know well far more people can listen and 01:33:54.439 --> 01:33:57.600 watch than can read now you have to read to partake 01:33:57.600 --> 01:34:00.699 in our courses as well but it's a great opportunity 01:34:00.699 --> 01:34:03.500 and it's so fun to have the professors come down 01:34:03.500 --> 01:34:07.399 there and be thrilled about it most of We want 01:34:07.399 --> 01:34:09.420 the professors we already have to teach multiple 01:34:09.420 --> 01:34:11.180 courses because they're very good lecturers, 01:34:11.220 --> 01:34:14.159 and they've, I think, all, without exception, 01:34:14.420 --> 01:34:17.560 enthusiastically agreed to continue participating 01:34:17.560 --> 01:34:20.140 because we took the idiot restrictions off them. 01:34:20.279 --> 01:34:22.500 It's like, teach what you want to the people 01:34:22.500 --> 01:34:25.779 who want to listen. No holds barred. It's so 01:34:25.779 --> 01:34:31.359 fun. It's so fun. With the state of higher education 01:34:31.359 --> 01:34:37.279 the way it is today, How does it recover or does 01:34:37.279 --> 01:34:40.039 it just get replaced? Well, I guess what I'm 01:34:40.039 --> 01:34:42.880 hoping at least that the Peterson Academy will 01:34:42.880 --> 01:34:46.140 do with the production quality of our courses 01:34:46.140 --> 01:34:49.739 is up the ante. It's like even if we fail financially 01:34:49.739 --> 01:34:51.619 because, you know, we don't know how to price 01:34:51.619 --> 01:34:53.159 this. How the hell do you figure out something 01:34:53.159 --> 01:34:55.279 like that? We've argued about it a lot and we 01:34:55.279 --> 01:34:57.420 don't know what the potential financial market 01:34:57.420 --> 01:35:00.140 might be. But at minimum, you know, we'll be 01:35:00.140 --> 01:35:02.220 able to launch the courses independently if the 01:35:02.220 --> 01:35:04.779 platform itself doesn't take off. We're going 01:35:04.779 --> 01:35:09.079 to show Harvard and Stanford and Oxford and Cambridge 01:35:09.079 --> 01:35:12.039 what's possible with regards to lecturing with 01:35:12.039 --> 01:35:13.840 the new technology. I mean, they're stuck in 01:35:13.840 --> 01:35:18.500 like 1860. And, you know, with these like online 01:35:18.500 --> 01:35:22.039 large courses that places like MIT, for example, 01:35:22.039 --> 01:35:24.380 have launched, basically all they do is put up 01:35:24.380 --> 01:35:27.239 a camera and videotape a lecture. It's like... 01:35:27.600 --> 01:35:34.159 You can't do that. YouTube and the technologies 01:35:34.159 --> 01:35:36.579 that allow for the dissemination of video, they're 01:35:36.579 --> 01:35:40.159 their own medium, right? The medium is the message. 01:35:40.199 --> 01:35:42.539 You have to use the bloody technology. You can't 01:35:42.539 --> 01:35:46.159 stay stuck a century back, which is why we've 01:35:46.159 --> 01:35:47.979 done tight edits and filled in the backgrounds 01:35:47.979 --> 01:35:51.420 with images. There's just no reason that that 01:35:51.420 --> 01:35:54.840 can't be everywhere. Right. So, and why would 01:35:54.840 --> 01:36:01.000 you pay? Look, people probably pay $300 ,000 01:36:01.000 --> 01:36:04.079 for an Ivy League education because that's where 01:36:04.079 --> 01:36:06.220 they meet their wife or their husband when it 01:36:06.220 --> 01:36:07.859 gets right down to it. Is that really what it 01:36:07.859 --> 01:36:10.899 is? Well, Joe, look, you never know what an institution 01:36:10.899 --> 01:36:13.260 is doing. Okay, so what does a university do? 01:36:13.760 --> 01:36:16.060 Lectures, accreditation. Okay, but that's not 01:36:16.060 --> 01:36:18.600 all. It gives you an identity for four years 01:36:18.600 --> 01:36:20.819 while you sort your life out. It gives you an 01:36:20.819 --> 01:36:22.699 opportunity to mature away from your parents. 01:36:22.779 --> 01:36:25.020 It gives you the opportunity to build a new... 01:36:25.420 --> 01:36:28.279 network of peers, not only living peers, but 01:36:28.279 --> 01:36:31.539 peers in the historical tradition. And it gives 01:36:31.539 --> 01:36:33.260 you an opportunity to meet the person that you 01:36:33.260 --> 01:36:35.319 might be with for the rest of your life. That's 01:36:35.319 --> 01:36:37.960 a big deal. And it's a selective opportunity 01:36:37.960 --> 01:36:40.539 because you bring bright kids together who are 01:36:40.539 --> 01:36:42.279 hardworking and they get a chance to meet each 01:36:42.279 --> 01:36:44.539 other. That might be the whole value of an Ivy 01:36:44.539 --> 01:36:47.000 League education. It's hard to specify these 01:36:47.000 --> 01:36:49.420 things. Now, we're trying to replicate that on 01:36:49.420 --> 01:36:51.460 Peterson Academy with the social media side. 01:36:51.739 --> 01:36:54.140 And, you know, that's a new technology and we 01:36:54.140 --> 01:36:55.760 don't know how it'll work. But the fact that 01:36:55.760 --> 01:36:58.479 it's selective and it won't be full of trolls 01:36:58.479 --> 01:37:00.819 and bots and bad corporate actors should mean 01:37:00.819 --> 01:37:02.600 that people will be able to build social networks 01:37:02.600 --> 01:37:05.220 that are of high value. Because that's one of 01:37:05.220 --> 01:37:06.739 the things, obviously, that's what you do in 01:37:06.739 --> 01:37:09.420 a bloody MBA program. You know, it's not what 01:37:09.420 --> 01:37:11.840 you learn at an MBA program that confers the 01:37:11.840 --> 01:37:13.939 value of the degree. It's the fact that it was 01:37:13.939 --> 01:37:17.760 bloody difficult to get in because the GMAT is 01:37:17.760 --> 01:37:20.380 an IQ test, essentially, and the social network 01:37:20.380 --> 01:37:23.239 you build in the MBA program. You carry that 01:37:23.239 --> 01:37:25.859 with you while we're doing what we can to replicate 01:37:25.859 --> 01:37:28.279 that online. And we're going to make sure that 01:37:28.279 --> 01:37:30.600 we offer potential employers a record of our 01:37:30.600 --> 01:37:33.579 students' progress and success so that they have 01:37:33.579 --> 01:37:36.819 some sense that the person who they hire has... 01:37:37.520 --> 01:37:40.119 done the apprenticeship work on their own necessary 01:37:40.119 --> 01:37:42.939 to accredit them as, say, a valid student and 01:37:42.939 --> 01:37:45.239 a hard worker. And I think we can do that, and 01:37:45.239 --> 01:37:47.220 I think we can do it more effectively than universities 01:37:47.220 --> 01:37:49.520 do it. I know how to measure these things. It's 01:37:49.520 --> 01:37:52.119 going to be very interesting if that becomes 01:37:52.119 --> 01:37:57.439 a criteria in which people are hired. If it really 01:37:57.439 --> 01:38:00.140 does become a thing and it becomes something 01:38:00.140 --> 01:38:03.279 where people are accepting that as an education 01:38:03.279 --> 01:38:07.819 and seeking people out in that regard, It's going 01:38:07.819 --> 01:38:09.739 to be very interesting to see if more of those 01:38:09.739 --> 01:38:13.279 emerge. If you start a trend and then... Well, 01:38:13.300 --> 01:38:17.199 at minimum, we can assure a potential employer 01:38:17.199 --> 01:38:21.060 of two things. We didn't attract a woke crowd. 01:38:21.739 --> 01:38:24.039 And we didn't indoctrinate our bloody students. 01:38:25.079 --> 01:38:27.819 So that's not a bad minimum. You know, you can 01:38:27.819 --> 01:38:30.479 assure intelligence, you can assure... a work 01:38:30.479 --> 01:38:32.479 ethic because they've completed the course material 01:38:32.479 --> 01:38:34.979 and properly, we can ensure that's properly measured. 01:38:35.119 --> 01:38:37.239 But we can also say, here's a bunch of things 01:38:37.239 --> 01:38:40.800 they didn't learn. Right. And the courses are 01:38:40.800 --> 01:38:44.739 subversive in the most traditional possible way. 01:38:44.840 --> 01:38:47.100 So we have Larry Arnn, for example, who's the 01:38:47.100 --> 01:38:49.220 president of Hillsdale. He did a lecture series 01:38:49.220 --> 01:38:52.420 on Churchill. Where are you going to go to university 01:38:52.420 --> 01:38:55.020 to get a lecture series on Churchill? And Arnn 01:38:55.020 --> 01:38:57.439 was Churchill's primary biographer, one of his 01:38:57.439 --> 01:39:00.510 primary biographers. So that's a big deal. We've 01:39:00.510 --> 01:39:06.510 got Nigel Baker from Oxbridge lecturing on the 01:39:06.510 --> 01:39:11.729 legacy of UK colonialism. Well, you're not going 01:39:11.729 --> 01:39:14.329 to get that anywhere else. And he's a great lecturer 01:39:14.329 --> 01:39:17.109 and he's a brilliant man and very, very courageous. 01:39:17.289 --> 01:39:19.569 And Larry Arnn is exactly the same category. 01:39:19.909 --> 01:39:22.829 So the technology we're using is revolutionary 01:39:22.829 --> 01:39:25.310 in a variety of different ways. The lectures 01:39:25.310 --> 01:39:27.770 are high quality, but the whole ethos of the... 01:39:28.400 --> 01:39:30.239 educational offering is completely different 01:39:30.239 --> 01:39:34.039 than what is on offer, say, at the typical Ivy 01:39:34.039 --> 01:39:36.260 League, Harvard, for example, which is such a 01:39:36.260 --> 01:39:38.420 catastrophe. Like, I was there at Harvard in 01:39:38.420 --> 01:39:41.659 the 1990s. I loved that place. It was really 01:39:41.659 --> 01:39:44.760 forward -looking and aimed at excellence with 01:39:44.760 --> 01:39:47.300 very minor exceptions, like truly minor exceptions. 01:39:47.659 --> 01:39:50.840 It was a powerhouse, man. And I went back and 01:39:50.840 --> 01:39:53.479 saw a bunch of my old professor friends a month 01:39:53.479 --> 01:39:56.199 ago, you know, and they've all joined. Free speech 01:39:56.199 --> 01:39:58.180 movement at Harvard. And they're fighting against 01:39:58.180 --> 01:40:00.260 their own administration. And these were like 01:40:00.260 --> 01:40:02.420 the best professors I ever met in my life. And 01:40:02.420 --> 01:40:04.460 that's what they've been reduced to. When did 01:40:04.460 --> 01:40:10.520 it start? Specifically in the universities? Yes. 01:40:11.720 --> 01:40:16.300 It started with the incursion of, what would 01:40:16.300 --> 01:40:19.180 you say, a modified Marxism in the 1960s and 01:40:19.180 --> 01:40:21.220 then really accelerated in the 70s. It sort of 01:40:21.220 --> 01:40:23.300 went like this. You know how things fail. Gradually, 01:40:23.340 --> 01:40:26.060 gradually, gradually, then suddenly. And it hit 01:40:26.060 --> 01:40:29.659 a critical mass in terms of failure probably 01:40:29.659 --> 01:40:35.279 around 2014, 15, pretty much when things blew 01:40:35.279 --> 01:40:37.560 up around me. That's why they blew up around 01:40:37.560 --> 01:40:40.140 me. You know, I mean, it was so ridiculous. And 01:40:40.140 --> 01:40:42.199 what do you think ultimately caused it to not 01:40:42.199 --> 01:40:44.319 course correct? What do you think ultimately 01:40:44.319 --> 01:40:47.739 caused these universities to give in to that? 01:40:47.760 --> 01:40:50.439 Okay, let's talk about ultimate. So let me tell 01:40:50.439 --> 01:40:54.640 you a story, an old story. There's a myth from 01:40:54.640 --> 01:40:56.920 Mesopotamia called the Enuma Elish, which is 01:40:56.920 --> 01:41:01.060 one of the oldest stories that we have. And let 01:41:01.060 --> 01:41:04.039 me just lay out the story, because these ancient 01:41:04.039 --> 01:41:09.539 myths capture the fundamental dynamics of culture. 01:41:10.060 --> 01:41:13.399 They're winnowed to do that. Okay, so the Mesopotamians 01:41:13.399 --> 01:41:16.100 believed that the world emerged as the interaction 01:41:16.100 --> 01:41:18.739 of two forces. We already alluded to them. Chaos 01:41:18.739 --> 01:41:22.619 and order. They had a god of order. Apsu. He 01:41:22.619 --> 01:41:25.300 was a male god. He's the patriarchal. Patriarchy. 01:41:25.420 --> 01:41:28.159 You can think of Apsu as the patriarchy. And 01:41:28.159 --> 01:41:32.060 a female god, Tiamat. Tiamat is a dragon and 01:41:32.060 --> 01:41:35.760 a dragon of chaos. And the word Tiamat is the 01:41:35.760 --> 01:41:39.380 same word, etymologically, as the word Tohu Vabohu, 01:41:39.479 --> 01:41:41.920 and that's the chaos that God makes the world 01:41:41.920 --> 01:41:43.920 out of at the beginning of time in the Hebrew 01:41:43.920 --> 01:41:47.539 accounts. Okay, so you have Apsu and Tiamat, 01:41:47.539 --> 01:41:49.600 and they come together. Chaos and order come 01:41:49.600 --> 01:41:52.600 together, and they produce the first world. And 01:41:52.600 --> 01:41:55.979 in the Mesopotamian account of things, that's 01:41:55.979 --> 01:41:59.180 a world of higher order gods. Now, those higher 01:41:59.180 --> 01:42:02.720 order gods forget their ancestors and go about 01:42:02.720 --> 01:42:05.279 their business, and they get increasingly fractious 01:42:05.279 --> 01:42:10.739 and undisciplined and noisy and hedonistic and 01:42:10.739 --> 01:42:13.439 immature. And at one point, they kill their father, 01:42:13.640 --> 01:42:19.050 Apsu, and they try to live on his corpse. Right. 01:42:19.430 --> 01:42:22.229 So you see an echo of this. It's very complicated. 01:42:22.430 --> 01:42:24.529 You see an echo of this in the story of Pinocchio. 01:42:24.750 --> 01:42:26.590 You know, there's a scene in Pinocchio where 01:42:26.590 --> 01:42:29.289 Geppetto ends up in the body of a whale. Okay, 01:42:29.369 --> 01:42:31.789 so here's the underlying biological dynamic. 01:42:32.170 --> 01:42:36.109 It's so remarkable. So imagine a society sets 01:42:36.109 --> 01:42:39.149 itself up according to a set of principles. And 01:42:39.149 --> 01:42:43.229 it stores, it creates a giant storehouse of wealth. 01:42:43.989 --> 01:42:48.010 Okay, that's what a carcass is. So if you're 01:42:48.010 --> 01:42:54.869 a primordial herder, your wealth is in the bodies 01:42:54.869 --> 01:42:59.210 of your herd animals. A body is a symbol of stored 01:42:59.210 --> 01:43:03.050 wealth. In the Mesopotamian pantheon, the careless 01:43:03.050 --> 01:43:07.569 kill their father and live on its corpse. That's 01:43:07.569 --> 01:43:09.930 what's happened to the universities. So since 01:43:09.930 --> 01:43:14.550 World War II, the West has gathered huge storehouses 01:43:14.550 --> 01:43:17.229 of value everywhere. Harvard's a great example. 01:43:17.609 --> 01:43:20.949 Immense endowment. Remarkably valuable brand. 01:43:21.430 --> 01:43:24.050 Disney's another example. And what's happened 01:43:24.050 --> 01:43:28.109 is, and this happens all the time, if you have 01:43:28.109 --> 01:43:31.109 an unguarded storehouse of value, the parasites 01:43:31.109 --> 01:43:33.989 come marching in. Right. And they try to live 01:43:33.989 --> 01:43:36.390 on the corpse. Now, they can for a while because 01:43:36.390 --> 01:43:38.449 it's a storehouse of value, but they kill the 01:43:38.449 --> 01:43:40.750 spirit. Now, what happens in the Mesopotamian 01:43:40.750 --> 01:43:44.510 story is that... Chaos itself comes flooding 01:43:44.510 --> 01:43:47.289 back in the form of Tiamat, who's extremely, 01:43:47.369 --> 01:43:50.510 the goddess of chaos, who's extremely angry that 01:43:50.510 --> 01:43:53.850 her husband has been sacrificed by the careless 01:43:53.850 --> 01:43:56.289 denizens of the world. That's the death of God. 01:43:57.329 --> 01:44:00.329 So, yeah, and the Savior emerges in the Mesopotamian 01:44:00.329 --> 01:44:02.710 story. It's so interesting. So the Savior that 01:44:02.710 --> 01:44:04.909 emerges to set things right has eyes all the 01:44:04.909 --> 01:44:08.090 way around his head, so he pays attention, and 01:44:08.090 --> 01:44:11.340 he speaks magic words. That's Marduk. And so 01:44:11.340 --> 01:44:14.000 the Mesopotamian Empire was an avatar of Marduk, 01:44:14.020 --> 01:44:16.739 and he's the spirit of responsibility that sets 01:44:16.739 --> 01:44:19.180 the world right. Okay, so what are we seeing? 01:44:19.279 --> 01:44:22.840 We're seeing the invasion of storehouses of wealth 01:44:22.840 --> 01:44:26.340 by the parasites, fundamentally. Has that killed 01:44:26.340 --> 01:44:32.659 them? I don't, I can't think through how you 01:44:32.659 --> 01:44:37.119 would rescue an institution, a typical upper 01:44:37.119 --> 01:44:39.779 -level university institution. What are you going 01:44:39.779 --> 01:44:41.739 to do? How are you going to do that? You're going 01:44:41.739 --> 01:44:44.279 to fire 80 % of the people? Who's going to do 01:44:44.279 --> 01:44:46.680 that? Right. No one's going to do that. Now, 01:44:46.819 --> 01:44:49.119 you could say, well, we'll make DEI initiatives 01:44:49.119 --> 01:44:51.859 forbidden. They're kind of doing that in Florida. 01:44:52.359 --> 01:44:57.100 But all you do is change the words. I mean, that's 01:44:57.100 --> 01:44:59.859 what the postmodernists did with Marxism in the 01:44:59.859 --> 01:45:02.800 1970s when it no longer was fashionable to worship 01:45:02.800 --> 01:45:07.579 Stalin after everybody realized that he was a 01:45:07.579 --> 01:45:11.710 psychopathic murderer. All that happened was 01:45:11.710 --> 01:45:13.590 the French intellectuals changed the terminology 01:45:13.590 --> 01:45:15.710 and they invented a form of Marxism that was 01:45:15.710 --> 01:45:17.909 even worse than Marxism, which was really quite 01:45:17.909 --> 01:45:21.229 the bloody achievement. Do I think they can be 01:45:21.229 --> 01:45:26.550 rejuvenated? I can't see how. Well, when you 01:45:26.550 --> 01:45:28.829 have people like the president of Harvard that 01:45:28.829 --> 01:45:32.310 gets fired for plagiarism but maintains the exact 01:45:32.310 --> 01:45:35.840 same salary in a different job. Yeah, as if demotion 01:45:35.840 --> 01:45:38.800 to a full Harvard professor was, well, you know, 01:45:38.819 --> 01:45:40.819 she's not suitable to be president, but she can 01:45:40.819 --> 01:45:42.739 still be a fully tenured professor at Harvard. 01:45:42.859 --> 01:45:45.939 Really, she can, eh? With that publication record. 01:45:46.039 --> 01:45:48.520 I just interviewed Carol Swain. Do you know who 01:45:48.520 --> 01:45:52.460 Carol Swain is? Black law professor from whom 01:45:52.460 --> 01:45:56.699 Gay plagiarized much of her work. Yeah, fun. 01:45:57.289 --> 01:45:59.289 So what do you do with an institution that's 01:45:59.289 --> 01:46:01.390 that far gone? You saw what those university 01:46:01.390 --> 01:46:03.550 professors did at Congress. Yeah. And they thought 01:46:03.550 --> 01:46:06.250 they were right. They didn't even look put upon. 01:46:06.649 --> 01:46:09.130 They looked, no, sorry. They looked put upon 01:46:09.130 --> 01:46:11.649 and shocked when they were challenged by the 01:46:11.649 --> 01:46:14.569 congressman. Because they're not accustomed to 01:46:14.569 --> 01:46:17.470 being questioned and also to communicating outside 01:46:17.470 --> 01:46:20.369 of their bubble. In their bubble where their 01:46:20.369 --> 01:46:23.109 opinion is held in high esteem. Yes, and everyone 01:46:23.109 --> 01:46:25.210 else is an idiot as far as they're concerned. 01:46:25.270 --> 01:46:27.250 Well, when the woman from Penn, when she was 01:46:27.250 --> 01:46:29.810 smiling every time she was answering these questions. 01:46:31.430 --> 01:46:33.970 I'd never seen anything like that. Like I knew 01:46:33.970 --> 01:46:37.270 that the universities had become warped. And 01:46:37.270 --> 01:46:39.609 the warp is very deep. So I talked about the 01:46:39.609 --> 01:46:42.470 Mesopotamian story. And there's another angle 01:46:42.470 --> 01:46:48.520 of deep warping. The spirit of Marx is a very 01:46:48.520 --> 01:46:51.039 old spirit. It was alive in the French Revolution. 01:46:51.079 --> 01:46:54.659 It was alive in the Soviet Revolution. You can 01:46:54.659 --> 01:46:56.739 trace it all the way back to the story of Cain 01:46:56.739 --> 01:46:58.939 and Abel, as far as I'm concerned. And the story 01:46:58.939 --> 01:47:01.659 of Cain and Abel is the story of the fundamental 01:47:01.659 --> 01:47:07.760 human dynamic after the fall of man. So insofar 01:47:07.760 --> 01:47:10.920 as we're historical creatures, the story of Cain 01:47:10.920 --> 01:47:15.510 and Abel lays out the... essential psychological 01:47:15.510 --> 01:47:19.010 conflict that characterizes human beings. And 01:47:19.010 --> 01:47:22.649 so you have Cain on the one side. So Cain, Cain 01:47:22.649 --> 01:47:25.529 doesn't bring his best to the table. He makes 01:47:25.529 --> 01:47:29.050 second -rate offerings and lies about it. And 01:47:29.050 --> 01:47:31.970 then they're not accepted by him or his fellow 01:47:31.970 --> 01:47:35.670 man or women or by society or by God. And that 01:47:35.670 --> 01:47:38.770 makes him bitter. And instead of learning, he 01:47:38.770 --> 01:47:41.010 takes his complaints to God and he says something 01:47:41.010 --> 01:47:45.210 like, well, what the hell's going on here? I'm 01:47:45.210 --> 01:47:48.590 breaking myself in half, making my sacrificial 01:47:48.590 --> 01:47:50.789 offerings, and everything's being rejected. What 01:47:50.789 --> 01:47:54.050 kind of stupid cosmos did you produce? And God 01:47:54.050 --> 01:47:57.189 says to him something very interesting and complicated. 01:47:57.270 --> 01:48:01.789 He says something like, you're blaming your bitterness 01:48:01.789 --> 01:48:06.850 on your failure, and you have failed, and you 01:48:06.850 --> 01:48:10.069 know it, and you didn't have to, but it isn't 01:48:10.069 --> 01:48:13.600 your failure that's making you bitter. you've 01:48:13.600 --> 01:48:16.800 invited something in to inhabit you that's turned 01:48:16.800 --> 01:48:21.460 you against yourself and what's good. He says 01:48:21.460 --> 01:48:24.319 to him, sin crouches at your door like a sexually 01:48:24.319 --> 01:48:27.039 aroused predatory animal, and you invited it 01:48:27.039 --> 01:48:29.739 in to have its way with you. And there's a sexual 01:48:29.739 --> 01:48:32.359 metaphor there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's heavy. 01:48:32.539 --> 01:48:36.520 It's rough, man. It's rough. You don't get to 01:48:36.520 --> 01:48:38.600 be a high school shooter till you've had a thousand 01:48:38.600 --> 01:48:41.520 hours of brooding over your misery. And so that's 01:48:41.520 --> 01:48:44.880 what God tells Cain. And that makes him violently 01:48:44.880 --> 01:48:48.220 angry and murderous. And so he kills Abel. He 01:48:48.220 --> 01:48:51.100 kills his own ideal. And Abel, you have Cain 01:48:51.100 --> 01:48:54.079 who makes poor sacrifices and whines about it. 01:48:54.140 --> 01:48:56.920 He's the perennial victim, shaking his fist at 01:48:56.920 --> 01:48:59.180 God and the world, refusing to learn from his 01:48:59.180 --> 01:49:02.239 experiences. And he becomes... And you have Abel 01:49:02.239 --> 01:49:04.970 who... makes the right sacrifices and aims upward. 01:49:05.170 --> 01:49:08.989 That's the pattern. Two spirits. That's the Joker 01:49:08.989 --> 01:49:12.449 and Batman. That's Lex Luthor and Superman. That's 01:49:12.449 --> 01:49:15.350 Voldemort and Harry Potter. It's Satan and Christ. 01:49:15.529 --> 01:49:18.430 Like it's this eternal recurrent pattern. And 01:49:18.430 --> 01:49:21.409 one of its manifestations is Marxism. And another 01:49:21.409 --> 01:49:24.010 one of its manifestations is postmodernism. And 01:49:24.010 --> 01:49:28.409 so this is a very old story. It's a very old 01:49:28.409 --> 01:49:31.880 story. You can understand Cain's point, you know, 01:49:31.899 --> 01:49:34.960 because people do break themselves in half in 01:49:34.960 --> 01:49:37.859 life trying to struggle forward and they're not 01:49:37.859 --> 01:49:39.979 successes in their own eyes and they're rejected 01:49:39.979 --> 01:49:42.300 by other people and it undermines their faith 01:49:42.300 --> 01:49:45.739 in being itself. You can understand that. But 01:49:45.739 --> 01:49:51.420 you're called upon to bring your best to the 01:49:51.420 --> 01:49:53.960 table no matter what happens to you and to maintain 01:49:53.960 --> 01:49:57.180 your faith and your courage and to aim up. There's 01:49:57.180 --> 01:50:01.229 no excuses. Your past trauma, there's no excuses. 01:50:01.470 --> 01:50:04.069 It doesn't matter what it is. And so there's 01:50:04.069 --> 01:50:06.210 this battle. And what's happened in the universities 01:50:06.210 --> 01:50:08.970 is the universities have been captured by the 01:50:08.970 --> 01:50:13.649 resentful spirit of Cain. And so it's all flowered 01:50:13.649 --> 01:50:16.630 up with postmodern language. There's no ultimate 01:50:16.630 --> 01:50:19.090 unity. That's the claim of the postmodernists. 01:50:19.130 --> 01:50:21.529 There's no overarching narrative. It's like, 01:50:21.569 --> 01:50:24.069 that's what the postmodernists claim, skepticism 01:50:24.069 --> 01:50:26.130 with regards to metanarratives. It's like, well, 01:50:26.170 --> 01:50:28.319 what do you mean by that? You mean that everything 01:50:28.319 --> 01:50:31.079 culminates in disunity? That's your theory of 01:50:31.079 --> 01:50:33.659 being? So how the hell do we come together as 01:50:33.659 --> 01:50:35.920 a society then? And around what? Well, everyone 01:50:35.920 --> 01:50:38.159 goes their own way. Yeah, that's called war. 01:50:40.119 --> 01:50:42.520 So there's some, is there a higher unity in which 01:50:42.520 --> 01:50:45.340 everything participates or not? Well, the postmodernists, 01:50:45.380 --> 01:50:50.380 it's like, no. Have it your way. Nihilism, disunity, 01:50:50.560 --> 01:50:55.699 anxiety, hopelessness, social disintegration, 01:50:55.699 --> 01:50:59.479 conflict. That's that pathway. And that's just 01:50:59.479 --> 01:51:03.079 where it starts. That's the optimistic view. 01:51:03.880 --> 01:51:07.899 So we're trying to present at Peterson Academy 01:51:07.899 --> 01:51:11.220 and the other enterprises that I'm engaged in, 01:51:11.279 --> 01:51:13.359 we're trying to present a unified underlying 01:51:13.359 --> 01:51:15.960 vision and a traditional unifying underlying 01:51:15.960 --> 01:51:21.420 vision. And I think that it's understandable 01:51:21.420 --> 01:51:23.899 what we talked about in the first part of this 01:51:23.899 --> 01:51:28.100 interview. Once you understand, that sacrifice 01:51:28.100 --> 01:51:31.760 is the basis of community. And once you understand 01:51:31.760 --> 01:51:35.579 that there's an ultimate form of sacrifice and 01:51:35.579 --> 01:51:37.680 that that's what's demanded of you if you're 01:51:37.680 --> 01:51:42.220 going to strive upward, then the contours of 01:51:42.220 --> 01:51:44.920 the religious story that undergirds the West 01:51:44.920 --> 01:51:49.319 fall into place. And that's a very remarkable 01:51:49.319 --> 01:51:52.460 thing to observe. And I think that's going to 01:51:52.460 --> 01:51:55.699 happen. I think that's... I think we're at the 01:51:55.699 --> 01:51:58.380 end of the Enlightenment and something new is 01:51:58.380 --> 01:52:03.340 striving mightily to emerge. Well, it's also 01:52:03.340 --> 01:52:07.579 interesting that these higher education institutes, 01:52:07.579 --> 01:52:11.500 even though they do have, you know, the way you're 01:52:11.500 --> 01:52:15.359 describing, they're extremely wealthy. They're 01:52:15.359 --> 01:52:18.960 extremely valuable. The name brand to them is 01:52:18.960 --> 01:52:22.810 still extremely potent. They have so many things 01:52:22.810 --> 01:52:25.470 going against them in terms of like an objective 01:52:25.470 --> 01:52:28.130 analysis of what's good for your education and 01:52:28.130 --> 01:52:30.710 what's good for preparing for your future. And 01:52:30.710 --> 01:52:32.869 then on top of that, they're burdened with this 01:52:32.869 --> 01:52:36.569 insane financial problem. The insane problem 01:52:36.569 --> 01:52:39.909 of, first of all, student loans being something 01:52:39.909 --> 01:52:43.140 you never get out of. Indentured servitude. And 01:52:43.140 --> 01:52:47.180 the fact that we all know that the human frontal 01:52:47.180 --> 01:52:49.840 lobe, especially on males, doesn't even fully 01:52:49.840 --> 01:52:53.000 develop until you're 25. So you're kind of taking 01:52:53.000 --> 01:52:55.739 advantage of a developing mind and locking them 01:52:55.739 --> 01:52:59.619 into an insane. burden of debt and ideology and 01:52:59.619 --> 01:53:03.300 ideology and so you're strapped with debt so 01:53:03.300 --> 01:53:06.220 you must work and then you must work within these 01:53:06.220 --> 01:53:08.460 structures that have been infected by this ideology 01:53:08.460 --> 01:53:11.039 because everyone's coming out of the universities 01:53:11.039 --> 01:53:14.979 into those places into those businesses and corporations 01:53:14.979 --> 01:53:18.500 and they're deeper and deeper interwoven into 01:53:18.500 --> 01:53:20.880 the structure of these businesses to the point 01:53:20.880 --> 01:53:22.640 where they're inescapable and then you can't 01:53:22.640 --> 01:53:24.739 leave because you have financial burdens you 01:53:24.739 --> 01:53:28.100 have all the student loan debt to pay off Right. 01:53:28.600 --> 01:53:31.640 Something is an alternative to that if it can 01:53:31.640 --> 01:53:34.840 become effective to the term, like if people 01:53:34.840 --> 01:53:38.579 can get employment. You know, it's interesting. 01:53:38.779 --> 01:53:42.439 Well, as soon as we determine the accreditation 01:53:42.439 --> 01:53:44.579 route, like I said, I'm in active communication 01:53:44.579 --> 01:53:46.739 with a number of people who are interested in 01:53:46.739 --> 01:53:48.920 accreditation. But I have to figure out if that's 01:53:48.920 --> 01:53:51.760 the right route. If it isn't, I'm going to work 01:53:51.760 --> 01:53:54.399 directly with interested employers to make sure 01:53:54.399 --> 01:53:57.710 that. what our students obtain as a consequence 01:53:57.710 --> 01:54:00.729 of going through the Peterson Academy process 01:54:00.729 --> 01:54:05.550 is recognized by them as a marker of a high quality 01:54:05.550 --> 01:54:10.439 applicant. Yes. I know that that problem is solvable 01:54:10.439 --> 01:54:12.000 because I know how to do that. Well, there's 01:54:12.000 --> 01:54:15.060 a lot of employers now that are kind of discounting 01:54:15.060 --> 01:54:18.699 the ideas of degrees. Elon is a big one of them. 01:54:18.779 --> 01:54:21.819 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's quite a few people. 01:54:21.899 --> 01:54:24.600 You shouldn't dismiss someone as being qualified 01:54:24.600 --> 01:54:27.199 for a certain position just because they've gone 01:54:27.199 --> 01:54:29.800 through some very formal process. Not if the 01:54:29.800 --> 01:54:33.020 formal process isn't predicated on... General 01:54:33.020 --> 01:54:35.680 cognitive ability and conscientiousness. Right. 01:54:35.819 --> 01:54:38.880 If it's predicated on bullshit and grift, which 01:54:38.880 --> 01:54:41.079 a lot of it is. Yeah. What do you think is going 01:54:41.079 --> 01:54:46.779 to happen with society in general with the implementation 01:54:46.779 --> 01:54:53.119 of AI and the inevitable erosion of jobs? I don't 01:54:53.119 --> 01:54:55.399 know if the erosion of jobs is inevitable. No. 01:54:55.420 --> 01:54:58.819 Well, we've thought that before. Well, first 01:54:58.819 --> 01:55:01.560 of all, the first thing I would say is like all 01:55:01.560 --> 01:55:03.789 bets are off. Right. Right. All bets are off. 01:55:03.869 --> 01:55:05.710 Right. We're going to have hyper intelligent 01:55:05.710 --> 01:55:08.890 AI within five years. In fact, we already have 01:55:08.890 --> 01:55:11.170 it. Well, I'm being pessimistic. Right. I've 01:55:11.170 --> 01:55:14.210 used chat GPT and grok and some systems that 01:55:14.210 --> 01:55:16.029 my colleagues have developed for. We built our 01:55:16.029 --> 01:55:19.149 own large language models in house. So I built 01:55:19.149 --> 01:55:22.770 my colleague, Victor Swift, built a large language 01:55:22.770 --> 01:55:26.369 model for me, trained on my books, and I used 01:55:26.369 --> 01:55:29.119 it to help me write. this next book, because 01:55:29.119 --> 01:55:31.479 I could come across biblical passages that I 01:55:31.479 --> 01:55:33.539 couldn't understand, and I could ask this AI 01:55:33.539 --> 01:55:36.720 system for a first -pass interpretation, and 01:55:36.720 --> 01:55:38.880 it could do a good job. And we're going to release 01:55:38.880 --> 01:55:41.039 that along with the book. Yeah, so that was really 01:55:41.039 --> 01:55:43.920 something. And I'll tell you, ChatGPT and Grok 01:55:43.920 --> 01:55:46.220 were unbelievably useful as research assistants. 01:55:46.640 --> 01:55:50.939 So they're about as smart as high -end undergraduates. 01:55:51.289 --> 01:55:53.689 They lie a lot, and you have to corner them like 01:55:53.689 --> 01:55:55.590 mad to get them to provide you with information 01:55:55.590 --> 01:55:57.430 that's valid. What have you found them lying 01:55:57.430 --> 01:55:59.750 about? Oh, they make up references that don't 01:55:59.750 --> 01:56:03.729 exist. So, for example, for ChatGPT, about a 01:56:03.729 --> 01:56:06.189 quarter of the academic references it produces 01:56:06.189 --> 01:56:08.489 for you don't exist. What? Yeah, yeah. Well, 01:56:08.609 --> 01:56:12.390 it doesn't know. Like, it will produce a reference 01:56:12.390 --> 01:56:14.909 for you that's completely plausible, except that 01:56:14.909 --> 01:56:18.159 it doesn't exist. If I ask ChatGPT a question, 01:56:18.359 --> 01:56:20.220 it'll answer and it'll give me the references 01:56:20.220 --> 01:56:22.180 because I asked for the references. Then I have 01:56:22.180 --> 01:56:23.920 to go and look up all the references and read 01:56:23.920 --> 01:56:25.699 them, first of all, because you're supposed to 01:56:25.699 --> 01:56:28.000 read the things you refer to. But also, I have 01:56:28.000 --> 01:56:30.439 to make sure that it's not, you know, wandered 01:56:30.439 --> 01:56:33.539 off into some hallucinatory pathway. But that'll 01:56:33.539 --> 01:56:36.279 be taken care of in no time flat, as far as I'm 01:56:36.279 --> 01:56:38.140 concerned, and Musk has already got plans to 01:56:38.140 --> 01:56:43.239 do that. So what will the addition of these AI 01:56:43.239 --> 01:56:47.380 systems mean to us? God. Well, I talked to Elon 01:56:47.380 --> 01:56:49.600 about this when we had our interview, and it's 01:56:49.600 --> 01:56:51.539 going to depend to some degree, Joe, on how we 01:56:51.539 --> 01:56:55.220 train the damn things. So there's this problem 01:56:55.220 --> 01:56:57.180 called the alignment problem. That's how the 01:56:57.180 --> 01:56:59.359 engineers describe it, which is how do we know 01:56:59.359 --> 01:57:02.699 that these AI systems will have human interest 01:57:02.699 --> 01:57:06.039 in mind? And you think, okay, how do we make 01:57:06.039 --> 01:57:08.859 machines that have human interests in mind? And 01:57:08.859 --> 01:57:10.520 then you think, oh, well, we have the same problem 01:57:10.520 --> 01:57:13.359 with adolescents. How do we ensure that we train 01:57:13.359 --> 01:57:16.310 our children so that they have their own interests 01:57:16.310 --> 01:57:18.729 and broad social interests in mind. And the answer 01:57:18.729 --> 01:57:20.850 is, the answer always has been that you provide 01:57:20.850 --> 01:57:23.149 them with a classic religious and humanities 01:57:23.149 --> 01:57:26.810 education. Because that provides an axis of stability 01:57:26.810 --> 01:57:30.550 around which all other knowledge can be organized. 01:57:31.090 --> 01:57:33.409 Now, the problem with the large language models 01:57:33.409 --> 01:57:35.510 at the moment is they're hyper -trained on modern 01:57:35.510 --> 01:57:39.289 text. And so they're ideologically addled and 01:57:39.289 --> 01:57:42.130 woke. And so we've been experimenting with training 01:57:42.130 --> 01:57:45.819 LLMs on a more classic... So we trained one on 01:57:45.819 --> 01:57:47.800 the King James Bible and we haven't released 01:57:47.800 --> 01:57:50.140 it because I don't know what to think about it. 01:57:50.220 --> 01:57:53.020 It's like you can ask the King James Bible a 01:57:53.020 --> 01:57:56.460 question. What the hell does that mean? Right. 01:57:56.920 --> 01:58:00.479 Seriously, what does that mean? And before we 01:58:00.479 --> 01:58:03.100 release it, we also want to make sure that we 01:58:03.100 --> 01:58:07.739 have it. We've developed the underlying technology 01:58:07.739 --> 01:58:10.439 properly. OK, so what's the answer to your question? 01:58:11.180 --> 01:58:14.420 What AI will do will depend on the intent of 01:58:14.420 --> 01:58:16.619 the people who design it. Here's a terrifying 01:58:16.619 --> 01:58:19.079 thing. You tell me what you think about this. 01:58:20.319 --> 01:58:23.840 All right, so your thoughts are orienting phenomena. 01:58:25.060 --> 01:58:28.739 So you think so that you can lay out a pathway 01:58:28.739 --> 01:58:31.880 to a desired destination. And then you can evaluate 01:58:31.880 --> 01:58:33.840 the thought to see if that's a good strategy 01:58:33.840 --> 01:58:37.659 to get there. Okay, so there's an implication 01:58:37.659 --> 01:58:42.539 that comes along with that. A thought enters 01:58:42.539 --> 01:58:45.500 the theater of your imagination in relationship 01:58:45.500 --> 01:58:49.680 to your goal. So you can formulate that in religious 01:58:49.680 --> 01:58:52.880 language. The spirit that answers your prayers, 01:58:52.899 --> 01:58:56.420 the nature of the spirit that answers your prayers 01:58:56.420 --> 01:58:58.960 will be dependent on the nature of your prayer. 01:58:59.840 --> 01:59:04.819 Yeah, that's for sure. Right. So imagine that 01:59:04.819 --> 01:59:08.739 you're harboring feelings of resentment and bitterness 01:59:08.739 --> 01:59:12.520 as you're plotting your... economic pathway forward. 01:59:12.840 --> 01:59:15.079 And so you're trying to think about what you 01:59:15.079 --> 01:59:18.020 should do, but you have the spirit of resentment, 01:59:18.060 --> 01:59:20.920 bitterness sitting on your shoulder. The thoughts 01:59:20.920 --> 01:59:24.439 that enter your mind are going to be a consequence 01:59:24.439 --> 01:59:28.100 of your possession by that bitterness to the 01:59:28.100 --> 01:59:31.340 degree that you've allowed it to shape your goal. 01:59:31.920 --> 01:59:35.060 So here's a corollary of that. This is stunning. 01:59:35.220 --> 01:59:44.760 It's a upward, in the highest manner, the spirit 01:59:44.760 --> 01:59:47.079 that informs your thought will be the spirit 01:59:47.079 --> 01:59:50.319 of the highest possible aim. And God, that's 01:59:50.319 --> 01:59:52.819 something to know, man. So that's what a religious 01:59:52.819 --> 01:59:55.199 practice, a fundamental religious practice is 01:59:55.199 --> 01:59:59.539 for. It's like, get rid of the corrupt motivation. 01:59:59.920 --> 02:00:04.529 Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Pray. for the salvation 02:00:04.529 --> 02:00:07.329 of your soul that you're aiming right because 02:00:07.329 --> 02:00:09.869 your aim is going to determine the content of 02:00:09.869 --> 02:00:11.970 your thoughts and that is how it works technically 02:00:11.970 --> 02:00:14.609 that's how it works neuropsychologically your 02:00:14.609 --> 02:00:17.569 thoughts are the handmaiden of your aim right 02:00:17.569 --> 02:00:20.130 which is why we're always worried about sociopaths 02:00:20.130 --> 02:00:22.670 because they never abandoned that corrupt motivation 02:00:22.670 --> 02:00:25.310 yeah well they're they're basically the best 02:00:25.310 --> 02:00:28.289 way to think about the narcissists and the hedonists 02:00:28.289 --> 02:00:32.409 and the histrionic types and the borderlines 02:00:32.409 --> 02:00:35.289 and the antisocial personalities is that they 02:00:35.289 --> 02:00:38.649 never matured cortically. So like children come 02:00:38.649 --> 02:00:42.069 into the world in a way as a bundle of competing 02:00:42.069 --> 02:00:45.609 subcortical motivations, right? And they're very 02:00:45.609 --> 02:00:48.189 powerful motivations. Anger, for example, you 02:00:48.189 --> 02:00:49.789 watch a two -year -old have a temper tantrum, 02:00:49.810 --> 02:00:52.729 it's quite the show. And they want short -term 02:00:52.729 --> 02:00:55.810 immediate gratification. Now what happens as 02:00:55.810 --> 02:01:00.460 your cortex matures? You transcend those lower 02:01:00.460 --> 02:01:02.619 order instinctual motivations. That would be 02:01:02.619 --> 02:01:05.399 the Freudian id. And you start to regulate your 02:01:05.399 --> 02:01:07.899 behavior in relationship to your own future. 02:01:08.000 --> 02:01:10.560 So you stop doing stupid, pleasurable things 02:01:10.560 --> 02:01:13.180 in the moment that will compromise you. And you 02:01:13.180 --> 02:01:15.239 start to be able to incorporate the views of 02:01:15.239 --> 02:01:17.680 other people. That's how kids at three start 02:01:17.680 --> 02:01:20.680 to develop the ability to have friends. And the 02:01:20.680 --> 02:01:24.039 more sophisticated you get, the more other people 02:01:24.039 --> 02:01:27.479 and their perspectives are part of your perceptions. 02:01:28.250 --> 02:01:30.449 And the more the future is taken into account 02:01:30.449 --> 02:01:33.189 in your actions. And the cortex is actually there 02:01:33.189 --> 02:01:36.609 so that that can happen. And it has to happen 02:01:36.609 --> 02:01:38.909 in a social context because you have to pick 02:01:38.909 --> 02:01:43.149 up the society of your peers, obviously. And 02:01:43.149 --> 02:01:47.289 so conditions like psychopathy, or even power 02:01:47.289 --> 02:01:50.630 -seeking for that matter, are conditions of radical 02:01:50.630 --> 02:01:55.130 immaturity. And so that's how you explain their 02:01:55.130 --> 02:01:57.979 emergence. One of the things that's interesting 02:01:57.979 --> 02:02:00.180 about that is it provides a very powerful argument 02:02:00.180 --> 02:02:03.100 against moral relativism. It's like there's a 02:02:03.100 --> 02:02:05.960 real difference between maturation and immaturity. 02:02:07.140 --> 02:02:11.460 Maturation is productive and sustainable. And 02:02:11.460 --> 02:02:15.859 immaturity is divisive and destructive. And there's 02:02:15.859 --> 02:02:19.619 no ifs, ands, or buts about that. And so, see, 02:02:19.699 --> 02:02:22.920 it's a different view of mental health. Because 02:02:22.920 --> 02:02:27.090 the classic therapist -produced... view of mental 02:02:27.090 --> 02:02:29.449 health is that mental health is sort of inside 02:02:29.449 --> 02:02:32.310 you you know it's in your psyche it's in your 02:02:32.310 --> 02:02:36.850 mind but it's not like your mental health is 02:02:36.850 --> 02:02:40.729 the harmony of your existence in relationship 02:02:40.729 --> 02:02:44.229 to the future and other people right and that 02:02:44.229 --> 02:02:47.770 that sense of well -being that can infuse you 02:02:47.770 --> 02:02:50.630 if you get the balance right isn't a reflection 02:02:50.630 --> 02:02:54.479 of the proper structuring of function of your 02:02:54.479 --> 02:02:58.520 mind or your brain. It's a phenomena that emerges 02:02:58.520 --> 02:03:02.220 when everything is in its proper place and operating 02:03:02.220 --> 02:03:04.840 harmoniously. That's what you experience in music. 02:03:05.020 --> 02:03:07.720 Music represents that. Everything in its proper 02:03:07.720 --> 02:03:10.439 place. That's what Adam is called upon by God 02:03:10.439 --> 02:03:13.680 to do in the story of Adam and Eve. To subdue 02:03:13.680 --> 02:03:17.659 the world. Subdue everything in its proper place 02:03:17.659 --> 02:03:20.359 so that the whole structure operates in a harmonious 02:03:20.359 --> 02:03:23.399 manner. It's a much more expanded view of what 02:03:23.399 --> 02:03:25.840 constitutes mental health. Anyways, education 02:03:25.840 --> 02:03:29.819 should serve that, right? And so if you take 02:03:29.819 --> 02:03:34.539 the staff of Moses that's planted in a single 02:03:34.539 --> 02:03:36.460 place, the community grows around that. That's 02:03:36.460 --> 02:03:39.640 the same as the magic wand of Gandalf, that idea 02:03:39.640 --> 02:03:44.340 of a magic wand. It's the traditional ethos. 02:03:46.029 --> 02:03:48.289 associated with transformation and sacrifice 02:03:48.289 --> 02:03:50.310 around which communities aggregate themselves. 02:03:50.689 --> 02:03:53.989 And a proper humanities and religious education 02:03:53.989 --> 02:04:00.350 inculcates that center structure so that knowledge 02:04:00.350 --> 02:04:02.409 can be organized around it. The last time we 02:04:02.409 --> 02:04:05.550 talked, I suggested to you that we see the world 02:04:05.550 --> 02:04:08.109 through a biblical lens. Literally see it. I 02:04:08.109 --> 02:04:09.890 mean literally. It structures our perceptions. 02:04:10.149 --> 02:04:14.920 And I've investigated that far more deeply. What 02:04:14.920 --> 02:04:18.140 seems to be the case with a corpus of stories 02:04:18.140 --> 02:04:21.720 like the biblical library is that if you know 02:04:21.720 --> 02:04:25.140 the stories, it structures your psyche so that 02:04:25.140 --> 02:04:27.960 you have a place to put information. And so that 02:04:27.960 --> 02:04:31.020 enables you to understand the current world and 02:04:31.020 --> 02:04:33.119 everything that's happening, but to place everything 02:04:33.119 --> 02:04:36.420 in the right context. And so the transmission 02:04:36.420 --> 02:04:41.539 of an unbroken cultural edifice... Story -based 02:04:41.539 --> 02:04:43.979 edifice is the manner in which you solve the 02:04:43.979 --> 02:04:47.300 alignment problem, unite your society, integrate 02:04:47.300 --> 02:04:50.920 your psyche, pursue what's meaningful, and protect 02:04:50.920 --> 02:04:56.199 yourself from chaos and anxiety. And a solid 02:04:56.199 --> 02:04:59.220 education has been the traditional way of ensuring 02:04:59.220 --> 02:05:03.819 that that occurs. And so, well, that's what we 02:05:03.819 --> 02:05:06.260 hope we can offer with Peterson Academy. That's 02:05:06.260 --> 02:05:09.760 the purpose of my books as well, to elucidate 02:05:09.760 --> 02:05:14.600 that. And so can the universities do that? I 02:05:14.600 --> 02:05:16.899 don't think so. I don't know if they have that 02:05:16.899 --> 02:05:21.800 philosophy. The philosophy and the way you're 02:05:21.800 --> 02:05:24.220 laying it out resonates with me. I think it's 02:05:24.220 --> 02:05:28.220 accurate. I think when I'm in harmony in my life, 02:05:28.300 --> 02:05:31.500 it all seems to make sense. It all works together. 02:05:31.760 --> 02:05:35.800 What you're saying, it just rings true. I don't 02:05:35.800 --> 02:05:41.739 know if they're so infected. with this ideology. 02:05:42.060 --> 02:05:45.500 That flies in the face of it. They rejected it 02:05:45.500 --> 02:05:48.699 wholeheartedly. The premise of the postmodernists 02:05:48.699 --> 02:05:51.699 is that there's no uniting metanarrative. If 02:05:51.699 --> 02:05:53.880 you had to define postmodernism in one phrase, 02:05:54.000 --> 02:05:57.100 that would be it. And so what have they done? 02:05:57.220 --> 02:06:00.279 Here's the association with Marxism. Okay, so 02:06:00.279 --> 02:06:02.979 the Marxists have a counter -narrative. It's 02:06:02.979 --> 02:06:05.640 the narrative of power. And it is a very powerful 02:06:05.640 --> 02:06:07.840 counter -narrative. Because if you don't put 02:06:07.840 --> 02:06:12.399 the proper uniting... principle at the pinnacle. 02:06:12.960 --> 02:06:15.920 Power emerges immediately because people play 02:06:15.920 --> 02:06:18.560 power games. You can attain a certain degree 02:06:18.560 --> 02:06:21.739 of success and a fair amount of domination by 02:06:21.739 --> 02:06:24.760 playing a power game. And so Marx observed that 02:06:24.760 --> 02:06:27.159 one of the cardinal power games is economic. 02:06:27.500 --> 02:06:30.340 And it is probably the cardinal power game, right? 02:06:30.520 --> 02:06:33.380 There's economic disparity. Those at the top 02:06:33.380 --> 02:06:35.500 do take advantage of their position at the top 02:06:35.500 --> 02:06:38.979 to stabilize their position. In a functional 02:06:38.979 --> 02:06:42.159 society, productive people are at the top. But 02:06:42.159 --> 02:06:45.000 even among those at the top, there's still power 02:06:45.000 --> 02:06:48.340 -seeking crooks. And so now Marx, of course, 02:06:48.399 --> 02:06:50.420 would say that, well, everyone who's economically 02:06:50.420 --> 02:06:53.420 successful is a power -seeking crook. And, you 02:06:53.420 --> 02:06:55.420 know, that's a great thing to believe if you're 02:06:55.420 --> 02:06:58.909 a reventful. a resentful Satanist like Marx. 02:06:59.069 --> 02:07:00.590 Well, that's how the losers look at the world. 02:07:00.670 --> 02:07:02.909 Well, that's for sure. But there is some justification 02:07:02.909 --> 02:07:05.689 in it because among the successful, there are... 02:07:05.689 --> 02:07:07.949 Yes. Right, okay. And a large percentage because 02:07:07.949 --> 02:07:10.210 that's the culture in which they're existing. 02:07:10.529 --> 02:07:13.109 Yeah, well, a dangerous percentage. Yes. And 02:07:13.109 --> 02:07:15.229 a critique of power is always a valid critique. 02:07:15.350 --> 02:07:18.529 Okay, so what the postmodernists did when Marxism 02:07:18.529 --> 02:07:21.489 became ethically unacceptable, and that happened 02:07:21.489 --> 02:07:25.510 in the 1970s, is they just, they metastasized 02:07:25.510 --> 02:07:28.289 it. I said, okay, we've got a victim -victimizer 02:07:28.289 --> 02:07:30.329 narrative that's played out in the economic sphere, 02:07:30.449 --> 02:07:34.270 and that's basically Marxism. We'll just multiply 02:07:34.270 --> 02:07:37.350 that until the same interpretive framework can 02:07:37.350 --> 02:07:39.989 be applied to all possible group distinctions. 02:07:40.210 --> 02:07:43.689 That's basically intersectionality. So sex is 02:07:43.689 --> 02:07:46.350 an oppressor versus oppressed narrative. Gender 02:07:46.350 --> 02:07:50.609 is an oppressed versus oppressor narrative. Ethnicity, 02:07:50.609 --> 02:07:56.109 race. ability, attractiveness, height, any qualitative 02:07:56.109 --> 02:07:59.729 distinction is now recast as a battle between 02:07:59.729 --> 02:08:03.010 oppressor and oppressed. It's an unbelievably 02:08:03.010 --> 02:08:05.550 brutal story. It's basically equivalent to the 02:08:05.550 --> 02:08:10.170 claim that the spirit of power is the ruler of 02:08:10.170 --> 02:08:13.210 the cosmos. How can they do all this and ignore 02:08:13.210 --> 02:08:17.149 the possibility of an oppressor, like a male, 02:08:17.369 --> 02:08:23.260 adopting the... identity of the oppressed of 02:08:23.260 --> 02:08:28.760 a female and entering into female spaces and 02:08:28.760 --> 02:08:31.260 oppressing females. You can see that it can't 02:08:31.260 --> 02:08:34.460 be dealt with because... Wild, right? That is 02:08:34.460 --> 02:08:37.979 wild. Look, one of the things you see that's 02:08:37.979 --> 02:08:41.180 very characteristic of the utopian left is the 02:08:41.180 --> 02:08:44.520 absolute insistence that anyone oppressed is 02:08:44.520 --> 02:08:48.140 a victim. It's like, okay, we'll give the devil 02:08:48.140 --> 02:08:52.039 his due. Some oppressed people are victims. But 02:08:52.039 --> 02:08:54.560 some people who claim to be oppressed aren't 02:08:54.560 --> 02:08:57.340 victims. They're the worst kind of monsters that 02:08:57.340 --> 02:09:00.600 the most deranged imagination could barely conceptualize. 02:09:01.260 --> 02:09:06.380 Utopian, naive, radical progressives refuse their 02:09:06.380 --> 02:09:09.199 imagination for evil. And that delivers them 02:09:09.199 --> 02:09:12.220 into the hands of the absolute bloody psychopaths. 02:09:12.220 --> 02:09:14.670 Right. And they just don't see it. It's like, 02:09:14.710 --> 02:09:17.210 oh, those trans people, they're just striving 02:09:17.210 --> 02:09:20.550 to be free. It's like, you wait. You wait until 02:09:20.550 --> 02:09:23.229 you have one of them in your house, buddy, and 02:09:23.229 --> 02:09:25.250 you're going to find out just exactly how naive 02:09:25.250 --> 02:09:31.109 you are. So how do they protect themselves? They 02:09:31.109 --> 02:09:33.550 just deny the existence of malevolence or attribute 02:09:33.550 --> 02:09:36.989 it to socioeconomic inequality. All criminals 02:09:36.989 --> 02:09:40.510 are victims. It's like, no, first of all, lots 02:09:40.510 --> 02:09:43.390 of people who are victims aren't criminals. In 02:09:43.390 --> 02:09:47.470 fact, Poverty does not cause criminality. That's 02:09:47.470 --> 02:09:50.989 a lie. And it's a very damaging lie to the poor. 02:09:51.430 --> 02:09:54.189 Because if poverty was equivalent to criminality, 02:09:54.310 --> 02:09:57.010 the logical thing to do is just to lock up all 02:09:57.010 --> 02:10:01.430 the poor. Right. Right. Well, there are many 02:10:01.430 --> 02:10:03.670 pathways from poverty forward, and one of them 02:10:03.670 --> 02:10:05.350 is criminality. But you can say the same thing 02:10:05.350 --> 02:10:08.399 about wealth. So the idea, and that's basically 02:10:08.399 --> 02:10:11.699 a Marxist theory of causality, is like, well, 02:10:11.840 --> 02:10:14.140 those people's oppression is what's causing their 02:10:14.140 --> 02:10:17.180 lack of law -abiding conduct. It's like, no, 02:10:18.119 --> 02:10:23.500 no, wrong, seriously wrong, and dangerously wrong, 02:10:23.600 --> 02:10:26.899 and ridiculously naive. That's not how the world 02:10:26.899 --> 02:10:29.560 works at all. Right. You're also, in a sense, 02:10:29.659 --> 02:10:31.779 you're encouraging this kind of behavior because 02:10:31.779 --> 02:10:34.260 you're not punishing people for it, because you're 02:10:34.260 --> 02:10:36.319 saying it's not their fault. Or you're even valorizing 02:10:36.319 --> 02:10:38.739 it. Oh, you poor thing. Right. And you're allowing 02:10:38.739 --> 02:10:40.899 more of it to take place. Well, we know that. 02:10:41.600 --> 02:10:45.779 So the dark tetrad types. So those are the subclinical 02:10:45.779 --> 02:10:51.420 psychopaths. OK, so they're psychopathic. That 02:10:51.420 --> 02:10:54.279 makes them predatory and parasitic. That's the 02:10:54.279 --> 02:10:57.189 definition of a psychopath. Okay, they're narcissistic. 02:10:57.449 --> 02:11:00.670 So what does that mean? They want unearned social 02:11:00.670 --> 02:11:04.470 status, right? They're Machiavellian. So what 02:11:04.470 --> 02:11:07.470 does that mean? It means that their use of language 02:11:07.470 --> 02:11:10.109 is subordinated to their demand for hedonistic 02:11:10.109 --> 02:11:13.050 gratification and power. So like you and I, in 02:11:13.050 --> 02:11:15.850 principle, we hope, we're trying to pursue a 02:11:15.850 --> 02:11:18.270 thread of conversation that leads to further 02:11:18.270 --> 02:11:20.390 development, let's say, for us and for the audience. 02:11:20.960 --> 02:11:23.079 But I could easily be in here thinking, okay, 02:11:23.140 --> 02:11:25.880 what the hell do I have to tell Joe to increase 02:11:25.880 --> 02:11:29.199 my social media status? Right. Right. And to 02:11:29.199 --> 02:11:33.300 play this situation as a game to enhance my own 02:11:33.300 --> 02:11:36.159 status or to further my selfish desires. That's 02:11:36.159 --> 02:11:39.640 Machiavellian. That was the dark triad. And what 02:11:39.640 --> 02:11:42.020 further investigation revealed that you had to 02:11:42.020 --> 02:11:44.279 add an additional dimension to that to fully 02:11:44.279 --> 02:11:48.680 flesh out the picture. Sadism. What's that? Positive 02:11:48.680 --> 02:11:51.300 delight in the unnecessary misery of others. 02:11:51.720 --> 02:11:56.100 That's the dark tetrad types. Well, dark tetrad 02:11:56.100 --> 02:11:59.960 types portray themselves as victims. Right? That's 02:11:59.960 --> 02:12:02.939 one of their Machiavellian strategies. So now 02:12:02.939 --> 02:12:05.659 your question is, well, how do we segregate the 02:12:05.659 --> 02:12:09.399 real victims, so to speak, from the false victims? 02:12:09.479 --> 02:12:12.560 And one of the answers to that is, like, beware 02:12:12.560 --> 02:12:15.039 of those who claim victimization as a justification 02:12:15.039 --> 02:12:18.310 for their moral... What would you say? For the 02:12:18.310 --> 02:12:21.050 moral transgressions. I did this because I'm 02:12:21.050 --> 02:12:24.609 a victim. It's like, really? Right. Really? That 02:12:24.609 --> 02:12:28.050 was your reason? Poor you. That's your story. 02:12:28.210 --> 02:12:32.350 You monster. There are no monsters. It's like, 02:12:32.409 --> 02:12:39.930 if you think there are no monsters, you're naive 02:12:39.930 --> 02:12:44.810 and willfully blind to the point of delusion 02:12:44.810 --> 02:12:49.470 and... What would you call it? What do they say? 02:12:49.569 --> 02:12:52.529 There are none so blind as those who will not 02:12:52.529 --> 02:12:54.890 see. That certainly applies on the malevolent 02:12:54.890 --> 02:12:58.229 side. And then from the point of view, if you're 02:12:58.229 --> 02:13:00.569 looking at the people that are committing crimes, 02:13:00.989 --> 02:13:03.449 there's the unfortunate reality that people mimic 02:13:03.449 --> 02:13:07.539 their environment. And if you grow up in an environment 02:13:07.539 --> 02:13:09.819 where there are no positive role models and you 02:13:09.819 --> 02:13:12.520 see nothing but rampant crime around you, even 02:13:12.520 --> 02:13:16.840 good people go down bad paths. You get, okay, 02:13:16.920 --> 02:13:19.500 so antisocial personality is somewhat heritable. 02:13:19.600 --> 02:13:23.520 There is some familial transmission. There is 02:13:23.520 --> 02:13:25.779 a role played by fatherlessness in particular. 02:13:26.319 --> 02:13:30.420 And that's perhaps because... fatherless boys 02:13:30.420 --> 02:13:33.699 tend to turn towards a gang orientation and the 02:13:33.699 --> 02:13:35.779 gangs of adolescents have a short -term time 02:13:35.779 --> 02:13:39.659 horizon so they future discount badly and that 02:13:39.659 --> 02:13:43.340 produces a proclivity for short -term gratification 02:13:43.340 --> 02:13:46.119 and that includes like idiot criminal behavior 02:13:46.119 --> 02:13:49.039 right yeah yeah so what you need in a father 02:13:49.039 --> 02:13:53.970 you need someone who encourages encourages intelligent 02:13:53.970 --> 02:13:56.810 upward aiming sacrifice and an orientation towards 02:13:56.810 --> 02:13:59.550 others and future development that's what the 02:13:59.550 --> 02:14:02.170 spirit of the father really does is that encouragement 02:14:02.170 --> 02:14:08.270 so and that what reward for delay of gratification 02:14:08.270 --> 02:14:10.430 so that's another indication of the relationship 02:14:10.430 --> 02:14:14.430 between say upward striving moral orientation 02:14:14.430 --> 02:14:17.750 and maturity if you're mature you can delay gratification 02:14:17.750 --> 02:14:19.909 and what does that mean it means you've integrated 02:14:19.909 --> 02:14:23.479 the future into your perceptions And that has 02:14:23.479 --> 02:14:27.399 to be socially scaffolded, especially for men. 02:14:30.100 --> 02:14:35.199 Women, they get initiated by nature. In every 02:14:35.199 --> 02:14:37.340 society that we know of, men have to be initiated. 02:14:38.479 --> 02:14:42.479 Because that catalyzation of maturity is a difficult 02:14:42.479 --> 02:14:47.359 thing. Difficult and unlikely, but possible and 02:14:47.359 --> 02:14:51.689 necessary. So how do you reach the people that 02:14:51.689 --> 02:14:55.329 are young adolescents that are trapped in that 02:14:55.329 --> 02:14:59.470 vicious cycle? Yeah, well, I think I can tell 02:14:59.470 --> 02:15:02.369 you the answer to that. You know, a lot of young 02:15:02.369 --> 02:15:05.590 men have been watching and listening to the sorts 02:15:05.590 --> 02:15:07.630 of things that I've been writing about and producing. 02:15:07.810 --> 02:15:12.050 And every time someone comes up to me and tells 02:15:12.050 --> 02:15:15.189 me that reading, say, 12 Rules for Life had helped 02:15:15.189 --> 02:15:18.659 them, I ask why. It's like, okay, good. What 02:15:18.659 --> 02:15:23.039 changed? And the overwhelming pattern of response 02:15:23.039 --> 02:15:25.920 is something like, I started to understand the 02:15:25.920 --> 02:15:29.800 necessity of responsibility. Now, you might then 02:15:29.800 --> 02:15:33.659 ask, well, you hear from your parents, in principle, 02:15:33.760 --> 02:15:35.619 you hear from the school system, although that's 02:15:35.619 --> 02:15:37.539 probably gone, that you should grow up and be 02:15:37.539 --> 02:15:41.340 responsible. Why did it make a difference? Why 02:15:41.340 --> 02:15:43.739 did it make a difference to you to read that 02:15:43.739 --> 02:15:46.649 in what I wrote? And the answer is, I think the 02:15:46.649 --> 02:15:48.609 answer is I didn't take the standard conservative 02:15:48.609 --> 02:15:53.189 approach. I didn't say you should, you must, 02:15:53.369 --> 02:15:55.850 you ought, even though those things are true. 02:15:55.930 --> 02:15:58.109 I said, there's no difference between responsibility 02:15:58.109 --> 02:16:02.029 and adventure. That's a killer thing to know. 02:16:02.649 --> 02:16:05.729 The heavier the responsibility, the more profound 02:16:05.729 --> 02:16:09.050 the adventure. And so everyone knows that, but 02:16:09.050 --> 02:16:12.770 it's not, it's not catalyzed. I just watched 02:16:12.770 --> 02:16:14.890 The Hobbit a while back, classic adventure story, 02:16:14.970 --> 02:16:19.689 and of course, what, it's Bilbo, to begin with, 02:16:19.750 --> 02:16:22.989 it's Bilbo. He's this little hobbit, right, sounded 02:16:22.989 --> 02:16:24.930 like Abraham, he's living his comfortable life, 02:16:25.029 --> 02:16:27.869 and the wizard comes along and says, it's time 02:16:27.869 --> 02:16:29.989 for you to develop your shadow side, because 02:16:29.989 --> 02:16:33.610 of course he becomes a thief, and to go on your 02:16:33.610 --> 02:16:36.049 adventure. And he agrees to do that, and it's 02:16:36.049 --> 02:16:38.389 a weighty adventure, he has to contend with the 02:16:38.389 --> 02:16:41.620 ring of power. Right. That's the ultimate in 02:16:41.620 --> 02:16:43.559 temptations. That's the temptation that Christ 02:16:43.559 --> 02:16:45.979 is offered by Satan in the desert. The temptation 02:16:45.979 --> 02:16:51.520 of power. And that's the temptation that Bilbo 02:16:51.520 --> 02:16:54.159 has to contend with. Well, he has this adventure. 02:16:54.540 --> 02:16:57.260 Well, what's the adventure? It's responsibility. 02:16:57.360 --> 02:17:00.399 He has to carry that ring. And it is one of the 02:17:00.399 --> 02:17:03.340 rings that unites everything. Power. It's just 02:17:03.340 --> 02:17:06.459 the malevolent ring that unites everything. And 02:17:06.459 --> 02:17:09.059 so I've been suggesting to young men in particular, 02:17:09.219 --> 02:17:10.379 it's like, you want to get your life together? 02:17:11.940 --> 02:17:15.200 Take the path of maximal responsibility. Not 02:17:15.200 --> 02:17:17.639 because you should, even though you should. That's 02:17:17.639 --> 02:17:20.579 not why. It's because that's the pathway of maximal 02:17:20.579 --> 02:17:22.959 adventure. So you say, well, what's the meaning 02:17:22.959 --> 02:17:25.739 of life? It's the meaning that reveals itself 02:17:25.739 --> 02:17:27.959 when you take the pathway of maximal responsibility. 02:17:30.239 --> 02:17:32.620 That's exactly the message of the crucifixion. 02:17:32.620 --> 02:17:36.049 That's precisely the message. pathway of maximal 02:17:36.049 --> 02:17:38.190 responsibility. And that's a terrifying thing. 02:17:38.270 --> 02:17:41.069 There's no difference between that and the dragon 02:17:41.069 --> 02:17:44.229 and treasure stories that are unbelievably archaic. 02:17:44.430 --> 02:17:46.969 The greatest possible treasure is to be found 02:17:46.969 --> 02:17:50.450 where the danger is most intense. Right. Always. 02:17:50.649 --> 02:17:53.670 Right. The dragon guards the gold. Always. Right. 02:17:53.790 --> 02:17:56.430 Well, and so one thing to know is that if there's 02:17:56.430 --> 02:18:00.430 a dragon, there's a treasure somewhere. Really? 02:18:01.110 --> 02:18:04.549 Right. Really? You know, my family and I have 02:18:04.549 --> 02:18:07.329 really learned this in the last six years because 02:18:07.329 --> 02:18:14.270 we were subject to continued assaults in the 02:18:14.270 --> 02:18:17.090 public sphere that were designed to be deadly. 02:18:18.110 --> 02:18:21.670 What do you mean by that? Designed to be deadly? 02:18:21.989 --> 02:18:23.930 Oh, interviews with journalists in particular, 02:18:24.069 --> 02:18:26.809 snake journalists whose every single utterance 02:18:26.809 --> 02:18:32.680 is designed to entrap the person being... interviewed, 02:18:32.680 --> 02:18:35.579 into saying something that will devastate their 02:18:35.579 --> 02:18:38.920 reputation personally to enhance the status of 02:18:38.920 --> 02:18:40.860 the interviewer. Like the Kathy Newman conversation. 02:18:41.399 --> 02:18:43.280 Well, Kathy at least had a bit of a sense of 02:18:43.280 --> 02:18:47.579 humor. But the intent. Oh, yeah, the intent. 02:18:47.899 --> 02:18:50.319 That's the serpent, man. That's the intent. It's 02:18:50.319 --> 02:18:53.819 like, well, Nellie Bowles, who interviewed me 02:18:53.819 --> 02:18:55.540 for the New York Times, now part of the Free 02:18:55.540 --> 02:18:58.440 Press, she admitted that. She said that her job 02:18:58.440 --> 02:19:00.559 at the New York Times, like the job of many of 02:19:00.559 --> 02:19:03.479 the reporters, was to find someone, demolish 02:19:03.479 --> 02:19:05.920 their reputation by any means necessary, and 02:19:05.920 --> 02:19:08.559 elevate their status in consequence. Wow. Yeah. 02:19:08.639 --> 02:19:13.000 What a terrible job. Brutal. Isn't it terrifying 02:19:13.000 --> 02:19:18.500 that that's the old gray lady? That's the most 02:19:18.500 --> 02:19:22.260 trusted and respected source of news? And that 02:19:22.260 --> 02:19:26.190 their intent was just to destroy? Yeah, it's 02:19:26.190 --> 02:19:28.750 quite something. It wasn't the news. It wasn't 02:19:28.750 --> 02:19:33.989 real journalism, the nuanced various elements 02:19:33.989 --> 02:19:38.909 of what a human being is, the pros and cons, 02:19:39.149 --> 02:19:42.090 the goods, the bads, the ugly, the battle that 02:19:42.090 --> 02:19:45.030 they have. Not that. No, no, no. Not an accurate 02:19:45.030 --> 02:19:47.629 assessment, not an objective analysis of the 02:19:47.629 --> 02:19:50.829 person. Pursuit of status. Yeah. Well, that's 02:19:50.829 --> 02:19:53.010 part of that. The danger is that people know 02:19:53.010 --> 02:19:56.420 that now. And people know who's doing that now. 02:19:56.559 --> 02:19:58.860 And then they go after them. And you see that 02:19:58.860 --> 02:20:01.860 now. And journalists say, oh, it's attack on 02:20:01.860 --> 02:20:05.200 journalism. You're not doing journalism. You're 02:20:05.200 --> 02:20:08.920 doing hit pieces. And you're doing it under the 02:20:08.920 --> 02:20:11.420 guise of journalism. But it's not journalism. 02:20:12.299 --> 02:20:14.840 It's kind of evil. Yeah. It's kind of fucked 02:20:14.840 --> 02:20:17.180 up. Yeah, kind of. I've seen quite a bit of it 02:20:17.180 --> 02:20:19.459 where I'm like, especially with people that I 02:20:19.459 --> 02:20:22.559 know the actual story and what was really going 02:20:22.559 --> 02:20:24.899 on behind the scenes. I was like, this is maddening. 02:20:25.219 --> 02:20:28.200 This is wild. Well, we started to learn after 02:20:28.200 --> 02:20:30.440 this had happened two or three times, like there's 02:20:30.440 --> 02:20:33.059 a kind of a process, because you're exposed to 02:20:33.059 --> 02:20:35.239 that. And then there's an intermediary period 02:20:35.239 --> 02:20:38.319 where it looks like it might succeed. And that's 02:20:38.319 --> 02:20:41.889 very. Stressful. Right. That's usually when people 02:20:41.889 --> 02:20:43.690 come out with their apologies. Right. Because 02:20:43.690 --> 02:20:45.069 they're just terrified. They're going to lose. 02:20:45.170 --> 02:20:47.489 Well, I did lose my job and I lost my clinical 02:20:47.489 --> 02:20:50.110 practice. Right. Right. So like the costs are 02:20:50.110 --> 02:20:53.049 real. So your situation in Canada was that they 02:20:53.049 --> 02:20:57.149 wanted you to sign up for re -education. Oh, 02:20:57.149 --> 02:21:00.069 no, no. That's already. That's the plan. Right. 02:21:00.250 --> 02:21:03.909 I couldn't sign up. They said already that I 02:21:03.909 --> 02:21:05.569 have to do that. Right. But we have an appeal 02:21:05.569 --> 02:21:08.260 in at the moment that's blocking it. And this 02:21:08.260 --> 02:21:13.040 is all just, what it affects is what in Canada? 02:21:13.280 --> 02:21:17.280 If I don't undergo the re -education process 02:21:17.280 --> 02:21:19.559 successfully, they'll suspend my license and 02:21:19.559 --> 02:21:23.079 will also say why. They'll say, well, Dr. Peterson 02:21:23.079 --> 02:21:26.700 is uneducable. He's unprofessional. He's violated 02:21:26.700 --> 02:21:30.139 the ethical tenets of his profession. Right, 02:21:30.159 --> 02:21:32.379 just because you have a different perspective 02:21:32.379 --> 02:21:35.280 on things than they do. No, it's because I'm 02:21:35.280 --> 02:21:37.159 actually telling the truth that clinicians bloody 02:21:37.159 --> 02:21:40.459 well know and are too cowardly to admit. So, 02:21:40.500 --> 02:21:44.219 you know, they went after me for four reasons, 02:21:44.319 --> 02:21:47.420 probably. One of them was the entire transcript 02:21:47.420 --> 02:21:49.899 of the last conversation I had with you. Whoops. 02:21:50.059 --> 02:21:51.979 Right, that was submitted as a complaint because 02:21:51.979 --> 02:21:56.239 I was talking about the climate lies. They went 02:21:56.239 --> 02:21:58.139 after me because of the comments I've made about 02:21:58.139 --> 02:22:00.600 the trans butchers and liars, the surgeons and 02:22:00.600 --> 02:22:04.879 the... therapists who are enabling them. That's 02:22:04.879 --> 02:22:06.879 a major part of it. That's a major part of it. 02:22:06.940 --> 02:22:09.219 They went after me because I went after Trudeau 02:22:09.219 --> 02:22:13.120 and his former chief of staff. And what else? 02:22:14.159 --> 02:22:16.739 Those are the major three. There's probably four 02:22:16.739 --> 02:22:19.760 complaints aligned with each of those dimensions. 02:22:20.559 --> 02:22:23.020 And so that's cost me about a million dollars 02:22:23.020 --> 02:22:26.100 in legal fees so far. So it's a very hard battle 02:22:26.100 --> 02:22:29.600 to fight. It's very annoying because the accusations... 02:22:30.399 --> 02:22:33.940 continue to flow in, even though that's a choice 02:22:33.940 --> 02:22:36.340 of the college. And I've already been sentenced 02:22:36.340 --> 02:22:40.579 to re -education of indefinite duration, till 02:22:40.579 --> 02:22:42.799 they're satisfied that I've learned whatever 02:22:42.799 --> 02:22:45.879 the hell lesson I'm supposed to learn. So the 02:22:45.879 --> 02:22:48.280 only reason that isn't happening is because we 02:22:48.280 --> 02:22:50.399 now have an appeal in front of the Supreme Court 02:22:50.399 --> 02:22:53.540 in Canada. And so I don't think it'll succeed, 02:22:53.700 --> 02:22:57.360 but we'll see. Is it important to you to maintain 02:22:57.360 --> 02:23:00.700 your license or is it important to you to win 02:23:00.700 --> 02:23:04.219 this? There's two things that are important to 02:23:04.219 --> 02:23:06.600 me, likely. One is I'm not going to let a pack 02:23:06.600 --> 02:23:12.000 of ideologically addled moralists, lying moralists 02:23:12.000 --> 02:23:16.879 who are facilitating the butchery and sterilization 02:23:16.879 --> 02:23:20.139 of children take away my license, not without 02:23:20.139 --> 02:23:23.420 a war. So that's one thing. The second thing 02:23:23.420 --> 02:23:28.079 is... I'm likely, I'm in a prime position in 02:23:28.079 --> 02:23:31.879 Canada to undertake this battle against the woke 02:23:31.879 --> 02:23:37.559 licensing boards because I have the money and 02:23:37.559 --> 02:23:40.040 what the hell are they going to do to me? I'm 02:23:40.040 --> 02:23:42.819 not practicing. They can't take away my income 02:23:42.819 --> 02:23:45.799 and likely they can't blacken my reputation except 02:23:45.799 --> 02:23:50.139 among those who are willing to. assume that the 02:23:50.139 --> 02:23:52.639 licensing colleges are playing a straight game. 02:23:52.840 --> 02:23:54.739 So really, there's nothing they can do to me. 02:23:54.860 --> 02:23:58.600 Plus, if it was only a personal thing, apart 02:23:58.600 --> 02:24:00.840 from the fact that I'm not letting my license 02:24:00.840 --> 02:24:04.319 be taken by a pack of intellectually addled hypocrites, 02:24:04.780 --> 02:24:07.520 I don't really, there's a part of me that's deeply 02:24:07.520 --> 02:24:11.559 ashamed to be a psychologist at the moment. I'm 02:24:11.559 --> 02:24:15.639 so appalled by my compatriots. They know that 02:24:15.639 --> 02:24:22.200 this gender dysphoria Pathology is a lie. They 02:24:22.200 --> 02:24:25.219 all know it. And they won't say anything. Now, 02:24:25.239 --> 02:24:27.120 partly they won't say anything because the consequences 02:24:27.120 --> 02:24:30.180 for saying something are not trivial. But the 02:24:30.180 --> 02:24:32.819 consequences for not saying anything is that 02:24:32.819 --> 02:24:35.360 people like Chloe Cole end up with their breasts 02:24:35.360 --> 02:24:37.459 cut off when they're 15. Right. Right. Well, 02:24:37.540 --> 02:24:42.500 that actually matters. Right. So practically 02:24:42.500 --> 02:24:44.540 speaking, in a sense, the battle doesn't mean 02:24:44.540 --> 02:24:46.840 anything to me because I'm fighting to remain 02:24:46.840 --> 02:24:48.659 a member of a club that I don't really want to 02:24:48.659 --> 02:24:53.100 be part of. But is there a principle at stake? 02:24:55.600 --> 02:24:57.819 Well, there's a variety of principles at stake. 02:24:58.620 --> 02:25:04.819 And so if I stop or lose all of the woke licensing 02:25:04.819 --> 02:25:10.229 enterprises, they'll just have their sway. All 02:25:10.229 --> 02:25:12.409 the physicians in Canada are terrified to say 02:25:12.409 --> 02:25:14.409 what they think. Anybody who's governed by a 02:25:14.409 --> 02:25:17.629 professional college, they censor themselves 02:25:17.629 --> 02:25:19.989 like mad. And it's really appalling for psychologists 02:25:19.989 --> 02:25:22.329 because all of the psychologists who are properly 02:25:22.329 --> 02:25:25.489 trained, they know that all of this is a lie. 02:25:25.590 --> 02:25:28.329 And not just a lie. A malevolent, vicious, and 02:25:28.329 --> 02:25:30.530 destructive lie. Everything about it's a lie. 02:25:31.129 --> 02:25:34.250 You know, Musk revealed the other day that the 02:25:34.250 --> 02:25:38.850 professionals that were interacting with him 02:25:39.100 --> 02:25:41.840 in regard to his transitioning son, told him 02:25:41.840 --> 02:25:44.680 that if he didn't abide by their dictates, that 02:25:44.680 --> 02:25:46.399 his son was much more likely to commit suicide. 02:25:47.219 --> 02:25:51.559 That's a lie. No one who's educated as a psychologist 02:25:51.559 --> 02:25:54.360 believes that to be true. No one. At minimum, 02:25:54.479 --> 02:25:57.200 if you're educated, what you understand is that 02:25:57.200 --> 02:26:00.719 underneath gender dysphoria is something more 02:26:00.719 --> 02:26:03.739 substantial, which is a proclivity towards depression 02:26:03.739 --> 02:26:06.489 and anxiety. If you're depressed and anxious, 02:26:06.569 --> 02:26:08.670 you have a higher risk of suicide. You have to 02:26:08.670 --> 02:26:12.170 account for that before you attribute any of 02:26:12.170 --> 02:26:15.870 the remainder to gender dysphoria as such. And 02:26:15.870 --> 02:26:18.069 everyone who's a psychologist also understands 02:26:18.069 --> 02:26:23.309 that body -focused discomfort for women at puberty 02:26:23.309 --> 02:26:28.549 is normative. Because when women who have a higher 02:26:28.549 --> 02:26:31.350 probability of being depressed and anxious do 02:26:31.350 --> 02:26:34.270 become depressed and anxious, it... preferentially 02:26:34.270 --> 02:26:37.329 takes the form of bodily discomfort. That's been 02:26:37.329 --> 02:26:41.989 known forever. So, Chloe Cole, for example, no 02:26:41.989 --> 02:26:44.049 one explained that to her. No one sat her down 02:26:44.049 --> 02:26:47.170 and said, well, you're not very... She told me 02:26:47.170 --> 02:26:49.329 that the reason she decided to transition was 02:26:49.329 --> 02:26:52.770 because she kind of had a crush on Kardashian 02:26:52.770 --> 02:26:56.090 and that body type, you know, hyper -curvy, hyper 02:26:56.090 --> 02:26:58.649 -feminine. And Chloe realized when she entered 02:26:58.649 --> 02:27:00.149 puberty that she was probably going to have a 02:27:00.149 --> 02:27:03.530 boyish figure. And Chloe's... a very attractive 02:27:03.530 --> 02:27:06.030 person, she would have had no trouble attracting 02:27:06.030 --> 02:27:09.590 the attention of men. But, you know, she was 02:27:09.590 --> 02:27:12.170 11, 12, what the hell does she know? And she 02:27:12.170 --> 02:27:14.010 wasn't going to be the woman she had envisioned. 02:27:14.329 --> 02:27:16.549 She didn't really understand that, you know, 02:27:16.549 --> 02:27:18.829 there's a variety of female forms that men find 02:27:18.829 --> 02:27:20.950 attractive. That's for sure. And she certainly 02:27:20.950 --> 02:27:24.030 would have fallen into that category. She didn't 02:27:24.030 --> 02:27:27.670 know that it was typical for girls to undergo 02:27:27.670 --> 02:27:31.479 a fair bit of... confusion when they hit puberty 02:27:31.479 --> 02:27:33.280 and that that would take the form of negative 02:27:33.280 --> 02:27:35.860 emotion. No one told her that. They just rushed 02:27:35.860 --> 02:27:37.899 her down the puberty blocking and surgical pathway. 02:27:38.860 --> 02:27:42.000 That's inexcusable. It's evil. Yeah, it is. It's 02:27:42.000 --> 02:27:44.180 the worst thing. It's the worst thing I've seen 02:27:44.180 --> 02:27:47.180 professionals do, not only in my lifetime. I've 02:27:47.180 --> 02:27:49.659 studied atrocity for 40 years. I've never seen 02:27:49.659 --> 02:27:51.260 anything worse than what's happening right now. 02:27:51.399 --> 02:27:53.200 And that includes the sorts of things that were 02:27:53.200 --> 02:27:57.430 done in the camps in Germany. At least the goddamn 02:27:57.430 --> 02:27:59.590 Nazis admitted what they did was wrong. They 02:27:59.590 --> 02:28:02.049 tried to hide it. We trumpet it as a moral virtue. 02:28:02.209 --> 02:28:04.469 We're freeing the children. It's like, no, I 02:28:04.469 --> 02:28:07.270 don't think so, mothers. I think what you're 02:28:07.270 --> 02:28:09.530 doing is sacrificing your child to the parading 02:28:09.530 --> 02:28:12.590 of your moral virtue. Oh, my son, he's so confused. 02:28:12.790 --> 02:28:15.729 He thinks I's a girl, but I still love him. That's 02:28:15.729 --> 02:28:20.250 how wonderful I am. Jesus Christ, Joel. You have 02:28:20.250 --> 02:28:23.420 no idea how dark that is. It's dark. It's unbelievably 02:28:23.420 --> 02:28:25.680 dark. And it's attached to an industry now. Yeah, 02:28:25.680 --> 02:28:27.879 that's for sure. Which is very scary. An industry 02:28:27.879 --> 02:28:29.899 and an ideology. There was an article that was 02:28:29.899 --> 02:28:32.159 recently released where this person admitted 02:28:32.159 --> 02:28:37.340 that they said it was, what was the exact phrase? 02:28:37.620 --> 02:28:40.500 That the way they described gender transition 02:28:40.500 --> 02:28:44.540 as life -saving medical care in order to get 02:28:44.540 --> 02:28:46.739 insurance for it. Yeah, yeah. Because otherwise 02:28:46.739 --> 02:28:49.799 insurance won't pay for it. They were willing 02:28:49.799 --> 02:28:52.879 to describe it in that way to ensure that people 02:28:52.879 --> 02:28:57.299 would profit off of it, which is wild. It's terrifying. 02:28:59.020 --> 02:29:01.299 And it's so strange because I never would have 02:29:01.299 --> 02:29:03.620 believed that this could happen. If you had asked 02:29:03.620 --> 02:29:05.659 me 20 years ago if this was going to be a main 02:29:05.659 --> 02:29:08.120 concern, that people were worried about their 02:29:08.120 --> 02:29:11.120 children being roped into this ideology and convinced 02:29:11.120 --> 02:29:13.200 that they're authentic. And then sterilized and 02:29:13.200 --> 02:29:17.059 mutilated. Yes, exactly. I know. I know. Well, 02:29:17.139 --> 02:29:20.549 it's no wonder people see. Even Michael Schellenberger, 02:29:20.670 --> 02:29:23.030 who broke the WPATH files, when we talked about 02:29:23.030 --> 02:29:27.010 the role the WPATH played in establishing their 02:29:27.010 --> 02:29:30.370 own ideology -addled butchery as the standard 02:29:30.370 --> 02:29:32.270 of care for the American Medical Association, 02:29:32.569 --> 02:29:34.889 the American Psychiatric Association, the American 02:29:34.889 --> 02:29:37.430 Psychological Association, Schellenberger said 02:29:37.430 --> 02:29:40.229 that after he had listened to Abigail Schreier 02:29:40.229 --> 02:29:44.170 and I talk about this transmutilation, he was 02:29:44.170 --> 02:29:46.049 so appalled that he literally couldn't believe 02:29:46.049 --> 02:29:48.290 it. He just shelved it. He said, there's no way 02:29:48.290 --> 02:29:51.129 this can be true. And I can understand that because 02:29:51.129 --> 02:29:53.469 the more you look into it, the worse it gets. 02:29:53.530 --> 02:29:56.969 It's unbelievably bad. These surgical procedures 02:29:56.969 --> 02:30:00.790 are so brutal and so experimental that they're, 02:30:00.790 --> 02:30:06.569 I'm going to say it again, they're worse than 02:30:06.569 --> 02:30:10.549 what the Mangali types did in the concentration 02:30:10.549 --> 02:30:15.389 camps in the 30s and 40s. And that's a pretty 02:30:15.389 --> 02:30:18.059 goddamn low bar. And it's no wonder people don't 02:30:18.059 --> 02:30:21.340 want to believe it. And people say, the lefties 02:30:21.340 --> 02:30:23.559 I've talked to, the centrists, well, it doesn't 02:30:23.559 --> 02:30:26.819 happen very often. It's like, oh yeah, how often 02:30:26.819 --> 02:30:31.680 is too often? Like once is too often. And it's 02:30:31.680 --> 02:30:35.100 not once. That's for sure. No, it's happening 02:30:35.100 --> 02:30:38.139 a lot. In fact, you're punished by your governing 02:30:38.139 --> 02:30:40.159 boards if you don't go along with it. And what 02:30:40.159 --> 02:30:43.159 about the recent law that they passed in California 02:30:43.159 --> 02:30:47.420 where the schools... don't have to tell the parents 02:30:47.420 --> 02:30:50.340 that the child has transitioned at school. They 02:30:50.340 --> 02:30:53.200 hide that information from the parents. Well, 02:30:53.260 --> 02:30:54.979 they're just letting those children be free, 02:30:55.100 --> 02:30:58.500 you know, those ignored children who are looking 02:30:58.500 --> 02:31:01.219 desperately for a pathway to, what would you 02:31:01.219 --> 02:31:04.260 call it, inclusion and celebration. Oh, you're 02:31:04.260 --> 02:31:07.319 so brave. And then they're encouraged. That's 02:31:07.319 --> 02:31:09.020 for sure. And then they're given positive feedback. 02:31:09.180 --> 02:31:11.139 Yes, definitely. Which is a real thing. Especially 02:31:11.139 --> 02:31:13.579 if they're alienated kids to begin with and who 02:31:13.579 --> 02:31:16.309 are unsettled in their identity. Yeah. Right. 02:31:16.409 --> 02:31:19.610 And aren't being guarded by anyone and are vulnerable. 02:31:19.889 --> 02:31:23.229 Right. Right. Right. Right. Oh, yeah. And the 02:31:23.229 --> 02:31:25.309 parents are indoctrinated into this whole woke 02:31:25.309 --> 02:31:28.510 ideology as well. Or terrified. Right. Indoctrinated 02:31:28.510 --> 02:31:32.469 or the Munchausen by proxy types who get off 02:31:32.469 --> 02:31:34.350 on the fact that they have a child that's such 02:31:34.350 --> 02:31:36.989 a burden but are still really, you know, what 02:31:36.989 --> 02:31:39.190 would you say, bearing up nobly under the weight. 02:31:39.329 --> 02:31:43.049 And that is a very dark inclination that is well 02:31:43.049 --> 02:31:46.129 documented. Yeah, well, that's the devouring 02:31:46.129 --> 02:31:48.989 mother for you. That was what Freud warned about 02:31:48.989 --> 02:31:53.309 back in, like, 1880. Yeah. She's a little too 02:31:53.309 --> 02:31:56.209 close. You remember the witch in the Hansel and 02:31:56.209 --> 02:31:59.790 Gretel story? Mm -hmm. Yeah. Gingerbread house. 02:32:00.030 --> 02:32:01.950 That's a little bit too good to be true when 02:32:01.950 --> 02:32:04.530 you're lost. What's inside it? The witch that 02:32:04.530 --> 02:32:07.129 wants to fatten you up for her own delectation. 02:32:07.549 --> 02:32:11.149 That's the devouring mother. That's the maternal 02:32:11.149 --> 02:32:15.290 instinct gone mad. Right. Everything good is 02:32:15.290 --> 02:32:18.049 has the potential for pathology in proportion 02:32:18.049 --> 02:32:20.969 to its goodness. So Lucifer is the intellect 02:32:20.969 --> 02:32:23.770 gone mad. Right. The devouring mother is the 02:32:23.770 --> 02:32:26.690 mother who's a little too close to her kids. 02:32:27.030 --> 02:32:32.370 Right. A little too close. Jesus. Brutal, Joe. 02:32:32.989 --> 02:32:36.829 It's just so stunning how widespread it is. At 02:32:36.829 --> 02:32:39.250 least the UK is pulling back on this stuff, but 02:32:39.250 --> 02:32:41.469 they have socialized medicine, so they actually 02:32:41.469 --> 02:32:44.489 have to go on data. Canada hasn't pulled back. 02:32:44.690 --> 02:32:47.409 Which is wild. Yeah, and entirely predictable. 02:32:48.729 --> 02:32:51.829 Yeah. Yeah, most of the European countries have 02:32:51.829 --> 02:32:53.569 woken up, but I don't think it's going to slow 02:32:53.569 --> 02:32:55.790 it much because there's a huge underground market 02:32:55.790 --> 02:33:00.190 in puberty blockers. You know, I've talked to 02:33:00.190 --> 02:33:03.389 experts who figure that the ratio of people on... 02:33:03.989 --> 02:33:08.209 black market puberty blockers to medically prescribed 02:33:08.209 --> 02:33:12.430 puberty blockers is at least 10 to 1. Oh, God. 02:33:12.670 --> 02:33:14.729 So they're just self -administering this stuff? 02:33:14.829 --> 02:33:17.510 Yeah, right. Oh, God. And it's essentially chemical 02:33:17.510 --> 02:33:20.450 castration drugs that they used to use on pedophiles. 02:33:21.389 --> 02:33:26.850 Oh, God. Yeah, that's for sure. That's what it 02:33:26.850 --> 02:33:28.909 is. And when you tell people that and they deny 02:33:28.909 --> 02:33:30.690 it because they don't know and then they find 02:33:30.690 --> 02:33:33.340 out, it is so stunning. They also don't want 02:33:33.340 --> 02:33:39.600 to know. Right. And no wonder. Yep. Anyways, 02:33:39.719 --> 02:33:41.879 that's why we're trying to educate people. Well, 02:33:41.879 --> 02:33:45.040 Jordan. I'm very happy you're doing this. I really 02:33:45.040 --> 02:33:47.399 am. It looks amazing. I think it's fantastic. 02:33:47.620 --> 02:33:49.420 I'm going to try some of them. I'll try some 02:33:49.420 --> 02:33:51.979 of your courses. It looks exciting. Yeah, yeah. 02:33:52.100 --> 02:33:54.340 Well, let's go down a bit, and I'll show you 02:33:54.340 --> 02:33:56.500 some of them. So we've got Brett and Heather 02:33:56.500 --> 02:33:59.360 Weinstein. So that's fun. Jonathan Paggio on 02:33:59.360 --> 02:34:01.680 symbolism and Christianity. That's excellent. 02:34:01.780 --> 02:34:05.040 James Orr, he's from Cambridge, lecturing on 02:34:05.040 --> 02:34:09.459 Plato. Marion Toopey on the economics of human 02:34:09.459 --> 02:34:11.159 flourishing. That's a very optimistic course. 02:34:11.280 --> 02:34:13.180 There's Brett and Heather, Evolutionary Inference. 02:34:13.459 --> 02:34:16.299 And is this available currently? It's up now, 02:34:16.459 --> 02:34:19.340 man. It's up now. Yeah, yeah. The Greatest Leaders 02:34:19.340 --> 02:34:21.899 of History. That's a great course. That's very 02:34:21.899 --> 02:34:24.000 inspiring. John Vervaeke. I really like John. 02:34:24.120 --> 02:34:26.739 He's so damn smart. The Boy Crisis with Warren 02:34:26.739 --> 02:34:29.280 Farrell. I did a course on Nietzsche on Beyond 02:34:29.280 --> 02:34:30.799 Good and Evil. Do you want to run that? That's 02:34:30.799 --> 02:34:33.180 a fun preview. Sure, let's run that. We'll wrap 02:34:33.180 --> 02:34:39.399 it up with this. Okay, okay. I write in a single 02:34:39.399 --> 02:34:42.680 sentence what it takes other men a book to write, 02:34:42.799 --> 02:34:45.399 that it wasn't egotistical because it happened 02:34:45.399 --> 02:34:49.920 to be true. Beyond Good and Evil is a cardinal 02:34:49.920 --> 02:34:53.299 work, a prodroma to the entire intellectual and 02:34:53.299 --> 02:34:57.299 political history of the 20th century. Brilliant, 02:34:57.399 --> 02:35:04.280 romantic, insightful, deep, psyche -shattering. 02:35:05.799 --> 02:35:11.739 dancing bit of literary genius. He's had a remarkable 02:35:11.739 --> 02:35:16.420 impact on thought over the last 140 years. It's 02:35:16.420 --> 02:35:18.579 reasonable to say that he philosophized with 02:35:18.579 --> 02:35:20.659 a hammer because his thought is extraordinarily 02:35:20.659 --> 02:35:24.219 condensed. To read Nietzsche is daunting psychologically. 02:35:24.739 --> 02:35:27.040 He's like a motivational speaker. He's practical 02:35:27.040 --> 02:35:29.559 in the way that philosophers seldom are. Nietzschean 02:35:29.559 --> 02:35:32.239 philosophy is a call to arms. To familiarize 02:35:32.239 --> 02:35:35.379 yourself with him is to arm yourself against 02:35:35.379 --> 02:35:39.559 a sea of trouble. And since you will encounter 02:35:39.559 --> 02:35:41.860 a sea of troubles, you better pray that you're 02:35:41.860 --> 02:35:46.700 armed. And this is one way to do it. All right. 02:35:48.319 --> 02:35:52.819 How to philosophize with a hammer. Jordan. Thank 02:35:52.819 --> 02:35:54.540 you very much, my friend. Hey, man. It's always 02:35:54.540 --> 02:35:57.340 a pleasure to see you, Joe. It was very fun watching 02:35:57.340 --> 02:35:59.780 you on Kill Tony, too. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, 02:35:59.780 --> 02:36:02.000 yeah. That was fun, and that was a good opportunity. 02:36:02.000 --> 02:36:03.700 You were great, too. I can't wait for that to 02:36:03.700 --> 02:36:06.879 come out because it's fun. No, thank you, sir. 02:36:07.020 --> 02:36:08.940 It's always a pleasure to be on your show. Always 02:36:08.940 --> 02:36:10.780 a pleasure to see you. Bye, everybody.