{"id":39225,"date":"2023-10-31T02:45:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T02:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/?p=39225"},"modified":"2023-10-31T18:18:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T18:18:25","slug":"thoughteconomics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/blog-posts\/thoughteconomics\/","title":{"rendered":"Thought Economics: A Conversation with Dr. Jordan B. Peterson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview by Vikas S. Shah MBE<\/a> on Thought Economics<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe world,<\/em>\u201d\u00a0writes<\/a>\u00a0Dr. Jordan B Peterson, \u201ccan be validly construed as a forum for action, or as a place of things.<\/em>\u201d It is this distinction between the\u00a0physical\u00a0(a place of things) and\u00a0metaphysical\u00a0(a forum for action) that typifies the difference, as far as we are aware, between us and other species.\u00a0 We are\u00a0hard wired\u00a0through our biology (as Dr. Peterson notes) to understand: (1) what there is, (2) what to do about what there is, (3) that there is a difference between\u00a0knowing what there is\u00a0and knowing\u00a0what to do about what there is\u00a0and (4) what the difference is.\u00a0 Perhaps another way to understand this would be to argue that we are\u00a0meaning driven\u00a0\u2013 it\u2019s not enough for us to\u00a0what\u00a0there is, we need to know\u00a0why.<\/p>\n

As society has moved through the renaissance into modernity, the questions of why (typically the domain of theology) moved from the arts to science, the preciseness of the latter arguably unsuited to such philosophical questions.\u00a0 The primacy of overtly scientific approaches to understanding life has come at a tremendous cost; in some ways we see the world in shades of grey rather than in full colour.<\/p>\n

For many thinkers therefore, the pull of the questions of meaning are too strong to ignore.\u00a0Dr. Jordan B. Peterson<\/a>\u00a0is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller\u00a012 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos<\/a>.\u00a0 He is one of the world\u2019s foremost public intellectuals, and I caught up with him to learn more about how we can find meaning in a complex world.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 What does it mean to have a life well-lived?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]<\/strong>\u00a0A life well-lived means that you spend a\u00a0substantial<\/em>\u00a0amount of time addressing the troubles of the world\u2014trouble with yourself, your family, your community\u2026 Everyone has a sense that things are less than they could be, and everyone is affected by the suffering they see around them \u2013 and it seems to me that lays a moral burden on us that can\u2019t be avoided, and that the\u00a0only way<\/em>\u00a0to rectify this burden is to confront it, and try to do something about it.<\/p>\n

People inevitably find that the worthwhile things they\u2019ve done in their life\u2014the things that give them strength and forbearance and a certain amount of self-respect\u2014are acts of responsibility that they have been undertaking in the face of serious problems.<\/p>\n

Q: What are your views on society putting\u00a0happiness<\/em>\u00a0as its only goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]\u00a0<\/strong>Making happiness the\u00a0key pursuit<\/em>\u00a0in life is just hopeless. It\u2019s just not a pursuit that\u2019s going to fulfil itself. Life is already complex enough to make us anxious, painful, disappointed and hurt: that\u2019s not a pessimistic viewpoint; it\u2019s the truth.<\/p>\n

My experience has been that it takes very little time to talk to someone, so that if you really listen to them, and get below the surface, you\u2019ll find out how many truly difficult things they\u2019re dealing with on a day-to-day-basis.<\/p>\n

You do see people in rare periods of life where they\u2019re comparatively carefree- but that\u2019s not common, as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n

The idea that impulsive gratification and \u2018happiness<\/em>\u2019 are going to rectify life\u2019s problems just strikes me as na\u00efve beyond tenability, and so it\u2019s no surprise that life is just a constant disappointment for people.<\/p>\n

There are studies about the use of Facebook that show that the more people use Facebook, the more depressed they seem to get \u2013 and at least one of the hypotheses behind this is that everyone curates the best of their lives on Facebook, and you can understand why.\u00a0 It looks like one big happy advertisement for an indefinite number of perfect lives- but that\u2019s an illusion, a\u00a0polite<\/em>\u00a0illusion.\u00a0 You don\u2019t want to see a picture on Facebook of one of your friends and their partner having a violent or even verbally violent argument. It\u2019s just not what we share on there.\u00a0 We choose to keep that stuff private; but it does have the negative consequence of making Facebook reality seem much more positive than it really is.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 What is the consequence of making money and celebrity our idols?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]\u00a0<\/strong>if you don\u2019t place any emphasis on the development of character, or any belief that character is a reality; If you don\u2019t believe in the utility of courage and truth as the means of making your way through life; then you\u2019re left with \u2013 well \u2013 celebrity.<\/p>\n

People are status conscious, and believe that wealth can provide not just security, but the sorts of experiences, I suppose, that would be commensurate with \u2018happiness<\/em>.\u2019 Economic privation is of no pleasure to anyone, but the evidence suggests, unfortunately, that once you roughly earn a lower middle-class standard of living, additional money you earn beyond that has almost no effect on your quality of life.<\/p>\n

Money allows you to do things, to embark on projects, but there isn\u2019t any evidence that excess money past a certain level has any positive effects on \u2018happiness<\/em>\u2019 or general wellbeing. \u00a0Once you have a middle-class existence, you have almost all the primary luxuries.<\/p>\n

Money can\u2019t solve many of the problems that truly plague people.\u00a0 It can\u2019t solve the problems in a relationship between a husband and wife, beyond the narrow economic front.\u00a0 It can\u2019t straighten out the relationships you have with your children\u2014in fact, it can make them worse.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 How can we feel that we matter as individuals, that\u00a0I\u00a0<\/em>matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]\u00a0<\/strong>The first thing we can notice is how much trouble we could cause if we act like\u00a0we don\u2019t matter<\/em>\u00a0and cease to take care of ourselves, and the people around us.\u00a0 That causes the irresponsible lifestyle that is predicated on the delusion that nothing matters. That leads to a tremendous amount of misery.<\/p>\n

You need to attend to the sound of your own conscience and you\u2019ll discover\u2014quite rapidly\u2014that there are problems in the world that are personally relevant to\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0and which bother\u00a0you<\/em>.\u00a0 You can find your destiny, in some sense, in those problems. They bother you for a reason.<\/p>\n

You can develop a vision that will enable you to confront the dragons of life, to find the gold that\u2019s there, but you have to notice where the problems are, what\u2019s bothering you, and then take responsibility\u2014knowing that\u00a0if you have a problem<\/em>, and\u00a0if a problem bothers you<\/em>, that\u2019s actually destiny calling you.<\/p>\n

Sometimes that can come not only in the form of a problem, but an ambition; but generally, ambitions are associated with the desire to solve a given problem \u2013 when they\u2019re not shallow and linked to status climbing.<\/p>\n

Everyone can look around in the world and see there\u2019s something that needs to be done either on a minor scale in their own live, or on a larger scale if they\u2019re sophisticated enough to manage that.<\/p>\n

Look; if I treat myself like I don\u2019t matter, then I have a terrible relationship with myself.\u00a0 If I have friends, and treat them like they don\u2019t matter, those friendships won\u2019t work.\u00a0 If I have a loved one and treat her like she doesn\u2019t matter, that relationship degenerates.\u00a0 If I treat my community like it doesn\u2019t matter, then it falls apart\u2026.<\/p>\n

From a practical perspective, we can look at some isolated facts: Life is short, and we\u2019re each one speck of dust among 7 billion individuals, on some isolated little rock, on the edge of the galaxy. How could anything possibly matter? It might be, therefore, that you\u2019re feeling justifiably nihilistic and hopeless, from one rather limited perspective, but it might also mean that it\u2019s quite comforting for you to believe nothing you do matters, because it means you can get away with anything and there\u2019s no price for it.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 How can we find the strength to have difficult conversations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]\u00a0<\/strong>We need to have a more rarified and realistic view of life. Who the hell\u00a0wants<\/em>\u00a0to have a difficult conversation? Unless you\u2019re narcissistically motivated to win the argument (which is a dominance problem<\/em>).<\/p>\n

So many issues in life are unbelievably complicated\u2014and it\u2019s very difficult, cognitively and emotionally, to think these things through. The only thing worse than thinking things through is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0thinking them through. When we don\u2019t confront situations, we muddle through, fight and make poor short-term, impulsive decisions.<\/p>\n

I learned years ago, partly as a clinical psychologist, and partly through life itself that there\u2019s no escaping difficult conversations. All that happens is that the unspoken situation gets worse, the longer you leave it.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, conversations are unbelievably stressful\u2014people get upset and sometimes they won\u2019t talk to each other for weeks (plus it\u2019s hard to come up with a real solution for many things in life)\u2014but the alternative to peaceful negotiation, no matter how stressful, is tyranny or slavery.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 How can we confront those we don\u2019t agree with?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]\u00a0<\/strong>If you violently disagree with a person, what you think they\u2019re saying, or standing for, you have an opportunity. The more different the other person is from you, and the more you listen to them, the more likely you are to learn something shocking and necessary.<\/p>\n

These conversations provide an unparalleled opportunity for growth.\u00a0 First of all, you find that, generally, the other person is a lot more like you than you\u2019d like to think \u2013 and you\u2019ll also find that they\u2019ve thought through their arguments (even though you might regard them as prejudicial or unfair).\u00a0 They have their reasons for thinking the way they do, and that makes the world more complex, because it doesn\u2019t fit your simple ideology.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d have to be a fool not to think that people have valid complaints about the way nature and society treat them, or the way they\u2019re treating themselves. It\u2019s not unreasonable to figure out that people have genuine burdens, but that\u2019s not the issue. The issue is what you do about it\u2014and becoming bitter, resentful, cruel, resented and prejudiced is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0helpful. It makes the situation (often already intolerable<\/em>) worse.<\/p>\n

Personal responsibility matters.\u00a0 The radical left will tell you all of life is arbitrary, and it\u2019s true, in a sense. People have all sorts of unique privileges, obstacles and disabilities. The world\u2019s resources are so unequally distributed that it\u2019s a constant existential nightmare, and it\u2019s easy to turn that into a criticism of existence itself\u2026 but an attitude and actions grounded on that observation will just accelerate the original inequality into something that looks like hell.\u00a0 You need to act courageously, confront your obstacles, and speak truthfully.\u00a0 There\u2019s no guarantee that it will work, but it\u2019s the best bet.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 How did you choose the path that has led you to public life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Jordan B. Peterson]\u00a0<\/strong>Back in the 1980\u2019s, I decided to tackle the problem that I thought was most difficult to me; the great gap between the Soviet Communist movement and the Western Capitalist movement.\u00a0 I always thought if you could understand a problem you might be able to come to some resolution of it.\u00a0 Intermingled in that was the problem of Nazi Germany, which I was a totalitarian response to looking at the world.<\/p>\n

I was curious: There were these other ways of looking at the world\u2014national socialist and soviet communist\u2014was there any difference between those viewpoints and our viewpoint, or was it all just arbitrary game playing?\u00a0 I concluded that it wasn\u2019t game-playing, and the West especially had specially and uniquely emphasized the divine sovereignty of the individual, and the importance of the individual voice.\u00a0 This held true theologically, metaphysically, philosophically, psychologically and biologically. It was apparently reflective of something extraordinarily deep about the structure of the world as a whole.<\/p>\n

The idea that the individual is the locus of a kind of divinity is\u00a0true<\/em>; there\u2019s no better explanation for the way the world lays itself out, for good or for evil.\u00a0 Once I figured that out (or concluded that, let\u2019s say) I spent a lot of time arguing with myself. It took me fifteen years of thinking to get this idea straight in my mind. It was not an easy conclusion to come to. This extended reflection had a profound effect on me, and I wanted to teach other people what I had come to understand (partly to observe the consequences). So that\u2019s what I did at Harvard and at the University of Toronto for twenty-three years.\u00a0 The course based on my first book, which was called\u00a0Maps of Meaning<\/a>\u00a0was very popular, and considered influential. Then I started to broadcast on TVO, a small Ontario-based Canadian public television station (to reasonable acclaim, given the scale of the operation<\/em>). Then I started to play with YouTube, because I thought,\u00a0\u2018well, there\u2019s obviously somewhat of a public market for this.\u00a0 What happens if I make the content acceptable to everyone?\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 The technology was there, and I was curious about it, in itself, as I\u2019m curious about everything (which is a very dangerous way to be). I put these videos up on YouTube, beginning in 2013, and they started to accrue a lot of views\u2014long before I got involved in the endless political controversies of my recent life.<\/p>\n

By early 2016, I had a million views on YouTube (which isn\u2019t overwhelming by YouTube\u2019s standards) but it\u2019s still 20 stadiums full of 50,000 people. It\u2019s a lot of people.\u00a0 Since then, I\u2019ve just been experimenting and expanding that channel.\u00a0 My podcast was derived from the YouTube videos and has more listeners than the YouTube channel has views.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also been writing for the Postmedia Network consortium, which owns about a hundred newspapers and magazines in Canada, and of course I wrote\u00a012 Rules For Life<\/a>, which had a huge impact. I also completed a series of lectures on the bible in 2017, renting out a theatre (just just out of curiosity, to see if people would come and listen), and they all sold out and have been watched by 10 million people on YouTube, and listened to by more as podcasts\u2014so I definitely plan to continue the Biblical lectures.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m trying to communicate on a large scale; it\u2019s very rewarding, but also hugely daunting.<\/p>\n

My channel has 100 million views, and if you count-up all the chopped-up videos that others\u2019 produce it\u2019s probably nearer 400 million.\u00a0 Let\u2019s say that\u2019s 100 million people (or even 50 million) a substantial proportion (who are every sort of person you can imagine<\/em>) could be violently opposed to what I\u2019m doing and cause a lot of strife and misery along the way; and that\u2019s very stressful\u2026 and that includes a tremendous number of journalists. I\u2019ve certainly had more trouble with journalists than with any members of the general public I\u2019ve ever encountered.<\/p>\n

It is said that you shouldn\u2019t build your house on sand, but on a rock. If you build your house on sand then the wind blows it away\u2014and there will be wind\u2014and so I was looking for a rock that a house could be built upon, and as far as I can tell, at least for me, I found something I couldn\u2019t undermine (and I\u2019m pretty good at undermining things<\/em>). I thought, \u2018well, here, I can tell other people what I concluded, and see what they think, and maybe it\u2019s wrong, in which case I should discover that and fix it\u2014or maybe it\u2019s correct, whatever that means, and then people really need it.\u00a0<\/em>The evidence seems to suggest (and I can say that without exaggeration) that people need it far more than I would have possibly imagined<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview by Vikas S. Shah MBE on Thought Economics \u201cThe world,\u201d\u00a0writes\u00a0Dr. Jordan B Peterson, \u201ccan be validly construed as a forum for action, or as a place of things.\u201d It is this distinction between the\u00a0physical\u00a0(a place of things) and\u00a0metaphysical\u00a0(a forum…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44862,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39225\/revisions\/44862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}