Jordan Peterson: evaluation

Transcript context

…Well, I would say I started contending with the problem of evil very young, 13 or 14. And that was my main motivation of study for 30 years, I guess, something like that. At the end of that 30 years, I became more and more interested in fleshing out the alternative. Once I became convinced that evil existed, and that was very young, I always believed that if you could understand something well enough that you could formulate a solution to it. But it turns out that seeing evil and understanding that it exists is less complicated than a technical description of its opposite, what is good. You can say, well, it’s not that for sure. It’s not Auschwitz. How about we start there? It’s as far from Auschwitz as you can get. It’s as far from enjoying being an Auschwitz camp guard as you can get. Okay, well, where are you when you’re as far away from that as you could possibly get? What does that mean? And it does have something to do with play, as far as I’m concerned. I think the antithesis of tyranny is play. So that took me a long time to figure out that specifically. So that was very dark. I spent a lot of time studying the worst behaviors that I could discover abstractly in books, but also in my clinical practice and in my observations of people. And so that’s rough. More recently, I was very ill and in a tremendous amount of pain that lasted pretty much without any break for three years. And what was particularly useful to me then was the strength of my relationships, my immediate relationships, my friendships. Also, the relationships that I had established more broadly with people. Because by the time I became ill, I was reasonably well known and people were very supportive when I was having trouble, and that was very helpful. But it’s certainly the case that it was the connections I had, particularly with my family, but also with my friends, that were the saving grace. And that’s something to know. I mean, it’s necessary to bear the burdens of the world on your own shoulders, that’s for sure, the burdens of your own existence and whatever other responsibilities you can mount. But that by no means, means that you can or should do it alone. And so you might say, well, welcoming the adversity of life as a redemptive challenge is a task that’s beyond the ability of the typical person or even maybe of anyone. But then when you think, well, you’re not alone, maybe you’re not alone socially, you’re not alone familial, maybe you’re not alone metaphysically as well, there’s an insistence. even maybe of anyone. But then when you think, well, you’re not alone, maybe you’re not alone socially, you’re not alone familial, maybe you’re not alone metaphysically as well, there’s an insistence. And I think it’s true. There’s an insistence, for example, in the old and the new testament alike, that the more darkness you’re willing to voluntarily encounter, the more likely it is that the spirit of Abraham and the patriarchs will walk with you. And I think that’s right. I think it’s sort of technically true in that the best parts of yourself make themselves manifest. If you want to think about it that way, the best parts of yourself, whatever that means, make themselves manifest when you’re contending actively and voluntarily with the most difficult challenges. Why wouldn’t it be that way? And then you could think, well, that’s yourself. It’s like, well, are the best unrevealed parts of you yourself? Well, no, they’re a kind of metaphysical reality. They’re not yet manifest. They only exist in potential. They transcend anything you’re currently capable of, but they have an existence. You could call that yourself. But it was Jung’s contention, for example, with regards to such terminology that the reason we use the term self instead of God is because when God was dispensed with, let’s say, by the processes Nietzsche described, we just found the same thing deep within the instinctive realm. Let’s say we found it at the bottom… Deep within the instinctive realm, let’s say, we found it at the bottom of the things instead of at the top. It’s like it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter fundamentally. What matters is whether or not that’s a reality. And I think it’s the fundamental reality because I do think that the deeper you delve into things… This is what happens to Moses when he encounters the burning bush. So Moses is just going about his life. He’s a shepherd, he’s an adult. He has wives, he has children, he has responsibilities. He’s left his home and he’s established himself. And so things are pretty good for Moses. And then he’s out by Mount Horeb in that story, but it’s the central mountain of the world. It’s the same mountain as Sinai, which is the place where heaven and earth touch. And he sees something that grabs his attention, right? That’s the burning bush. And bush is a tree. That’s life. That’s the tree of life. And the fact that it’s on fire is that’s life exaggerated because everything that’s alive is on fire. And so what calls to Moses is the spirit of being itself, and it tracks him off the beaten track, and he decides to go investigate. So Moses is everyone who goes off the beaten track to investigate. And so as he investigates, he delves more and more deeply until he starts to understand that he’s now walking on sacred ground. So he takes off his shoes, and that’s a symbolic reference of identity transformation. He’s no longer walking the same path. He no longer has the same identity. He’s in a state of flux. And that’s when what happens is that he continues to interact with this calling and Moses asks what it is that’s being revealed, and God says, I’m the spirit of being itself. He’s in a state of flux. And that’s when what happens is that he continues to interact with this calling and Moses asks what it is that’s being revealed, and God says, I’m the spirit of being itself. That’s basically the answer. I am what I am. It’s a more complex utterance than that. I am what I will be. I am what was becoming. It’s all of that at the same time, it’s the spirit of being that’s speaking to him, the spirit of being and becoming. And it tells Moses that he now, because he’s delved so deeply into something so compelling, his identity has transformed and he’s become the leader who can speak truth to power. And so he allies himself with his brother Aaron, who’s the political arm and who can communicate, and he goes back to Egypt to confront the tyrant. And that’s an indication of that idea that if you wrestle with life properly, that the spirit of being and becoming walks with you. And it’s like, how can that not be true? Because the contrary would be that there would be no growth in challenge. Well, you have to be infinitely nihilistic to believe that.…

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