Interesting portion of a discussion with Jordan Peterson
An interesting portion of a transcript from an interview with Jordan Peterson. It makes one think a lot:
“Well, I’m… What’s my purpose… What am I aiming at… Well, I did a series of biblical lectures last year. I did 15 lectures on Genesis. I’m going to continue doing that. In November, I’m going to start with the Exodus stories. What I’d like to do over the next 15 years is make my way through the whole corpus of biblical writings, so that’s one major goal. I want to write another book. I’ve written half of it already, which will be a followup to 12 Rules, because I had actually laid out on a site called Quora 40 rules. And so I’ll do that, and write another couple of books, I suspect, over the next few years. The touring, I’m going to continue. I have 10 cities coming up in Canada, and another 20 in the US, and then 12 in Europe. I’m going to go to Australia in February, and then back to Europe, I think, in April. So there’s lots of touring on the horizon.
It’s for the reasons I’ve already described. The lectures differ every night, although there’s themes that constantly emerge; and I’m using those as an opportunity to have a detailed and engaged discussion with the audience about how we might proceed forward, individually and collectively, so that we can make things consciously better, and why that’s associated with necessary meaning, and why that’s a moral obligation. So it’s a dialog about responsibilities, and not rights. Rights are only important insofar as they set up the space for you to shoulder your proper responsibility. As a sovereign citizen, you have the responsibility for the integrity of the state resting on your shoulders. It’s something that, if you don’t take seriously, then the state shakes, and that’s not good. So I’m trying to convey that to people. It’s like, “there’s actually something that you need to do. You need to take care of yourself; you need to take care of your family; you need to take care of your community; and, if you don’t do that, there will be hell to pay; and it’s on each of us.”
It’s hard for people to grasp that. Well, they don’t want to, first of all — maybe because they don’t want the responsibility. Then they don’t get any meaning, then they suffer, then they get bitter. That’s not good. So it’s like, “which of these are you going to pick?” But it’s also salutary to people, because it’s useful for everyone to know that, if you don’t live up to your potential, you leave a hole in the fabric of Being, and it’s filled by something approximating hell. And, unless that’s what you want, then you shouldn’t be doing it. It’s perfectly possible to have a serious discussion with 3,000 people about this, and they are right on board with it, all the way. That’s really something amazing to behold. One of the things I’ve realized is, although these new technologies — the technologies you’re using — enable these long-form discussions, it turns out people are smarter than we thought. TV narrowed it. It’s like, “30 seconds! Say your complicated thing in 30 seconds.” But you can’t. So we were viewing the population through this narrow window, and everyone looked kind of stupid. It’s like, “now the window’s fully open.” It’s like, “oh, look at that! You people like 40-hour Netflix specials that are incredibly complex, and you like 3-hour Joe Rogan discussions that are complicated. You’ll follow the whole thing.” It’s like, “oh, good. We’re smarter than we thought. Thank God for that, because we’d better be.” So that’s where I’m aiming at in the future.”
Source: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/transcripts/lewis-howes-2/
It is interesting to note his indication that people can concentrate for 3 hours on Joe Rogan. That’s very true. What would George Steiner think about Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson?
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© Charles Edward Andrew Lincoln IV
