The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 282. Mean Tweets: an apologia | Pageau & Hurwitz

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Jonathan Pageau and Gregg Hurwitz sit down with Dr. Jordan B Peterson to discuss a few of his recent controversial tweets covering topics of transgenderism, the body positivity movement, and the election of supreme court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson. In this they seek to explore and debate how Petersons role in society, and thus how he represents himself to the public, can spark or shut down the conversation.Hurwitz is an American novelist, screenwriter, and comic book writer. He is known for authoring the “Orphan X” series, along with a wide range of films such as “The Book of Henry” (2017) and “The Rise of Jordan Peterson” (2019). Pageau is a liturgical artist and professional icon carver, known for his work featured in museums across the world. For Gregg Hurwitz:http://gregghurwitz.net For Jonathan Pageau:http://www.pageaucarvings.comwww.thesymbolicworld.comwww.orthodoxartsjournal.orghttps://www.youtube.com/c/JonathanPageau // SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL // Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/jordanbpeterson.com/youtubesignup Donations: https://jordanbpeterson.com/donate  // COURSES // Discovering Personality: https://jordanbpeterson.com/personality Self Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.com Understand Myself (personality test): https://understandmyself.com  // BOOKS // Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life: https://jordanbpeterson.com/Beyond-Order 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-meaning  // LINKS // Website: https://jordanbpeterson.com Events: https://jordanbpeterson.com/events Blog: https://jordanbpeterson.com/blog Podcast: https://jordanbpeterson.com/podcast  // SOCIAL // Twitter: https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson Instagram: https://instagram.com/jordan.b.peterson Facebook: https://facebook.com/drjordanpeterson Telegram: https://t.me/DrJordanPeterson All socials: https://linktr.ee/drjordanbpeterson  #JordanPeterson #JordanBPeterson #DrJordanPeterson #DrJordanBPeterson #DailyWirePlus

Hello, everyone. I needed to write and read a very carefully intro to this podcast episode as it deals with particularly tricky and contentious matters. So please forgive the deviation from spontaneity that such writing and reading necessarily requires. The discussion that follows this intro is as free-flowing as might be hope for if that is some consolation. In 2016, I released three videos on YouTube, commentaries on law being passed at the federal level in Canada, Bill C-16, purporting to grant protected status to people with uncertain, so-called gender identities, but in my opinion, constituting an unwarranted intrusion into the socially necessary and fundamentally important

domain of free speech. Those videos went viral for reasons that are still not exactly clear. I believed at the time that the introduction of confusion, regarding the conceptualization and terminology of masculine and feminine identity, would produce far more trouble than it would cure more specifically that would produce a psychogenic epidemic

among vulnerable young women around the age of puberty experiencing the onset of increased negative emotion characteristic of that age and sex. This is exactly and precisely what has happened and it's not good, and it has to stop. In any case, my objection in these videos and some subsequent interviews, most famously, I suppose, with Kathy Newman of Channel 4 News, with Joe Rogan multiple times, with Helen Lewis of GQ, as well as two books I wrote in recent years and a lecture series on Genesis, brought me to what has been increasingly broad public attention. That has been a great adventure with the attendant cost of severe and often exceptionally caustic criticism.

I have now talked with at least 100 people who have also been made into public targets. Without exception, it has struck them to the core, put their careers at risk, alienated them too often from family and friends, and driven not a few into psychiatric care or words. Everyone mobbed reacts as if they have contracted a potentially fatal illness and the social media environment we now inhabit enables those who are prone to form mobs to do so with ease and impunity. This also has to stop. But who is it fault? Who should stop? This is a hard question. I've been criticized for my own online behavior.

Many people have told me that I've been too harsh, particularly in tone, particularly when reading articles about political or cultural issues that have also been typically published in newspaper form. I have found myself in substantive trouble as a consequence of Twitter at the moment, the College of Psychologists of Ontario, which is the governing body of such professionals, has seen fit to launch an investigation into ten or so complaints that's ten separate investigations, by the way, that have been levied against me because

of what I have said on that oft pathological snake pit of a platform. Now, it is true that such governing bodies have become appallingly corrupt in recent years on the medical, legal, and psychological fronts. Anyone anywhere in the world can levy a complaint against me. As a psychologist for any reason whatsoever, and I have no right to face my accuser, and the college can make life very difficult for me on the legal, financial, and professional front

as they have done continuously for the last six years. Even though they have the option of dismissing such complaints as frivolous and vexatious, which they most certainly are. But it is also the case that Twitter suspended my account quite recently for violating their community standards, whatever they are, a ruling which I appealed so far unsuccessfully, as despite the publicity around my suspension, Twitter has yet to respond to my objection. This does not surprise me.

I suspect that the formal reason for the suspension is that I did name Elliot Page, which is the act of referring to a person who has decided that they are the sex alternate to their fundamental biological identity by the name alternate to their fundamental biological identity by the name given to them at birth and used until their so-called transition. This has become a cardinal sin by the standards of the radical gender-bending social constructionists who have made mobbing a veritable act of expertise. My family has also cautioned me against my Twitter use, believing with some real justification that it causes more trouble than good. The evidence contrary to that,

I suppose, is that I have nearly 3 million followers who appear to believe that my tweets have some redemptive utility. And the fact that I can use Twitter to keep an eye on the currents in the general culture, learn how the platform works and affects society in a broad sense, and follow the activities of the hundreds of so-called influencers who may have met and talked with in the last six or seven years. It's a conundrum, as I also find the platform stressful. As the comments often from the anonymous trolls who specialize in caustic narcissistic denigration

are almost demonic in their destructive me end. Similar cautions have been directed to me, although much less frequently, about the tone I use from time to time on YouTube, often when dealing with an issue that is also publicly controversial. Some of the contentious issues that we're obsessed with in the modern world, such as pronoun use and the associated blockades of puberty and surgical mutilations

or transformations depending on your perspective and sterilizations make me both afraid and angry. Those emotions serve as motivations for writing and public commentary, but their excessive expression produces the risk of exacerbating the political polarization and toxic social media exchanges that appear to be polluting our culture to a dangerous degree. And it's not just people who object to my ideas or even my mere existence who are criticizing. It's people who broadly support my endeavors but have some troubles with the specifics. Here's some examples from two high-level corporate

C-suite dwellers who fall into that category, both of whom watched my recent so-called message to CEOs. First, dear Jordan. Although I agree with most of the underlying substance of your argument, I'm not sure your approach is as persuasive as it could be. It feels more like a mock fuselage at CEOs addressed to your fan base, rather than a message addressed to CEOs which might persuade them to change their ways. In that sense, I am not sure it will move the dial of the debate.

As you say, most CEOs do not have the time for political or philosophical debate, nor understand the deep currents that are driving DEI and ESG. They are hapless victims of long dead philosophers and economists, but, and it is a big but, they are mostly competent people immersed in the detail of implementing or not ESG or DEI. So the way to get to them is through the details of the flaws in the various ESG taxonomies or the credibility of the grifters peddling this stuff. Second commentary. Dear Jordan, when we first met, I was disoriented by your extension of trust.

I knew immediately that I was speaking to a real person. You provide the same experience for your audience. It is a super power. That superpower could be described as a unique combination of insight and vulnerability. Millions of people trust you because they see raw, unscripted emotion from a real person seeking truth and without the veil of a persona. Ironically, one of your greatest strengths is this earnest generosity with, quote, weakness. I fear the CEO video loses the humble vulnerability from the superpower equation. I found myself hoping the non-judgmental Jordan Peterson

would appear. Instead, I got caught in a net of angry sarcastic judgments. Even with the patients that comes with my respect for you, I could not abstract constructive value from the bitter tone. I found it hard. If I found it hard, I cannot imagine other CEOs would respond positively.

I recognize the ridiculous irony of judging you for being too judgmental, but that in essence is the problem. The reflexive defensive response to judgment is to judge. For example, the message fails to contemplate that CEOs may tolerate some noise because we know we can act decisively. It also commits the leftist sin of ascribing guilt to an entire group. Your best lectures are genuine dialogues. You're both teacher and student, clinician and patient, father and son. You are a fellow sinner helping us analyze sin. Consequently, the

audience is open to the call to responsibility because they trust deeply that you have similarly admonished yourself. My belief is that people trust you because your judgment is not judgmental. Most of the time you attack the sin, not the sinner, I could be completely off if I have misunderstood or misread this, I apologize. Now these are very thoughtful criticisms, both written by men who are doing their level best to help me and everyone I am communicating with separate the wheat from the chaff. I have been involved in many discussions recently about the tone of the YouTube articles similar

to those that generated these comments. Some people, equally credible, believe that the tone of hypothetically righteous outrage that I adopted, at least partly to harness the anger necessary to broach the topics publicly in the first place, had a clearly valuable place. Others believed, as did the CEOs I cited, that I would be more effective if I alienated fewer people while offering my views. Recently, when reading an article I wrote for the UK newspaper, The Telegraph, I tried something different responding to the feedback I had received.

I wrote an equally critical piece, back off old masters of the universe, directed at the consulting company Deloitte, which in May of 2022 released a globalist utopian misive as part of a necessary effort to curb economic growth to save the planet. I was not very impressed by the Deloitte arguments or any similar arguments. Predicated on the idea that some very real and immediate suffering must be necessarily imposed from the top down. On those who were struggling, say, in the developing world, because there is no other way of rectifying the biosphere. In any case, independent of the merits of that argument, I attempted to manifest a much calmer tone, less afraid, less angry. That experiment, which was a genuine attempt

to change, appeared to be very successful. I don't believe that doing so softened the points I was making in any real sense. And I produced much less kickback from my consultant compatriots and from the intended audience who took what I said with more seriousness rather than less. Here are some representative comments taken from a YouTube comment section notable in this case for its positive nature. First, Mr. Peterson, I still love the videos you've done before and rewatch them on occasion, but this one has exactly the tone

that is appropriate to its content. Second, I really appreciate the change in tone. These subjects can be hard to truly hear speaking for myself. Well, I do find it important that it is heard. And this more neutral slash calm, I'd say factual approach makes it more digestible for me. This in turn makes it easier for me to share this information in a more calm factual manner. Third, nothing in the message was lost by stating the facts in a

calm tone. Thank you, Dr. Peterson, for your effort for practicing what you preach for being a good example. Live and learn, we hope. On the Twitter front, things are more complex. I should point out as a bit of background that since I emerged, so to speak, in the public realm, that I have had many good critics helping me maintain my equilibrium and working with me to improve my capacity to communicate. These include family members, my wife Tammy and two adult children, Michaela and Julian, who are not afraid to tell me what they think and who provide wise counsel, as well as a stellar group of friends and colleagues who are very competent people and who do their best to tell me

when they think I'm deviating as I often do from the straight and narrow. These are all people who have some serious concerns about the state of modern society and hope I'm doing some good and who would like in so far as they are able to help me do better. That group includes the two people I am talking with on the video to which this

misive serves as introduction. Jonathan Pazio, fine artist, deep religious thinker, public intellectual and friend, and Greg Herwitz, author of popular commercial fiction, most notably the orphan X series comic book writer political consultant former student of mine some 30 years ago at Harvard and friend ever since. I've been speaking to her wits about everything under the sun during the entire time we have known each other, but in more recent years that has become more political. I've been working with Greg with a group of strategists and public communicators for the Democratic Party in the US for more than six years, trying to pull the party to the middle away from the leftist radicals. With some success, he has been a very able

advocate for the more liberal side of the political spectrum and has helped me immensely in my attempts to maintain communication with people who occupy that side, whose worth and concerns I understand, after all, don't the dispossessed require a voice. He voiced a series of objections to some of my recent tweets, including the particular utterance that resulted in my suspension, and we spent some active and contentious time privately going back and forth about the propriety and utility of my actions. I then asked him if he would be willing to do so publicly to serve in part as devil's

advocate and in part as a genuine voice of the centrist left, in relation to my attempts to communicate by social media, he had some concerns about doing so. Criticizing me, something that is certainly necessary, brings with it a plethora of risks, including eliciting precisely that mobbing behavior discussed previously that is so unpleasant and damaging. Criticizing me publicly also risks exposing the critic to exactly the same kind of criticism. Can Mr. Herwitz do a better job while pointing out the inadequacies of my communicative strategy that I'm doing when engaged in such communication?

Perhaps not, in which case he ends up in the same boat, but I asked him to do it, and he agreed. There is no way to improve without thinking about improving, and that requires forthright discussion about potential flaws of approach, tone, and content. And I found the back and forth that you will be privy to after this introduction extremely useful. I asked Mr. Jonathan Paujo to participate because he was in Miami with Greg and I recently was listening to our private conversation about such issues around the dinner table and had many wise things to say. He acts in what follows more as a mediator and is someone who is assessing the gist and clarifying and I would like to thank him as well as Greg for that.

What tweets are we interrogating? There are three essentially or three sets. The first involves the process by which the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Katangi Brown-Jackson occurred. I was less than impressed by this process, which was initiated, in my opinion, as the Democrats themselves indicated, with the announcement that it was time for a, quote, black woman to occupy one of the highest judicial positions in the land. Here is a relevant tweet from the Democrats.

During his campaign for president, President Biden announced that he planned to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court. Now Judge Ketangi Brown Jackson has been confirmed to our nation's highest court. He kept his promise to the American people. This was followed up by commentary from former White House press secretary Jen

Sackie as reported by Reuters. This was an earlier tweet actually. President Joe Biden stands by his pledge to nominate a black woman to the US Supreme Court, White House press secretary Jen Sackie said. And then somewhat later, 2022-25 from President Biden's Twitter account. I sought a nominee with the strongest credentials record character and dedication to the rule of law. That's why I'm excited to nominate Judge Katangi Brown Jackson to serve on the United States Supreme Court. To this, I responded once again on Twitter, 2022-02-25.

No, you didn't, referring to Biden. You announced publicly that you would limit the search to a specific race and sex. You eliminated the vast majority of qualified candidates from consideration, and it is thereby virtually certain, technically, that you failed to pick the strongest candidate. And then I capped it off with this when the nomination was announced. Well, this was 2022-02-25.

Well, she looks like she can play the part, and that's what matters. Intersectionality rules. Competence is a ruse. This caused a bit of a firestorm, not least among my Democrat confrairs, the very people I had been working with to pull the policies of the party toward the middle. Was it appropriate?

Opinions vary as you will find out if you have the interest and patience necessary to walk through the discussion subsequent to this introduction. So that's one of three contentious tweets. There were two others that we subjected to interrogation. The first involved of all things. The sports illustrated swimsuit cover girl, Yumi Ngu,

a plus-sized model, featured prominently on that magazine's most coveted spot. I regarded her photo shoot as an employee of politically correct pandering cynicism on the part of sport-illustrated marketers, as a form of exploitation brought about by the model herself and by those who used her image. And as an extension of the current culture war raging about the definitions of such things as female beauty, and I somewhat impulsively, that's Twitter, made my opinions obliquely known with the following tweet, sorry, not beautiful, and no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that. This was regarded

by some as an entirely justified reaction to some blatant manipulation on the part of sports illustrated and by others as an entirely unwarranted attack on a vulnerable young woman, Greg and Jonathan and I debate this issue at length. Greg and Jonathan and I debate this issue at length. The third tweet and the message that resulted in my suspension from that damnable but compelling platform involved Elliott, former Ellen Page. I was unimpressed, let's say, given the current psychogenic epidemic ranging in relationship to so-called gender identity with Paige's decision first to surgically alter his or her body with the collusion of the relevant physicians.

And second, to trumpet the results of that alteration in an extremely public manner, thus potentially enticing fragile young people to incosiously seek the same hypothetical cure. This tweet resulted. Remember when Pride was a sin and Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician. This may be very popular and unpopular. In any case, it is all this that is the subject of the following YouTube discussion. I would ask all of you watching and listening to have some patients, if you will, as the conversation progresses, and to remember that both Mr. Herwitz and Mr. Paigeau were willing to put themselves on the line publicly to help me learn and help me improve

my consequent public presentation. I titled the episode with the term Apologia rather than response to my critics or heaven forbid apology because Apologia has a very specific meaning. Here is how the Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word. Apologia means matter offered in explanation or defense. Apology usually applies to an expression of regret for a mistake or wrong with implied admission of guilt or fault and with or without reference to mitigating or extenuating circumstances. Apologia implies not admission of guilt or regret, but it desired to make clear the grounds for some course, belief, or position. The most famous apologia in history was offered by Socrates when he was condemned to death.

Defending himself, he turned the tables on his accusers, demonstrating very precisely just why he was feared, hated, and sentenced to die. A more famous missive has rarely if ever been penned. And I would very much recommend its reading. It's very short to those watching and listening. I don't claim to have reached socratic heights in my defense, but do hope that the public discussion will help shed some needed light on the manner in which

I might conduct myself better in such matters in the future and perhaps have some broader educational and moral significance. In closing, in relationship to this intro, I want to sincerely thank both Jonathan Pazio and Greg Herbert for having the courage to engage in this conversation. I hope that their efforts are understood in the spirit in which they were offered on to the show. I'm sitting here today with Greg Herwitz and Jonathan Pazzo. There are two colleagues of mine and two friends. And these things are very tricky.

And so the way you think them through is to take a look at your own behavior and to rake yourself over the coals in the most fundamental way. And one of the reasons I like to talk to Greg is because he's very, very good at making that kind of fine discrimination. And he's a very good advocate for the side of the political spectrum that I'm more alienated from, because he'd been very good advocate for the side of the political spectrum that

I'm more alienated from, because he'd been after me for about six years. And Jonathan is just eminently reasonable in these regards, and also quite deep. And so Greg and I decided that he would interrogate me, that's one way of thinking about it, or help me interrogate myself. That's probably more accurate, about how to draw lines in public about contentious things without alienating the people that you're trying to draw lines in relationship to so badly that it's no longer possible to communicate with them. It's funny because I think one of the issues is that, I think even for you, Greg, is that everybody feels like you have a role to play.

I think a lot of this is playing up against this role because you are this catalyst for transformation, you have been this catalyst for transformation, and everybody kind of sees that. When they see you straying from that role, one where or another, they're wondering what's going on. And I sometimes I think people forget that you're a person that also slips and slides and messes up and does- Especially on Twitter.

Especially on Twitter. But there is nonetheless a reality about the fact that you do seem to play some kind of role. And that if so it is good to talk about it. And I think people- This is being right. And that role so it is good to talk about it. And I think people this way, right? And that role should be flexible. And part of it for me is that the role that you're playing

has become too rigid in certain ways. And it doesn't match. That's the danger. Yeah, and it doesn't match my conception of you and it doesn't match what I think is strategically the best use of your talent and insight. Yeah, well, and so we want to wait into the platform issue, too, because like if the issue is serious enough to be worth considering, then maybe it's too serious to

say anything about on Twitter. One of the things I should say about those tweets just to begin with is I put out a lot of tweets and some of them go absolutely nowhere. Thank God, and then some of them explode. And it is by no means obvious to me in the least which of the things that I'm saying are going to go off like little bombs. And so that's also a very weird thing about Twitter. So if you were exposing yourself to a more robust range of ideas, it would be more obvious to you is number one.

So it's predictably going off in one way. First of all, and second of all, you and I have the conversation. Maybe it might be that the people who are responding to it are more likely to all come from one side. So, but you're different. So we'll take it. Well, you can hear, let's call it dog whistles. And by that, I don't mean the connotation that it is actually a dog whistle for

something that is racist or fattest. But people hear it all. But people hear it all. Right. You can tune your ear to that all the way around the spectrum. Now, not perfectly, but your ear is not tuned to things that, to language that you're using and how it translates.

And in some ways, part of why I'm talking to you is by dint of our relationship. In some ways, I think I might be the best point of contact for what everybody to the left of you thinks. Yeah, I think that's true. And right now, everybody to the left of you does not have a high view of where you are and what you're doing. And that's problematic because we've spent a lot of time bridge building.

And also, that's not you. You're not a sort of rigid conservative. And I don't mean all conservatives are rigid. I mean, but you're like a Northern Alberta outlaw biker. Like that's a big part of your persona. You've a big suit. Yeah, I mean, and you're like, there's whole aspects of you that are liberal.

And it's the integration of the two cards. So shameful. It is shameful. That's right, but you can only the two parties. It's so shameful. It is shameful. That's right, but you can only hide so long. It's like the feminine parts. Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah. But so when it's the other thing, it's like it's not making sense, but you're also not

talking a half of your people. Well, so sometimes I've gone with Greg to Washington to talk to Democrats, and I've often asked Democrats that I've talked to, who I've talked to, when the left goes too far, and they're usually unable to answer. And I've suggested that it's equity when they go too far, when they promote equity. And Greg has stepped in several times during these conversations when I'm objecting to equity to say, when you're talking about equity, the Democrats you're talking to don't hear the same thing, because they just hear equality of opportunity, which by the way, equity is definitely not.

Most Democrats, I mean, I'm not claiming that. No, yeah. No, no, but that's happened. That's happened. Yeah. Directly, well, the conversation has been happening. And so there is this need for translation. Why don't we start with one of the actual tweets.

We can start with the one that. Well, so predating this. Okay. So before these happens, you and I had a conversation where I said, you're tweeting in my estimation to erratically and to impulsively and saying, if you have something important to say about something, like say maybe Islam or like race in America,

it requires a little bit more, like if you're gonna pick on these like small topics with no complexity, you should take more time and do it as an op-ed, right? It requires a little bit more, like if you're gonna pick on these like small topics with no complexity, you should take more time and do it as an op-ed, right? And when we've talked about it, I said to you, because you said, look, I've been thinking about it forever. And I said, how long did you think about these three tweets? And your answer was about a second.

You know, that's Twitter, right? Twitter is a place to think. And so, that's another issue is, one of the things that happened when I got kicked off Twitter, I could have been outraged by it, although I really wasn't. I actually found it amusing, I suppose, especially given the timing, because it happened exactly the same day that I joined the Daily Wire, which was ridiculously comical in some fundamental sense.

But my biggest reaction, in some sense, and of course this also raises the question of motive, is that I was mostly relieved. It's like I've been trying in some ways to wash my hands of Twitter for three years, and then I kept getting sucked back in. And I'm not trying to make excuses for that, by the way. I'm trying to figure it out. My family has asked me to stop using Twitter sometimes

or said that it might not be good. And I was torn for three reasons, is that I used Twitter to follow a lot of the people that I know, like 500 people, to kind of see what they're up to. I used it at least to some degree as a topical news source. But more importantly and more fundamentally, I believe that because I have a large social media presence and I'm very interested in communication, I wanted to learn how all the social

media networks work. And you actually cannot learn how they work. And so what's wrong with them or how to use them properly without using them and to use them, you have to subject yourself to the errors that go along with them. So as a diagnostician, because I've talked to Jonathan Hyde and to Stephen Pinker about the pathologies of social media networks. And I can't figure out how they're pathological unless I use them. And the problem with that is that if they're pathological and you use them, then you get

sucked into the pathology. And so I couldn't just, could lots of people wrote me about the tweets and said, well, I never use Twitter and I don't know why this is a problem. And if you were a good person, you just would ignore it completely. It's like, yeah, fair enough. Like that's a possibility, but it's certainly not obvious. I think anyone on Twitter has a phone as a deck deck.

Me included. And I have to. Have you said Twitter really did you in during the last election cycle? I can't be on it in any way. And I don to. You said Twitter really did you in during the last election cycle. I can't be on it in any way. And I don't think you know who you're doing when you're on there. You're talking to troll farms from St. Petersburg

and you're talking to algorithms and AI, you're talking to troll, like you don't even know what you're doing. Well, you're also talking when you're engaging with the people you think you're following, they're not fully in control of why they're in there. And so it's like this video game that you're playing, and in the video game, then you're impetuously engaging

in ways that can be insulting without having the humility to come out of it and go, oh, wow, I was off of my corner of the internet and I said this thing in a game circumstance that had a real world declaration, the context of which didn't make sense to me, but mean something else. Let's talk about it.

Doesn't mean you're wrong. It also, well, there's another element of Twitter too that's peculiar in a very deep and horrible way, is that first of all, I don't remember how many million followers have, but lots. And so there are people, many millions of people who are in the potential database of recipients of my messages.

But like, one in a thousand of them is having the worst day that one in a thousand people is having. And that might be the person who's responding with a comment if they're not a troll from St. Pete. And how many did you on say or trolls? Well, who knows? Right. That's part of why he didn't start.

So you're in there playing a game where you're being manipulated constantly by AI and then it's the tale that wags the dog. Because Twitter on its own, if you look at the skew of how many people post, the percentage of Americans who post, the percentage then of Americans were, let's just talk America because this is what some of this is engaging now. But then the percentage of them who post the most often and then what's fake in influence, like you don't even know what you're engaging with. No, no, no.

Well, it is so sensitive. It's a, well, that's a huge problem because it's a biased sample that looks like a community. That's right. And it's biased in ways you don't understand. And then it's even worse because it's biased towards the narcissists and the psychopaths and the malt Machiavellians and the trolls and the AI farms and then it's even worse than that because it's biased to promote the worst of their utterances as fast as possible and so I don't need help with that like you've spent six years tied to a cactus with the worst elements

of the left kicking you in the face for six years like you don't need more exposure to the worst elements of the laugh kicking you in the face for six years. Like, you don't need more exposure to the worst of anonymous to all people as general. And I can see what it does in the back of my mind. And this is part of the reason that I'm worried about the situation that we're in right now, is that I can see the desire for mayhem emerging within me as a consequence of being exposed to this kind of narcissistic, caustic element that just runs riot on Twitter.

And what happens in part with your responses to my mind is it starts to be dehumanizing about the other side, not in a soft, liberally sense, but meaning you start to talk about the left as a monolith. And it's like it's not a monolith. And it's like, it's not a monolith. And more than when you say, and we should start with Justice Jackson. Because she had one answer that you didn't like. And fair enough, right?

So, well, we could go through that. So, I don't remember exactly the specifics of the tweet, but I can set up the context. So, when the Biden administration moved forward with the Supreme Court justice nomination, the way they did it strategically, and we had been, you and I have been working with the Democrats for a long time at this point, the way they did it strategically was something like, it's time for a woman and a black woman on the Supreme Court. And I thought, Jesus, you guys, you're already hung

or out to dry because the right way to do that, even if that was your goal, was to say, it's time for a really qualified proper candidate on the Supreme Court and then to move forward with the search and then say, well, look, we found this person and isn't it lovely that she has these great qualifications and also has these other elements of significance? And then she set up for success. And so I thought that was just dismal and ridiculous. And I think the way I react to it in the tweet, I also think about this statistically, because if you eliminate men from consideration, then you've reduced the pool of applicants

who are qualified by 50% and then if you reduce it by ethnicity, well, in this case, to the black population, you reduce that 50% by another 87%. So now you're down to 5%, 6% of qualified candidates. The probability that you're going to find the most qualified candidate in that pool is it's 5%. You could, but it's very unlikely.

I also found that, given the importance of the position, I also found that annoying. When I pointed that out that this, the candidate who had been restricted to you, you said, well, you don't understand that in the previous nominations, there were all sorts of restrictions that were equally as intense, for equally, please. So let's talk that through just for a second, before we get to the issue of a woman. Well, I said to you, you're not an expert in race in America, and it's evident from the way you're talking about us. And you should approach it with more humility, especially as pertains to blacks in America. And I also said, you're not an expert in the Supreme Court, linked by a long term.

And you said, but I'm an expert at selection criteria. Yeah. And I said, but I'm an expert at selection criteria. That was your answer. And I said, fine. So instead of angry, like tweet more, you're Jordan, you can do an assessment of what has pissed you off about the selection process. But then it was also the strategic issue, because I was also annoyed. I thought, well, Jesus, guys, even by the lights of your own moon, let's say, you screwed up here, because it was strategically foolish. You hung your candidate out to dry right at the beginning. And that was part of the year. Why did you not speak up when the last three candidates going through on a short list

from multiple conservative think tanks and operations? Like everybody knows the short, short list that's being considered by Trump. That's cut the field immensely. But one short list is ideological, political, and what is your opinion based on my politics? The other is literally just gender and race. Okay, so I would argue in some regards, so let's go to that then.

It's gender and race. Reagan said he wanted to say that San Jose O'Connor, he said he needs to appoint a woman. So nobody's like home sobbing about that. Right. So for a balance of the course, I don't think that he should have done it. I don't like that Biden did it. I think he should have done it the way you did it.

And I was outraged strategically and I was frustrated morally. So you have a list of people who have a certain ideological orientation and you're saying that's fine. To my mind, the difference. I think it's fine. No, no, no, it's different. It's fine. To my mind, the different, it's fine. No, no, no, it's different. It's different. It's different.

Do you think it's different worse? I think intersectionality's worse. I think that to Jordan's point, I think it's worse because it undermines the person themselves. It's saying, you know, when it's saying, okay, you're there because you have a certain political opinion and the other saying you're there because you look a certain way of the process.

It's not saying you have a certain political opinion. It's saying you're on a short list of approved people in a certain way that's acceptable to people in power who've been negotiating the same. I have a real hard time with the notion that that short list should be composed in any way of characteristics like gender and race. Okay, so let me just understand. Well, okay, so I was able to, and I was able to, and I was able to, and I was. Okay, so I was also, and I was all the first Supreme Court justices did it. They were all white and there were black people who were here. And so it's not that it's not done.

Yeah, but that doesn't justify it. But what I'm saying is that everything's complicated. And so if you're an expert on selection, which you are, then no problem. Do this selection and lambast it. But do everybody else also? And put her in a tradition of Supreme Court justices who have been chosen due to different cultural

and political tides. And the reason for it is, is in the selection of her, rather than who we got, who were three justices, who pervericated it best under oath about Roe v. Wade. And when I say pervericate I mean they fooled republican senators unless that's kambuki theater ensues and call ends like they were very careful and cautious around it or they chose somebody who happens to be black and a woman they set it up

front i don't like that who is a spectacular candidate look just for me this has almost nothing to do in this situation with her merits as a candidate, because it's possible, and perhaps even likely, that she's a highly credible candidate. But it's also because I was willing, once we had this discussion, I thought, well, I can give you that. I can give you that. All right, so fine, the previous candidates were also selected from an appropriately

restricted short, but as Jonathan's point is relevant because well, that was part of the adversarial political process and maybe still within the game. We'll leave that aside for now, but I was thinking, okay, I'll give you that. I'll give you that. I'll give you that she was, she was qualified and that previous nominees were subject to an equally biased selection mechanism when she was subject to that question, what is a woman? I thought, that's question sucks. I know it was a gotcha question.

And she could have said, and I'm not also expecting her to be perfect under those circumstances, right? Because that's a lot to ask. She could have said, don't ask me that question. That's an annoying question. You're just trying to ham me in here, and it's inappropriate under the circumstances. And I would have thought, no problem.

I'm not a biologist. First of all, that's a really bad answer. It's, first of all, because it admits that the fundamental issue here is biological. And it isn't obvious to me that the people who are on the left who are interested in gender fluidity, etc. want that answer. But it's also annoyed me because it's like, well, wait a second here, we were supposed to be celebrating because you're a woman, now also because you're black, but certainly because you're a woman. And now we're being asked to not agree that there's such a thing as a woman. It's like, and then I thought, well, not only was that annoying for all the reasons I already laid out, but it was annoying because I thought, well, now I have to sacrifice

the principle of non-contradiction. I'm being called upon to accept two opposing things simultaneously that are not commensurate. And I'm just not willing to do that. And it's a bad answer in very, very many ways. And I do feel bad for her because I know what it's like to be put on this, spotted, and interview with questions like that. But I'm not a biologist.

It's like Jesus. It's a terrible answer. Yeah, no. It's a terrible answer. I'm not going to defend something that I don't agree with. But what I will say, and I thought it was a terrible answer, and there's also a way to answer it as a liberal that's way more reasonable to say, of course, here's generally how we define it. You could also say, I'm not answering it because it's a game, but you could also say, here's

generally how we think of it, but there's client-fellars and there's variation and there's different stuff in gender and biology. You can say something that's fluid and still not fluid that way, but flexible and still holding to common sense values that the majority of Americans can understand. There's a bigger part of this, and part of it is, is you're drilled down on your expertise which is selection process. But you're not drilling down on that generally about the whole Supreme Court and in history, just on her.

And additionally, you're missing the bigger picture. And the bigger picture is this. This is a woman who buy conservative standards, buy the standards that we all care about. Maritok, Rasey, toughness, she's a woman of God, she's been married 25 years, she's got kids, she was the head of the Harvard Law Review. She has more qualifications than are conceivable

that I can even remember. And she's... Then they shouldn't have hung her out to try to begin with that's right. But you know what, but same with Calvin all that. Jesus, the word demeaning for her too. I completely believe that. You're contributing to the demeaning instead of saying,

wow, here's this thing. And wow, she had a bad moment. You said, and I knew what happened. You were often... I know exactly what happened because you said in your emails and there was some idiotic like equity proposal in physics grants that was happening in oh god like it like the personally

I'm like it was some awful thing in your morning and you wrote a tweet about her that said Yadee I well, I guess she looks the part. And what I said, and I knew where you were. And I know you're not racist. No more racist than the next Northern Albertans. That's right, that's right. But I just want to interject a little bit, because I think that there's a bigger picture

that I think Jordan's coming from, at least for sure that I'm coming from, which is I'm definitely more on the right side. And one of the things I've noticed is that for example, this people get away with calling other people racist, nonstop all the time in the media, on Twitter, on YouTube. You can call someone racist.

That's right. There's absolutely no consequences, no discussion, there's no conversation. And so now, I just want to point out that this conversation is quite particular because Jordan gives out a few tweets that are a little off color, that are maybe two partisan or whatever,

and then everything explodes. And the left is like, well, he's the Nazi, we thought, he's the Nazi, we thought, all right, thank you, God. Either they're thankful that you made those tweets. Because everything is consolidating their image that you're a racist. But I think it's important to say that that's also part of the discussion.

And part of the discussion is, I know you're not racist. I know that. And what I said to you was, if I didn't know you and I read that tweet, and I'm not a big call everybody racist person. See, I don't know that I'm not racist. I what I do know is that I'm trying very hard not to be. And so here's what I mean, sorry, you're right.

I mean, you're not racist in the knee jerk way that it gets applied in the city. I don't think it's a virtue. Right, but I mean, you're not racist the way that people quickly dismiss you as racist. Yeah, everybody has to look at ways in which we have biases and where that has to do with the government. Yeah, I would say in Canada, that for me, that's probably be more acute on the Native America, Native Canadian, First Nations people Caucasian front, because where I grew up, the fundamental racial divide was not Black versus White. That's not the Canadian divide.

The Canadian divide is either French versus English, or it's Native versus European. And so when I go to reservations, let's say, when I interact with the natives who I've been coming to know more over the last years, I carry with me the fratid perceptual lens of my upbringing and I'm always on the lookout to see how that might be affecting me.

Yes, and so, and that's exactly right. But I don't presume that I'm not racist, to some extent, because, well, fair, I mean, I mean the foolish racist. I mean, I know, on the Trump racist, but what I'll say is you don't have that and you don't understand it with race in America. And yet you blively trotted in

and you did so in a way that was denigrating that if I didn't know you, I would think was a racial slur. And I thought somebody who's trying to think that about people. Like, let's say that there's a liberal who's kind of interesting, who dresses, what is it? Tweed punk, right? Like a tweed punk leprechaun, interesting ideas, flashes of brilliance, like you're sort of looking at him going, sometimes long periods of brilliance. That's true, that's true.

That flashes mostly, but occasionally a sustained burst. And so, and you're interested, but you don't agree. And the next move that person does is come up to Canada and make a totally toned-of slight against the residential schools in a knowing way. I would say you coming into America with your lack of knowledge and expressed interest in race in America and choosing to make a comment

by tweet about race in America and choosing to make a comment by tweet about race in America. With illicit love. It is missing anything that sounds like dog whistles to reasonable people, including me if I didn't know you to go, that's a slur. And she's deserving of your respect. Fair enough.

John, do you want to think to close that off with? No, I think, I mean, I think that the feeling I get right now, I don't know Greg, I feel like we're really falling into a lot of detail and into a lot of weeds in terms of the this particular thing. I think my my perception is that there's a bigger issue, like there's a bigger issue, which is the manner in which for you as someone who's definitely more on the left and your relationship with Jordan and how in this in his public kind of coming out you have felt like until then he was able to speak both sides and to speak reasonably to both sides and although I think Jordan's probably more conservative

than you are but you felt like he's honest, he takes it seriously. And like the channel for an review for me was, is like that image of him actually undermining the way people perceive him and laughing and being charming and being flexible and actually kind of bringing, which is hard to do on Twitter. That's right. That's right. And there's something I think the major perception you have is that with these tweets and some of the messaging that has been happening recently, you feel like you don't have access to that Jordan anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't defend Jordan to your side in the way that you used to be able to. That's right. That's beautiful. I think it's just important to kind of keep it into that. And that's exactly right. And the dream is a lot about that because part of it for me is you're not supposed to be that you're not supposed to be that you're not supposed to be speaking in wooden language. You're not supposed to be speaking in wooden language. Well, let's go to the dream then here. So this is a strange thing to do in the middle of the conversation.

But it made sense, like one of the things I did learn is a clinician and certainly in my own marriage and in my own life, that often if you are fortunate during time of query and crisis, let's say, indeterminacy, now and then you can get a dream. And if you're lucky, the dream will reveal things to you that are part of the answer to that problem. And that's not that surprising because the dream is a form of thought and the dream thought is trying to solve problems. And so it just turned out that when Greg came here, he had a dream, which is a very comical dream.

And so John can then iron Greg sat down and talked about this dream, the bet. And we thought we might discuss it in this forum. One of the things I learned from young, and I believe that this is true, is that dreams are the voice of nature in the deepest sense. And they don't lie. Now, you may not be able to figure out what they mean mean because the dream is trying to figure out what things mean. And so you have

to translate the dream just like you have to translate the work of literature, but the dream at least has that sense of objective truth in the deepest sense. And you can really rely on it. So do you want to lay out the dream a bit? And then Jonathan, you had some really good. This is so fun. It's like, it's like for a liberal. Have your dream analyzed by Jordan Peterson on the World Wide Web for the Daily Wire. It's like, what could be a worse idea?

It's like, yeah, how could this go wrong? This should be just fantastic. And not at all like self-adoring at the same time. This is the setup there. And we're going to talk about my dream. Because you're not in enough trouble already. Okay. So I woke up in the dream having left a place that was an idyllic, bucolic, New England

e-college, right, in the countryside, green, hilly slopes. And I already left there, but I lived there in the countryside, green, hilly slopes. And I already left there, but I lived there in the dorm room. So dream, humanist tradition in some real sense. That's right. That's right. And you're comfortable there, unlike you. I love that. I love that. And what's interesting is, I think of that as liberal,

because liberal arts education, which is the most, like it's the, and I thought of Hillsdale. Right, but it's also conservative because it's little C and little L, and that's what they look like. Yeah, it's the actual union of the two traditions in the highest sense that it's a cloister where you can explore ideas.

And so part of this is, it's like, so the best of, of concern ofism and the best of liberalism when they live together in that way, That's human perfect. It's a human. So that's where you lived. And so I'm in a forest and it's dark and nightmarish and it's stark and it's like dead branches

that cast long shadows and I'm walking through it. Well, that's a great image because the dead branch is the dead wood that should burn off and it's casting along shadows, so that ties into the whole shadow issue. And it is dead branches that cast the longest shadows and grip at you when you're walking through the forest. And so that's a great image.

That's right. And so I'd love to take credit for it. It's a writer, I'm like, yeah, it's wonderful. But it has nothing to do with me. But so then I arrive at this place, and it's so interesting. And it's like, yeah, it's wonderful, but it has nothing to do with me. But so then I arrive at this place, and it's so interesting, and it's like, so this is all offensive, but we're gonna just, we're gonna talk it through.

So you're there, and you're like Hillbilly-U. You're more Hillbilly-U than you are, I should say. It's a different gradation of Hillbilly. And you're still dressed in you're like, you know, like Boston Celtics, leprechaun outfit, but it's like I don't really like it when you reduce your head and your elbow and your elbow is I mean, American elbow is, I think that's kind of

Divini, where are all the times you can do that? That was his experience, that's the dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, elbow is your grade too. So it's like, it's denigrating, but like, I want to make sure like, no elbow is should be harmed in the making of this dream because like, I'll hang out with Hillbillies all day.

So anyways, but it's bad and it's degenerate, and you had a great point on this. And you're there and everyone, you're in like overall suit, it's like Tuy overalls. So funny. It was so funny. And everyone's all around, and it's very participatory,

and everyone's kind of partying around. And I was, and I got there. So there was a deliverance element. Total deliverance. Yeah, people are like this. To a sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

The whole hill building catastrophe happening in the afterwards. There is a hill building. There's a Jordan Peterson like hillbilly. Yeah, it's going on. That's like a festival. But people are playing stuff like a cello made out of like forks and strings and like everything's homemade and it was sad.

And as you said, it's like, well, that's harder to make than you think. Like you could try and make a cello out of a fork and strings. But it's a mess. And you're walking around and you're your inquisitive self, like where your hands are behind your back and your brows furrowed and you're like, you're paying attention well when you're paying attention well.

But it was performative. And I was mad at you when I was there. And then you said something that I don't remember, but it was denigrating to me in a way that it was, I wish I could remember it, but you basically said something that was like trying to call forth in me in a posture syndrome that I'm acting in ways that I don't belong

and I should be embarrassed and that I'm embarrassing myself and I should want to. So it's an accusation of something like hypocrisy, something like that. Imposterism. I'm not as good or where I think that I am. Yeah. And I was really mad at you.

And I was mad at you on two fronts. Actually, I was dream mad at him the whole next day at the same one, like... When you're apart. Yeah, he showed up on like you on two fronts. Actually, I was dream mad at him the whole next day at the seminar. When you're apart. Yeah, he showed up on like you were the war. You're like, yeah, I was dream mad at him like the whole day. It still hasn't fully worn off because you were horrible.

But so I was mad at you for two things. One of them is when I got there, I was like, yay, Jordan's here, this is gonna be fun. There's gonna be an adventure. And that's the first rule of our friendship, always. We always have fun. And we always laugh. Unless things are really sh-tty,

and then we can at least make fun of it in an irreverent way that makes it somewhat tolerable, like if there's a hell thing, or like we've been through plenty on both sides that have been awful, but we're still funny. And it still is... I'm funny with you, but we're still funny. And it still is, I'm funny with you, but we're still funny. Yes, that's true.

Have fun, you're looking. Okay, I have to listen, Greg. I get sadly funnier than you do. Oh, I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you.

I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you. I have to listen to you should be safe That's not how that's not my relationship with you. You're not like a safe

You're a safe space for me right in any way But you're fun and your adventure and you always always have my best intentions in mind Even when we're fighting and even we're arguing and you didn't and I was like that's not you And I knew it right away. And by the way, it was so that's also what you're worried about at the deep level. And and the daily wire thing also brings that up because people have been wondering, you know, what's going to happen? Is this is this is this a tilt into something outside of the domain that we've been talking about? And there's a moral hazard

associated with that. And plus they're all healed. That's like, let me insult like a transcendently competent, black Supreme Court justice, like a 25-year-old, like a big-boned woman and like a trans person and then quit Twitter and join the Daily Wire. It's like, okay, good, Jordan. This will be, this will make the bridge-building aspects of my life easier, and you explain why

you're not like a captured entity. And let me also do it in unthoughtful captured language, right, that his work gets way through a particular ecosystem. And by the way, daily wire, I don't have that bias. Like I'm, you know, I've met Ben in a way. Well, but they're also concerned about that on the daily wire. Part of the reason that what I mean is horses is because they wanted escape from the narrow partisan. This is a conversation we could have in good faith with Ben and Andrew Clayvin.

Like, they could be here. This isn't us talking behind their back. Yeah, obviously not behind their back. Well, yeah, yeah, since they're all here. Yeah, thank you. I'm sure you're going to have a lot of them. You've got a lot of camera. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is so sure. I've got a lot of them. I've got a lot of them.

That's right. Well, this is so weird. Okay, we're back to the dream. Okay, so back to the dream. So I was really mad at you. Yeah. And I knew in real, it was an embodied dream because in real time, I knew that it was also about this.

Yeah. And that's really weird. And so I was embodied in that, which was cool. So I was like, okay, this is now, and I knew I'm coming to have this conversation. And I don't want to have this conversation, and I don't want to have this conversation really. I do want, I need to have a conversation, but I don't necessarily want to. Yeah, because I prefer talking to you privately.

Yeah. I think that there might be more good that comes from this. Yeah. It exposes me to a lot, which I'm not fearful of, but I want to make sure that it's worth it, right? And I also am not, I'm not certain that this isn't performative in the same way that I'm critical of you after the, when you got kicked off Twitter and everything turned into like the Kardashians of Twitter who have, you know, big prefrontal cortexes, like I don't like that whole game.

But so part of what happened was I was, so I knew that the dream was this same thing. And I also knew when you came at me for the imposter syndrome, that it hit me and it hurt the way that it insult hurts. Like it shuttered me. Like in boxing when you take a full blow, but then it wasn't real. Like it couldn't touch me.

I felt it in full and then I went, uh, you're wrong, you're not you. I don't have that in this. I might have it in plenty of other things. Plenty of other ways I might be a fool or be as of yet undissieved about the ways that I think I know more than I do. But it's not this. And that's why you didn't have my best interest in mind. If you've done that, you've done that plenty on things that I know, no, and fine. Yeah. that you've done that plenty on things that I don't know and fine, right? Like, let's get it out. Let's move on.

Yeah, but that was the fear in the dream is that I'm criticizing you, not acting in good faith. That's right. So we're in amongst the hillbillies, parting away. And you're doing, you're your focus attentive self. But as I'm watching you, I'm realizing one that it's performative because I'm looking at it being, because I'm looking at it being, because I look where you look often.

And to some extent, vice versa. Something's like really of interest to you in your focus. So I got something popped into my mind about that. When I was a kid, I hung around with the more delinquent guys, not that there was any shortage of them in Fairview. And there was a reason for that. I mean, first of all, I was intellectual and I was small.

And because I was younger in my class, I also had a harder time on the athletic front. And so there was a bit of compensation in that, I would say, to hang around with the tough kids, that tough misbehaving kids. And I could do that. I mean, it had its costs, but I could do that. And there weren't a lot of alternatives as well.

It was a very small town. And so there might be a part of me too that has a proclivity to want to appeal more to that rough and tumble working class, rough edge of the world, which I also think is a plus. And I think you have that to somebody too. One of the things we've been talking about is the fact that I swear too much. I'm a crime novelist. Right. And in certain circumstances, it's very much part of my parliance. And I don't think it's I don't think it's as usefully updated when a program could be. Yeah, I think that's right.

Well, I also think that it's been good for you in many, many senses to also have had some appeal to the military types and the police. Yeah, yeah police because it doesn't help with the swearing part. No, I've just learned all of that stuff. But no, so you can easily pan, you can easily be a part of that that's a pandering and an inappropriate pandering. Oh yeah, yeah. And I don't, so those are real. So the freement development, yeah. The dream is putting me forward as, as inappropriately performative, in relationship to the dream care human existence of you. Like fork cello.

And so I'm looking at it. And then I have this realization where I'm like, Jordan, like the hillbilly incest fork cello, it's just not that fascinating. And like, what am I doing here? We should be paying attention to something else. And I usually pay attention to what you pay attention to, because it illuminates meaning or discussion point

or a fruitful disagreement. And I just realized, there's no life here. This is kind of dead. And that's the insistence motif. So one of the things you talked about, he has a whole symbolic chapter on this about the place where only light mates with light. Well, Jonathan, you should jump.

So I think one of the things that I've been thinking about is to understand, let's say, if we think about right-left as a basic category, the way that you talk about it, which is conservative and then more liberal and more open, the conservative, they tend to de- the way that we dehumanize, we could say, are the monster that we perceive. Conservative tends to have something like a chimera monster. Things that don't go together, the idea of something which is strange, which is unrecognizable,

something which is fluid and mixed and a mixture of catalysts. That's what they see as the monster. That's what they see as the monster. That's what they project as the monster. That's what they see as the monster. That's what they project as the monster. And interestingly enough, let's say from the left side, the monster is the opposite. It's something that's too close. And the hillbilly has become mythologically

in American culture the image. And so deliverance is like a left-wing fantasy. Yeah, right. And the lefty holes have eyes as a horror movie. So you have this idea of, first of all, you have the idea of something that of all, you have the idea, if something that's too local, something that is incestuous and therefore is too close, you know, and is too,

their identity is so local that it almost becomes idiosyncratic because it's so local. And so it becomes sterile and deformed as a consequence. And in real time, in the dream, and that's what I mean that it was an embodied dream, I thought, that's how I think when I'm seeing the tweets, which is not that it's a moral judgment on you, but you've now surrounded yourself in a hall of likeness,

then you're oblivious to how you're engaging with the world, and the manner in which you're doing so, and you're helpless against even the own self-clections of self-control that you made to yourself in your engagement with the world, while you're simultaneously lecturing about ethics and Christ around the world. And I thought, that's wrong. And when I try to suboptimal at least.

Suboptimal. Yes. Well, right, because there's a lot you do right all the time. And that's like, we, I don't like complimenting you. That's right. I know it's very like. But there's, like at some point, what you have been through in certain ways in facing the absolute worst elements of the far left.

And by that, I don't mean liberals and I don't mean Democrats and I don't mean moderates. He's been heroingly horrible. It's like if it's being, it's a horror movie as written by Kafka. It's been awful. And a large part of why I've been able to be undissieved about the problems that are happening on my side

is in large part because of the closeness of my relationship with you, because I saw them ways that were undeniable. And you and I are too close for me to dismiss you if you say something that I believe is dumb, if you say something that is misinterpreted, if you say something in a way that doesn't make sense, and we might have to argue about for two weeks

to see where it comes down to, I can't dismiss you for it. And so part of it is I took that right early. You're almost like the original cancel culture icon. Lucky you. Like, right? It's been a pleasure. But you've been battered and you've dealt with a lot of it way better than anybody thinks or knows in the mainstream media and on the left. Now that said, you also ask for a lot because by dint of the fact that you're an ascendant character who has a religious aspect

to some people, has a moral aspect and has a professional aspect. And so it's important to say that while we're talking about this, this isn't like me coming in and beating you like a piñata that you need to be perfect, but it's saying, with everything that you are and with the capacity that you have to speak in a transcendent way to more people, you have a moral responsibility to take more care with your words so that you're not thoughtlessly denigrating

whole swaths of people who need to at least hear from you or hear a perspective that you have to offer that's immensely helpful. The same way that I say with a lot of modern Democrats who I think are incredible moral people. The failure to wrangle a proper messaging apparatus can be a moral failure also. So one of the problems that I have is trying,

well, trying to establish a balanced view, I have a two-dimensional problem, I would say. It's first of all, as an academic, the people who are troublesome on the professional front to me are not the radical right. Because the radical left is destroying the educational system and the radical right isn't there at all. So that puts me in a particularly weird position professionally

and it's a unidimensional position. But then I would also say that the people who have come after me most effectively and most continuously, although there's been some of that on the right, that's never really been very effective, it's all been from the left. And so I know as well that it's a moral hazard in that, in that it's not as easy for me to be balanced in my view. And then, or there's one other dimension to that too, is that I don't see the radical left as penitent in any real sense. And this actually

extends out into the liberal community more broadly, because in many ways, the entire world has decided that Nazis were, that was just not acceptable. But we have not decided that about the communists. And so we still have places in the United States where there's statues to let. And then people still wear shagoo of arrows shirts and trumpet their alliance with even the communist ideals, not working class labor socialism. And so there's a lack of penitence on the left that really, that really disturbs me. And so I have the nexus of those three things. So that's the left issue with the Confederate flag.

I'm not advocating this. So I don't want to say that these things are the same. They're not the same. But there's a lot of ways that the United States symbols move both ways. But it is not the ascendant on the one hand. It's like a failure. It's 200 years ago.

And the other hand, it's like the 100 million people that were dead because of communism, not even 40 years ago. But it's America's original sin. But there's definitely, I mean, the trucker protest was a great example where there was one Confederate flag at the trucker protest.

Yeah, yeah. The media talked about it for months. We can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't, we can, we can, we can, we can't, we can, we can't, we can, we can't, we can, we can't, we can, we can, we can, we can't, we can, we can, we can't, we can, we can, we can, we can, we can, we can, we can No one says any of this look, oh, come on. We hear the hammer and the same color. And the thing is, is Canada is different. And that's also one of the things we talk about all the time, is it's like Canada has different ascended forces that are problematic. And I'm not comparing it.

And I had, that was what made it even worse in Canada. It's like, well, even it was a Confederate flag. That's actually not a Canadian issue. So not in any fundamental sense. And so, and I don't see any sign on the left of penitence. Jesus took the social psychologist 70 years to admit that there was such a thing as left wing to tell it to her. I know.

And still it's a narrow part of the field. I know. Like oops, well maybe it's there too. Yeah, you think. Really? You think. And it's part and parcel of the problem of the left and University's won't draw boundaries and it's where

Yes, but in different ways the right won't either Yeah, but they drew a boundary between them and the Nazis and the left has not driven drawn boundary between them and the communist And I know it's harder too. I understand that it's harder. It because, I don't think it is. I do think it is. I think it's harder because the thing about the communists is that they promised universal benevolence. And the Nazis never did.

No, they said, no, this is for the areas, right? And so there's a transcendent promise in communism that's not there on the's just a liberal front. Conservative. Conservatives come in the big in the front door. We talked about this last night, like the conservative gone wrong when they're over the right is a big guy with a club who comes in and smashes stuff. And it's like it's defyable. You know what it is. Liberals when it goes wrong is like a swarm of paper cutting mosquitoes that like shred you to death. And those are the two variants. And if you're one, one kind of makes sense. And if you're of a swarm of paper-cutting mosquitoes that like shred you to death. And those are the two variants.

And if you're one, one kind of makes sense, and if you're of a mob of paper-cut shredding mosquitoes, that's, they think that's their only chance and justification to go up against the other one. And of course, we don't want either of those things. And so, of course, it devolved that way, but it doesn't matter that if they're promising universal benevolence, if that's not what's happening, it doesn't matter, it doesn't make it harder. We also have to understand, too, that whatever is be deviling our country or civilization, if we reduce it to the partisan, then we let it win, because this network of ideas that's

tearing us apart has its tendrils up everywhere. And if we can say, well, it's only on the left, then, well, then it wins, because it can hide in that. And if we say it's only on the right, it wins as well. And when you are off what I think of as you're calling, you're not being transformative. And what you're being is all of a sudden, you're like feeding these kind of red, right,

talking points, moving out in language that doesn't sound like you, and denigrating the opposition in a way that I think is bully-like, that makes you see mean and small and petty and bully-like. And also, that's the problem with going after a single individual and we'll get to that with a certain extent talked about. Because there's all these have different things

that I had very different reactions to all three of them. But also what it does is that it eliminates your ability to differentiate the other side. And so when you start ranting about the Marxist, the Marxist social, like it's a rant, and it's not you. It's like it's capture language. When you're, and it's like, okay, sure. I can do an equal rant about the worst aspect of the furthest right in how their race is. Doesn't have any bearing on

the conservators in my community, my friends who were in the military, my friends who were born again Christians. I mean I can keep ranting a whole list of the worst of the right but it's making them a monolith and you pull the individual into a monolithic thing and you don't differentiate them. And you don't want people doing that with you and we don't want people doing that with you because we need you to discern them. Yeah, okay, so you're called out, you're called out in the dream by my hillbilly self

for your moral failings, but you don't take that personally. And then I feel it and then I go, you dismiss it so that I'm not taking you personally and then that's really sad for me. Okay, so then there's the next part of the dream. The next part of the dream is you're going off with your licentious hillbilly orgy and people are like pairing off and going to rooms

and I get offered like a hillbilly woman and I had, it was amazing. So, and I had this moment like a first reaction where I'm like, I'm married, I don't cheat on my wife, I'm not gonna go to a back room with a hillbilly but then I had did have the second thought where I was like, I'm married, I don't cheat on my wife, I'm not gonna go to a bathroom with a hillbilly. But then I had did have a second thought where I was like, also the hillbilly women are not very attractive.

So I'm like, I was slightly relieved and slightly terrifying. So like, it wasn't as just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's certainly an absolute virtue as possible. But nonetheless, I was like, no, it was clear morally and it also was clear that it was, it was other in a way that was scary, would be the non-funny part to say it

Like I don't want a tingle in that. So you weren't gonna mate with what was in Cestuous. That's right. Yeah, and there was And that felt like a motif of creative union So so that you were offered the temptation of creative union with what was too close and in Cestuous bond and yes, and you Says no. Yes, right. That's a line here in this amazing company that I've been in for the last week. Like, that's interesting. Right, well, because you were concerned about coming down here because, well, this is part of an parcel, at least in some sense,

of the daily wire operation. Go ahead. You also, I think you forgot to mention that the dream, in the dream, the place where you were. We're getting there. Yeah, so that's okay. But yeah, I'm glad you're on that. So then I'm in a house that is, it's a bare house.

And the closest thing that it could remind me of was, you know, I went to Albania at one point. And there's these mansions that were built by like Russian oligarchs to escape, and then they ran out of money. And there are these big platform concrete like shells of mansions, but they're never they're never given life. And it's very it's got that Eastern European like graveyard of something that would be grand from yeah, like the the ruins of the Tower of Fabbal.

Well, and also like they're weirdly bureaucrat. They're trying to be majestic, but they also could be like the central bureaucrat for ducting right. Like they have this weird like, anyways, and so it's a house like that. And it's on till and it's concrete. And there's water that's flooding off the bottom of the house. Yeah. And everyone's going off to have sex in the various rooms that are also cabins on a

ship and the ship. So that's also extremely relevant, right? Because that's a, that's an image of a decayed civilization. It's the houses collapsing, the waters are rising. And in response, everyone's going off to their own rooms to have sex with That's an image of a decayed civilization. The house is collapsing, the waters are rising, and in response, everyone's going off to their own rooms to have sex with incestuous partners. And that's the polarization, right?

So it's a great image. And another indication. Or is we call that Monday night? Yeah, I'm just kidding. Yes, exactly. And then I'm also aware that it's a grounded arc, because it's on tilt, like when a boat comes up, I always think about like the image when

Bayo Wolf's boat comes back, right? And it's the big, it comes in crooked. And so I'm aware of that. So then there's, it's a bit of a blur. Okay, so it's on a tilt because, uh-huh, it's on a tilt because it's crooked. So the host is crooked, the host is falling, the host is filling with the arc. And it's like, this arc ain't gonna rise the house is falling, the house is filling with water.

It's like this arc ain't gonna rise. Right, right, we need arcs to rise generally when there's a flood. This one's not rising because all you people are off having hillbilly sacks. But I'm not in the dream, wait a minute. Ha. Hasjo's getting pulled in.

By the way, this is the next icon curving that we need. It's like, yeah, it'll be like your heronymous Bosch painting will be like the Hillbilly arc or G. Out in the margins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.

So then basically then you're that's the state of our civilization. Yeah, it's it's dismal. It's dismal. Then you come after me and you're yelling after me. It's more deprecations. And it's basically like you should doubt yourself. Like you don't belong.

If you can't. So you're kind of standing in for the left in that sense. And in the Twitter persona that I've been adopting, let's say at least in those tweets and others as well. And at first I had, like I said, it's important. I had a moment of like, oh, like I don't, like taking a criticism, we take criticisms from each other, they're always with a baseline of respect and admiration.

And usually the harsher they are, the more it comes from there, first of all. But so I took it like that first, and then I was like, this is wrong, and I'm leaving, and you're wrong, and this whole scene's wrong. I was confident in that, but you weren't, and that was weird, because I was leaving, and generally generally we don't that's not a place we wind up. So then I wind

away and outside it was sort of an idyllic setting and then Tammy was there. And Tammy said to me and Tammy and I it's kind of interesting because Tammy and I are my family's my wife for those of you who might not know that and and Greg and Tammy know each other very well and have for decades. And, um, Tammy's been in the conversations in many times when we've been mutually working out familial problems of different intensity and personal problems and all of that. So, and I don't know exactly what image Tammy plays for you. I know that when you were first thinking about getting married to D'Alina, Tammy definitely pushed on you and said, and if I remember correctly, and said,

this is like, get out of there. Yeah, and Tammy what? Tammy waits and she's all quiet and you're like, oh, what a meek, submissive kind of woman. Then she just like lops your legs off with a machete that's like completely deserved. And she had some great consequences. So she's a good feminine judge. Well, she's also embodied, she's the embodied feminine in that you said that a while ago, you said Tammy's so feminine, right? Took me a long time because my wife is too. And that had very different meaning than how I was raised. But she's powerful from her femininity in full. And so when she says stuff,

and Tammy and I also have a, a faction at and fun and joking relationship, it's not like it's always serious, but when Tammy poems you, yeah, which is, but if she poems you, it's worth paying attention to. And she, look,

she's put up with him for how long, right? So there's, 50 years. Yeah. Is it really? 50. Yeah, I've known her since she was a student. Oh, that's right.

That's right. So Tammy had me and one of her dream, Tammy and I are like dream allies sometimes, in a way that's kind of weird. And so Tammy was there and she said to me, don't worry, she said, in our next book, it was another 12-year-old's for Lifebook, we're writing and devoting a chapter to you. I was like, that's really weird, right? Cause, you know, Hillbilly Jordan,

who just like was curling, you know, nod corn cobs at me, my way out of the crooked arc, didn't seem to incline to want to venerate me. But it was she was clear that that was something that was happening and then she said, you are basically you're the moon god. And I said, and my first reaction, I had an immediate and rare initial reaction of humility that was genuine where I was like, I'm not a god, like even in the dream. And I said, what you mean is I'm godlike

in the way that the moon is. And she said, yes, your job is to shine light on the waters. Now, how did you, you had some things to say about that? Well, there's a few things that I would have to say. First off, I think, I'm realizing how much this dream is probably a reflection of a lot of the reactions that I've also had from people from all sides, different, conservative, different, is the sense in which people felt like we are in a moment of crisis and they

felt like one of the things you've been able to do is to start building an arc, right? To start building something which would not be completely given into the forces of the destabilization and chaos that are happening and could maybe kind of gather us together and carry us through towards something better. And so the fact that you have this flood, we felt the flood coming. Now that's something I think everybody kind of feels the flood water is rising. And so the fact that you see that this arc now

isn't gonna fly anymore. And that you've got this oligarch bureaucracy element that's tilted and yeah, and it's incomplete and unfinished and so it's contaminated by bureaucratic power. And that is also the idea of the bureaucracy is also something that is like a, they're right wing monster, right? Something that is structured and hierarchical, but it's not working. It's like this, this is dead.

It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. often have a claim on. Right? The conservatives have a claim on this theoretical

and abstract notion of beauty and creating the conditions under which beauty can flourish, but generally the liberals are the ones who create the beauty. Is that fair? Yeah, very often. Yes. And so then you move out and I think what basically happens is these confirmed it.

It's not exactly fair as we were talking about earlier, is that without that liberal openness, you can't get access to that transcendent realm from which beauty comes. But as we discussed earlier, the great artists are actually a union between the liberal and the conservatives. Like what's Michelangelo?

They have that openness, but they ally it with discipline. That's right. And so then the proper place of beauty is proper, is that place you are at the beginning of the dream, which is that idealic balance of conservative limit in the humanities and monistic tradition. Right, for reasons that we can discuss at a separate time, because I think that the liberal arts education

foundationally, we're talking about this last night, is the only solution for the insanity of Twitter. And openness per se, which is the liberal temperamental virtue, isn't sufficient to produce creative achievement. It has to be allied with action in the world. But just like I'm high conscientious, which helps a ton, your way higher openness than you've been acting.

And so part of that I think is like you almost, first of all, you died twice, like you're putting a coma and like, it's like we're running out of Eastern European countries for you to go, die in, right? So, I mean, and it's half fucking hot. Yeah, it was right, right. And it was a horrible run and Tammy, I mean, it was awful.

Yeah, what happened? And so there's reason for you to come out now and be unwilling or not willing, uncapable of seeing like a newfound level of owner bill. It's like you hatch through healing crisis and you have a baby skin on and you're tucking into the comforts of one side, more let's say, like where you're being greeted in a case?

Yeah, well, it's a risk. I mean, when I've gone to Washington to talk some of the people there, starting to talk more to Republicans because I've actually talked more to Democrats in the last five years than Republicans, even the Republicans I'm talking to say, don't get co-opted by the Republicans because then you're just another Republican and it's not like there a dime it doesn't and we need great Republican leaders but that's not whatever I'm doing whatever that might be

is just gonna be a reduction of that. Well this is also interesting because well one of the things I have noticed is that when I'm talking to conservative types I have to tread much less carefully, which is weird, right? Because the liberals hypothetically are the open types. But when I'm talking to Democrats, I almost always feel. And so do they, that we're both walking through a moral minefield all the time. No, I was exhausting. It is exhausting in a particular way.

No. Don't underestimate the extent of openness and mind-field walking for me in my life to be able to get to a point that I'm surrounded with people in a whole weekend. I'm not talking about my community and family, conservative and liberal, were square. It's not relevant. But in a public way of new voices, for me to get to a table with like James Orren Douglas-Headley and Stephen Blackwood. That's not, you don't just roll in the conservative town and get greeted with that. There's a lot of coming from where though, is it the conservatives who are coming out?

I mean, from where? The liberals. Yeah, well, are you more afraid of the liberals that they're going to judge you for talking? Conservatives. Both ways, both ways. The worst I've gotten, the worst anti-Semitism and deprecation and dehumanization has been from the right when I've appeared with you and with the world. Right, there's no doubt.

Well, and I should say too, that is dark joke. And so for me, it's like I take arrows in the back coming to the conversation. The conversation sometimes are difficult, and then I take arrows in the back from them, sometimes going back, taking arrows in the face as I'm going.

And look, who cares? I'm not saying that. Well, you do care. Who cares? But what I need is it's hard on people. It's hard. But what I'm saying is it's not a, it's hard to establish a group of competent,

intelligent, ethical people who don't think like you. It is hard, but it's still contingent on you to do. And it might be hard in certain ways that are specific to liberals, which I get, because I see that all the time. But there's also different ways that it's hard with conservatives. Yeah, well, the problem too is you get tired. It's like one of the reasons I think that it's been, it's a relief to me to talk to people when it's not a minefield with every bloody word. Right. Because it's just, minefield with every bloody word. Because it's just, it takes so much effort to negotiate that.

And I know that that's, I know that it still has to be negotiated because the alternative is conflict and war. So, but the temptation is there, right? There's minefields a lot though. Like, I could hit a lot of notes wrong with this group, not now with like you and I have a relationship now that's like we understand it and it's not and blackwood too and or too, right? But there's I could hit a note wrong and find myself. Yeah. In a in a bunch of where you can tell that happens because it immediately descends into the political.

That's right, right? And then all of a sudden, I talk to the conversation about you two, great regard for it. And I'm like, oh, this is dead language coming up. I mean, that's those dead branches that cast a long shadow. Yeah, yeah. So that's, it's hard all the way around.

I'm, you've had a uniquely hard uniquely. You've had a very difficult run in ways that are unique to you, that I'm not trying to draw horrible uniquely. You've had a very difficult run in ways that are unique to you, that I'm not trying to draw comparisons to. But, well, there's a moral hazard in that, because it's hard to keep equanimity in the face of that. That's right. Especially when it doesn't quit.

It doesn't stop. That's right. And so what's hard is, then, it's like, 10 lawsuits against me right now. I know, I know, I know. That's like, 10's a lot. It is. And when you're in the jaws of a kind of Kafka-esque

crushing of your, like the bureaucratic state having you in its teeth with this power of the state behind it, is dizzying and terrifying and resentment-inducing and outraging. Yes, but. Yes, and it evokes like a murderous fantasy as a response. That's right. Keep it up it up guys and see what happens.

So here's the transcendent. That's not good. So here's what you keep tacking to and imperfectly is fine. And that's what we're talking about. But what you're tacking to is if you're traveling around literally the world to talk about Jesus and to talk about the rules for governing one's life and navigating complex change,

then you should be, I believe, more open to hearing when there are things to me that are obvious missteps. It should be as open as possible. Well, obviously, that's also why we're having the conversation. That's just to it. And that requires humility. And part of what was hard for me with the Pride Comment

you made for Elliot Page was it was like You're humble in all the ways that matter to me, but like You have pride. It's like that's like call call Elliott Page dumb is a more suitable insult from you It's like you don't want to run around accusing people of pride That's not depends whether they prayed themselves on the cover of a fashion magazine or not Well, you've prayed to yourself around plenty, too Yeah, but it wasn't to entice adolescent girls to sterilize themselves.

Well, and is that the question is, is that in fact what she was doing? But nonetheless, well, that is the point of the question. It's just to cover if that wouldn't have happened. Okay. And then she got 1.6 million Instagram likes. And so I can't, and maybe let's talk about that seriously.

It's like, okay, I cannot believe as a clinician and as a psychological observer that one of the consequences of that parading wasn't that at least one young woman decided to sterilize herself. Now I think it was likely a lot more than one, but I can't be certain that it was even one, but it's 1.6 million likes and we know that the incidence of gender dysphoria on the young adolescent woman front has exploded and I knew perfectly well when all this pronoun nonsense emerged in Canada, that that was what was going to happen. Because I knew the literature on psychogenic epidemics. And I can't see that Elliott Page didn't flip the switch

from victim to perpetrator with that act. And then Stephen Blackwood, one of the conservative guys that we've been talking about, President of Ralston, he called me on that, like you did in some sense. The other night, he said, you bullied her, of guys that we've been talking about, President of Ralston. He called me on that, like you did in some sense. The other night, he said, you bullied her. You shouldn't have gone after her. That's a disproportionate use of force.

And I thought that was a good argument. I thought that was a good argument. It's like, I want to arrive at this after the swimsuit. Yeah, well, we should finish the dream, too. So, okay. Okay, so back to the moon image. So, Jonathan, you had a comment about that. So, I don't think you do spend the moon. I don't think you have. Yeah, exactly. You do spend the moon.. So Jonathan, you had a comment about that. Did you do suspension?

I don't think you have, yeah, exactly. You did mention. So I think it's important to understand. In a way, the way that I see it is that you have you feel like in the dream you are confirmed to be what you are. Yeah. Which is, let's say, something which is on the left.

The moon in terms of thinking is definitely the left side. Even in iconography, the sun will always be, say, on the right hand of Christ, and the moon will be on the left. The sun is kind of like the origin, and the moon is the reflection, but the moon is also that which changes. But the moon is change. The moon is waxing and waning. The moon is the feminine.

And so that's why it's feminine. That's why it has to do with fluidity and change and transformation. So it's completely, I tell me, you're a valid voice for God. And that's a great thing to have happened at the end of that dream, because you're called out by the loudest voice

of the hillbilly right, that's the way the dream lays itself out. And then it's my wife, me being the loudest voice of the hillbilly right, that's the way the dream lays itself out. And then it's my wife, me being the loudest voice of the hillbilly right in your dream. And God only knows to what degree that's true, period. It's my wife who says, no, you're shining the proper light. And it's a transcendent light, right? Because that's a very weird part of the dream that you're allied in some sense with the moon, God.

So what the God part of that is, the transcendent part. It's the part that Shed's light from above and you're shedding light on the water. And I think I do think that's what you're doing. And I think you're doing it extremely well. I mean, you're very judicious and careful in your articulation of the positions of the left. You know, and you don't get ranty about it, pretty much never.

And you don't get prideful about it too. And I think that's partly because it's been so bloody difficult and because you actually didn't want to do it. Yeah. I think the whole, the whole, and it's good that Tammy validates that. It's amazing. And so blind.

I have such a self-congratulatory dream. Like this works out very well for me. Because if we did the one that shows that I'm like, impotent and crippled, and we did that one. No and no, no, no, no, no, but it is something to really take hard from because the dream. The dream is very positively inclined towards what you're doing and it's not that it gets there easily right it goes through the whole dead wood. Corruption of Western civilization. Well, as to as hillbilly. The thing I say is that in the dream when I was joking saying I had

like a rare but immediate moment of humility, I was positioned in the dream with humility and it's like it's not That's useful because the feeling tone of the dream did like you know you have dreams where you're Has to be the case because if you if in the dream you had to Elevated your status to moon god, let's say, by a narcissistic acceptance, you can be absolutely bloody sure that would have been accompanied by catastrophe. Because pride goes before a fall. That's right. And we talked about the great Denzel Washington line

to Will Smith that I think about a lot with you, where he said, like, right when you're your greatest, like the devil comes through. Right, right. And so I've been thinking about that a lot with you where he said, like, right when you're your greatest, like the devil comes through. Right, right. And so I've been thinking about that a lot and thinking part of our conversation now with your transformation through literal death, it's like, where are you gonna be now?

And part of me is like, Henry the Fourth's over. Like, it's time for Henry the Fifth, right? Some of those things have to be left behind in certain ways. Some of the world's. That is a view. Well, maybe Twitter is one of them, you know, because, and it's very convenient for me.

So, my response to the Twitter ban wasn't of moral outrage. In fact, it was, first of all, of stunned amusement that it happened to happen the same day that I announced my partnership with Daily Wire. I just couldn't believe that. So, utterly ridiculous, because one of the reasons I felt that, and my partnership with Daily Wire. I just couldn't believe that was so utterly ridiculous, because one of the reasons I felt that, and we negotiated with Daily Wire for four months, and my family and I hashed that out,

because we did not do this lightly, and we paid attention to every single word in the contract. And so we were on board with it. And one of the reasons for that was, well, I might run a follow of one of these major social media networks and then, well then what? Then what happens if YouTube stops me? Now we have backups and all that, but you get the point. And then it was so propitious, insanely propitious, that the same day I put this up, Twitter said, well, you don't get to talk to people anymore. It's propitious. It's a, it's Jungian synchronicity. For me, this one is right. Are we done enough of the light on them? I think it's fine.

I think the dream is pretty clear. I think that anybody who can think, you can understand that it is, it's someone's reflection of your reaction to some of the things that Jordan has said. And also the idea that I think you are always viewed Jordan as an ally in a way that you tried to navigate between both sides constantly, to be careful, and that you've always seen that Jordan has been that for you

you've had to defend him many times to the left, because you felt like you could trust him, you had your back, you're both able to talk across the lines, and now you're like, oh, this is, this isn't happening anymore. Wait, this is breaking down? This is trying to, yeah, there's a threat. He is moving too much into this side. And so, and so then you are being kind of affirmed as it's like, it's okay for me to be on the left. Like, yeah, yeah.

Even if I'm doing the same, Jordan going there. It's like, okay, no, I can't let myself get pulled there. I have to be able to pull out of it. That's smart. And it's like, don't do a bunch of stuff that affirms in its minutiae, not as a totality. People's criticism that you're like a dumb person's idea of a smart person.

It's not true, it's stupid. Well, actually, I don't mind that so much in some sense, because there's a positive side. What I mean is, I gave you a point. But this is a good point. I gave you a point with your role. And for me, it's like in your area of expertise, like it kind of boils down to what we're talking about

with the Supreme Court, Justice. So I don't get to say off hand things, even if I'm irritated on Twitter. You're wrong. Well, I could be, you can't really know that. But you're right. The thing is, so think, I mean, the image that I have in my mind is,

let's say from the outset, you said something like, we're going to create a new university. We're going to create something, and then everybody was excited. And so now here comes Peterson Academy. You're like, this is possible. Yeah. Jordan's going to be able to pull the best people

from everywhere and going to be able to create a university where people are able to say the truth and talk across lines and everybody's excited. And it's like, I am a conservative guy. I'm a right one guy. But I'm like, I am a conservative guy. I'm a white-wing guy. But I'm like, I feel Peterson Academy is way more important than like these kinds of partisan, let's say more partisan things.

Even though I know that I am clearly on one side. So it's like, that's what I mean when I said at the beginning that this seems to have something to do with your role. Yeah, yeah. Yes. What do you think about what do you think about a role? Dave Rubin was talking to us the other night beginning that this seems to have something to do with your role. Yeah, yeah. That's something everybody perceives. What do you think about what do you think about a role? Dave Rubin was talking to us the other night and he went after Greg pretty nicely. It was a very friendly way.

But Rubin, who is more partisan and more provocative and plays that role like Shapiro does, for example, although they both play more than that role, but they certainly play that role. Rubin's objection to Greg's criticism was that, well, there is a time and a place to be caustic and to be critical and to draw distinct lines. And he didn't particularly feel sorry for the swimsuit model who we haven't talked about that much yet or for Elliot Page, because he felt that it was the right time

in place to point out that that wasn't appropriate. And there's a lot of noise and trouble associated with that, but that in itself doesn't mean that it's wrong. And Dave's job, that he should do being true to himself, is to be that advisor and he's like a general. He should hold that position for you. He should make me earn that at that table. That's why he's there, right? And he should also advise you in that way so that you don't tilt too far. And so everything he said, everything I was like, I actually completely agree

with a lot of what he said about that. Well, that's also why you're willing to use Witt and Hume or two because it's not like you cut that out of your life. Well, and Dave either Dave stand up. Yeah, yeah, right. So, okay, so we can figure that out, even if we disagree on a bunch of stuff. And usually what I tend to disagree with on a bunch of stuff, by the way, is what people say on Twitter more than who they are. Which is right. So right. Because it's like really law. And, but look, so Dave's doing what he should do,

which is say to you, like think about all the stuff, but I see you as having a different role. And it's precisely what Jonathan is saying. So the question is, how do you embody the positive role? This is a weak chap issue, right? So you're saying, well, it's really good to offer the wheat, and that's the best thing. But then you think, well, yeah,

but you have to kind of point out where the chaff is, too. But your feeling is that it's way more important to say, here's the wheat than to denigrate the chaff. I do think that, but I do think also a lot of the stuff was also about the problem with the particular. Like I do think that that was part of it, especially the swimsuit model issue, but it's like, who's this girl?

Like we don't, I don't know who she is, and then all of a sudden she becomes the whirlwind. And like we saw that happen on the other side, like think of the Covington kids and that kind of stuff, and we're completely outraged as watching the media like destroy this young man. And whether, in a way, it doesn't even matter whether it's real or unreal or whatever,

but ultimately, so there was a feeling of that, which is like this girl, we don't know who she is and all of a sudden she becomes the... Yeah. I had less empathy, to be honest, with the Elliot page, because I also think that there was something way more... There was something bigger because she is a celebrity, and he is a celebrity, whatever, Elliot is a celebrity celebrity and there was something more. So that's a fancy model thing for me was a little bit like, okay.

Okay, okay, so here's the whole thing. And I think this is what, this is where, this is my proposition that I want to put forth, that I'm fairly confident in, but I'm willing to have it like shredded, pecked to death by you. I think that you can have your discerning great father tone. You can wear that more in areas where you have expertise. When you bring that to Black Supreme Court justice or Islam, you are out of your lane and your lane there should be as a scientist

and a politician and an interlocutor. But if you got, so there's one of my favorite Jordan moments was I put them on, I always put them on a chain with a bunch of people who are different thinkers and like it almost always ends disastrously. No, that's not true. It's, it sometimes does. But there's one point we're going back and forth.

Who's data and who's data and who's expert, there's just like mirror game that everyone plays from both sides. Well, you're expert strong, well, you're study's wrong, well, you read the data wrong, and it just becomes this exhausting mirror and conversation that Jordan and I are always trying to shatter. But at one point, Jordan said something about IQ testing. And somebody was like, well, who said that?

And Jordan was in one of his, like, you must have been in an airport with Tammy losing your mind, because Jordan was like, I did. I said it. I have been studying this field for 35 years. I've published 200 peer review things. I've created an entire company that focuses on the testing. I've cut the data every way. I've looked at it in any conceivable way.

And basically, it is a topic on which he is legitimately one of the world's leading experts on it. And you are angry. And it was like, man, fair enough. I don't care what your tone is. I don world's leading experts on it. And you are angry. And it was like, man, fair enough. I don't care what your tone is. I don't care that you phrase it. So you are like dead on and you are alive. This gets us into another problem too,

which is if we all have to deal with global issues in some sense, right? Especially now because we're increasingly globalized and the globe is tilting in the way that that structure in your dream was tilting. But the problem is is that we are all too ignorant to do that. And so one of the things I learned when I worked on this UN Committee, for example, which was the committee that produced the report on sustainable development for better, for worse,

we like to think that it was maybe a better document. I mean, we, the people I worked with in Canada, because we were involved. But it's still tangled. it was part of the process that tangled everybody up into this globalist utopian catastrophe that we're in at the moment. So, in any case, one of the things I learned is, well, no one knows how to do this. How do we sustainable development?

It's like, well, yeah, that's a good aim, but the devil is definitely in the details. And so you, to even address issues like this, you have to risk leaping out of your bailiwick. And so there has to be a daring that's associated with that. But then the danger is, well, what do you know enough about the details

and the answer is, well, no. It's like, what's the answer to everything? Is more responsibility and more humility? And so the further you move off your base. Why is it like cocaine and hookers? It's a screw and co-op fitness. Because you decided to become a conservative. So I talked to you like this.

Oh yeah, okay. You want cocaine and hookers? What is it? Responsibility and humility? Right. So the further you are off your base, the more you have to be cognizant. Yeah, well, and I get a lot of comments like that on Twitter,

you know, or on YouTube, it's like, well, now you're an expert in this, and now you're an expert in this. Right, and like, to me, the ultimate one, you see a hundred comments like that. It's like, it's like Islam. It's like, really, that's what you're gonna wait into now

and not run it by, like how many liberals, not even liberals is dumb, because a lot of the Muslims in the world who we need a lot right now are the moderates in the Muslim world. Well, there's one thing you know. No, maybe not even the moderates. You need the people who are willing to talk.

And so one of the guys I talked to was a leader who I'm going to talk to again in the UK in the aftermath of this message. Okay, Good. So he's a young leader of the more traditional Muslims. And so I wouldn't call them moderate. Yeah. But what was so cool because I had, we went back and forth a lot before we talked and I didn't talk to him a couple of times because I was sick. And then some bullying came out of that directed to me me, and then I thought, well, if that's gonna be the situation,

I'm not gonna talk at all. But then I thought, well, those are his followers and forget it. And then he got in a fight with Douglas Murray, which I wasn't very happy about. So I thought about scrapping the whole thing. And so, once you get in a fight with Douglas Murray, that's just like the last person I want to get in a fight.

It's a bad idea. So, but I did go ahead with the conversation, and it was kind of awkward and contentious to begin with. But what was so cool, the conversation straight now, we had a real conversation, but what was so cool was that a lot of people watched it, and most of them were Muslim, and a lot of the more traditionalists. And all the comments were, I'm so glad we're

having the conversation. And so it's probably not moderates exactly because that implies a strong word. Let me withdraw the word. What I mean is that moderates who have an interest in free ideas and democracy, like the most useful people for me right now to get a handle on how to fix America are Muslims who, I mean, so they're not hysterical when things are happening, right? Muslims, it's a, it's a, it's not a monolith.

It's like Latinos, right? Like the big joke was that Biden won the Latinx vote and Trump won the Latino vote. And it's like this notion that Latinos are monolith is in, like, do you have Mexican friends and family? Talk to them, then talk to their parents, then talk to their grandparents. Like, it's a no-brainer if you're off Twitter,

that Latino community is complicated and there's all sorts of different variations if you're Cuban and, right, anyways, we don't have to belabor it. But with Muslims, there's a core set of traditional values. There's more of a matriarchy in some of these cultures than we would think from the outside. There's a very empowered role for women to play.

And so in the negotiation, Muslim women a lot, they're used to standing up with a negotiating with strong men as one word, but also strong men in a positive way. And that means they're really strong women. And it's like, it's incredible level of insight to be like, oh, so you're trying to negotiate the balance between freedoms and law and rights right now?

We've been doing that for a while. But, and so that's part of it where there's an exposure into more Muslim thinkers of different stripes, I think it's very important. Well, okay, so I'm gonna say at my own defense, in some sense, that I was willing to do this badly, because like, what do I know about Islam? I mean, and I can't even know about it in some sense, in some real sense, because it's so complicated,

and to delve into it and to become a master of the Quran. I mean, I'm not a master of the Bible for God's sake, you know? And so, and then, and so I've had these conversations that the Span, the Islamic spectrum, in some sense, because I talked to Ayah and herzee Ali, obviously, the Islamic spectrum, in some sense, because I talked to Ian Hershey Ali, obviously, who I really respect. She's a hell of a woman. She's incredible, and certainly from one perspective, but to be completely admired for her

current clarity and intellect and strength, like it's staggering. And then I talked all the way through the Islamic political spectrum, let's say, to Muhammad Hizab, who's on the traditionalist and and who debated Ian on my daughter's podcast. And so I've been trying to open myself up to his wider number of you support. I just want to say one thing. I think that there's a whole lot of things. I'm going to talk to Muslims even if I do it stupid. There's a messaging and a context which seems back in,

which has something to do with the dream, I think. And it has something to do with the strange fact that you sign up with daily wire, and then you put out a message to Muslims. And that can be ignored, the context of that. And everybody understands that it's a good way to keep calm and calm. Where's the message to the Jews? And I think delete. context of that and everybody understands that it's a keeps calm ending. Where's the message to the Jews?

And I think delete. But I get to understand. I'm so waiting Jordan. Yeah, still waiting. So here's the thing that's interesting. You guys can generate your own dad mess up. Like you have forever. We don't suck at storytelling.

No, no. Yeah, I mean, okay. So for me, the solution is that. The solution is what we're doing now. Yes, right? So for how much of that has to be done post-hawk? Like, yes, yes, you know what I'm saying is when you say, okay, so I did it, I did it stupidly. Your humility and willingness to sit here

and have this conversation, right? And be just because I think I can take you in the final. I know, I know, I know. But the willingness to do that to my mind is all that's required. And I want to go through the other two tweets because I do think that I would also say, look, there's suggestions that I would have about what type of positive movement you could make on these three fronts. But all that it is is that.

You can progress boldly and be a fool, because the fool precedes the master, and then accept with humility that you should have had greater responsibility. And then you make a question. Well, I don't think there's any other way of doing it than that, because you're going to have to for a fool with this part of his list. But this part has been missing. And it's been a it's been a drumbeat of one side of that's exactly why we're having the conversation. And I knew it was missing. I mean with the Elliott page front and I know we're going to get to that in a minute because we still have to return to Sports Illustrate. Don't

measure your dying to do that. But like part of what I said to you was, well, why aren't you going after women who get double-deimplants and interpore? Yeah, right. And I said to you was, well, why aren't you going after women who get double de implants in an rapport? Yeah, right. And your answer to me was, well, they're not causing a wholesale industry of whatever to happen. Right, but they are fomenting a porn revolution that's decimating sexual behavior. But that was my point to you.

Yeah, absolutely. So fine, do you want to come in in a context that feels wholly roller rollerish, even against something that is fair and that is problematic and doesn't have nuance and doesn't have lines. She's a 25 year old woman with 11,000 followers. The hard rule is if you have two, if you have billions of views and millions of followers, you don't denigrate what her body looks like on her specifically on Twitter, which is asymmetrical warfare, and then complain that Twitter is mean and retreat from it again.

Well, you know, it's a funny thing to, yeah, the second part of that I think is the most relevant part is because the way I handled it made it look like the reason I went off Twitter hypothetically, which I didn't exactly do, was because of the blowback from that. And that wasn't actually the case, but that was definitely a communication problem on my part. I mean, it was part of the conversation. But you already said you'd be, I'm going to be off.

Yeah. I'm going to be there. Yeah. Then you came in and you're like the bad guy in Revenge of the Nerds. Like, who goes in and there's like the big bone girl having her moment at the prom and you're like, denigrating humiliator and then left. Yeah. If your point is to sports illustrated, look, what you're doing, you're sports illustrated.

You're supposed to celebrate the athletic body. If she wants to be, go be a model for the next Rubens, good on her, right? She's having her own moment in the sun right now, and maybe there's some pride in it, but she's 25, and I promised you she's not more prideful than you are I at 25. So she's making her own choices around this,

and trying to navigate the difference between beauty and self-esteem, and what would you say? Health and athleticism in her own life in a way that makes her feel whole, in a society that's insane, and the responsibility for the society being insane is partially us because we've failed to define those terms sufficiently.

So she's 25 and confused about that a little bit and taking a moment where she feels good. She participated in her own exploitation. Mm. Well, definitely did that. Now, you could say, even by the lights of the argument that you just laid out, is that that's forgivable at her age and with that opportunity beckoning, and why would you expect

the kind of wisdom that would be able to negotiate that at that age, and that still doesn't justify the fact that you went after and that you went after personally. The point, I think you're on worse ground than when you said it, sports illustrated, because part of it, you could say could say look let's say you I am I think this is a week or 50 it is weaker. I think right because it's not not so when I talk to my daughter about this for example She says yeah, I don't feel sorry for this girl because she's putting forward an image of obesity as positive and it's not positive And it's not so were you outraged by the string of endless heroin chic, like white Kate Moss models? Yes.

Okay, deal with people at an eating disorder. Great, did you then bring, did you have access to Twitter that you brought the fury of the insane model? Well, that was a while ago, you know. But it doesn't matter, you have more responsibility now. And you brought the fury of the world, of the insane world of Twitter down on her head.

And you've had that directed at you, and it almost killed you. And she's a 25-year-old woman. And you brought that in, and then know what that is. But then I would say in defense to that, and this is also part of what gets tangled up in the liberal conservative debate with regard to the moral high ground. Part of the argument that you're making is that I was mean to this girl, and I would say, I think you can make that case.

But then I would also say that a line has to be drawn. And it's very difficult to draw a line in actuality without it also involving a person who's involved in it. So it's pretty easy, first of all, sports-elstery editorial. That's one. they're an institution. Second of all, and by the way, she's falling around having millions of people now say, nope, sorry, not beautiful in her head.

I know that that's what we're talking about. I know that, but I don't think that you get to say that it was wrong because you feel sorry for this girl. And this is what happens on the left all the time, is that they pointed the violation of a moral virtue and they say, okay, so here's where it is. I got it. Yeah, but Jesus, things are falling apart. So fair. So I get it. I get it. So whiny empathy, liberal argument. Let me take it out of the text. You want to draw a line. Women's bodies, young women's bodies, it's complicated, Jordan,

right? Kind of like like Islam and and race in America. It's a complicated topic with a lot of hurt feelings Absolutely. You want to draw a line as a clinician and with all of your you're starting like a League of Nations your professor at 18 different places You can publish a paper anywhere Is the plan if we bring together the greatest think tank of geniuses liberal and conservative and sit down to say, what you should do with this is to go on Twitter and with one second of consideration, right, lambast somebody because you're in a sh**y mood. Wait, when you said you'd be off Twitter and your answer is, well, the article pissed me off. Yeah, right, right, right.

So you can hide behind all the liberal and sweaty with all of the empathy, but it's like, look, do it properly then. Yeah, so you can hide behind all the liberal I'm sweating with all those good empathy. But it's like, look, do it properly then. Yeah, right, right. And that's all proper. Well, then don't hide your lack of self-control and your inability to control your distinct for something that's turned into a model. As drawing the proper lines.

Right, and also like, and then call that liberal empathy weakness. Good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, I mean, that gets us into a discussion, I would say to some degree about Twitter per se. Part of what we're laying out, I would say, is Twitter is not the place for these discussions.

And so that opens a broader question, which is, is Twitter a place for any discussion about anything Twitter is like? So let say let's let's we let's say you're it's so it's so funny because people pay you so many compliments and so it's funny when I like have to in the course of make your argument who pains me so much as it should it's like when I beat you at most things it's all my fault but, so you're one of the great minds of a generation. You have a transformative intellect. You have an ability to frame things in a way

that make people see things through epiphany that is altering. We've talked about the difference between the semantic and the procedural and how you get things in a ritual. You know how to do that. You're occup, if you're on Twitter, you are insane. You're dealing with a monster that you don't know what it is.

Clinical curiosity? Okay, Dawg. Jonathan Hate manages to act like an adult. But he's on Facebook. He studies Twitter. I know, but his primary... Okay. I'm not making an excuse, but his primary domain of concentration is Facebook, and Facebook, for all its insanity, is not as insane as Twitter. That's true, but also Twitter suits your temperament because he's got a more even temperament than you will. Yes, he does. I have, we pick the most toxic social media platforms.

And it's like a video game where you're like, oh, we don't know who's on here. It's a mind control game. Let me go on there and cause 90% of the discourse in the public to be about me playing a stupid addiction game and the Elliot page thing when it devolved into and I get this email chain It's always when Jordan does something like What I would call dumb, but you know call it ill-advised or or maybe other people think it was great Nonetheless something pronounced. Let's just say like all of a sudden my phone explodes because everyone's like, what's this idiot doing now? It's like Jordan Drink Moonshine and got the dog pregnant. It's like it's like, where is he?

Like go find this guy, right? It's like, it's a disaster. Anyway, so everything's like blowing up about this. And then I'm on these chains. I was in some meeting, like they are an awful person. I know, fundamentally. There's no doubt about it.

But so I come out of this thing and it's like, I'm on this chain with like, like, you know, who are we gonna gather up to be against freedom of speech and it's like every thinker imaginables on a chain and how do we get to Elon? It's like, and it all was so performative to me.

And then you're like, I'd rather die than take down the tweet. And it was like, Jordan, you're in a video game that's designed by teams of addiction specialists to skew your opinion a bunch of ways and to make you angry and outraged. And to make you represent views and say things and capture language that's offensive to the other side

to drive polarization further. That's the medium. And what makes it really hard to say say just exactly how dangerous Twitter is. I mean, one of the things I've very much noticed is that on Twitter, people regularly say things like, and this just happens, it's constant. People say things on Twitter that are so outrageous, they would never say them even once face to face to anyone in their

whole life. Like you to that swimsuit model, you would never say that to a 25 year old woman. In my own defense, I wouldn't say I wasn't saying it to her. But I was saying it to the people who insist that we accept a particular standard of beauty that has nothing to do with beauty in order to advertise their moral superiority at being tolerant. Great. So you did that in 140 characters, well, you think? No, no.

Okay, I don't know enough. And is that like the interpretation of the world? No, the interpretation of the world is she got blown up. No, that isn't all that happened, though, because there was also, that is one thing that happened is that. Yes, that's one of the things that you made a choice with one second delay. So, there's different responses. Yeah, well, at least, you say,

at least, yes, back, yeah. Well, it was this subversion of beauty to the country. It was intolerance. It wasn't only subversion of duty, but it was clearly a marketing decision on their part. They made a YouTube video where they show how they tell her that she's on the cover, and obviously everybody's surprised, and they're filming her being surprised,

because they know that this is a marketing ploy to virtue signal to the world. So do both that. It's like, look, for me, it's like, which dog do you feed? Right, you have Justice Jackson. She said one thing you thought was dumb. You've said, just by dent of this conversation, a score of things that I think are dumb.

Probably some in the conversation itself And me too, right? It's like you could go back and rewind this and write me a manic email the night and take me Had a dog comment. Yeah, for example What the moon shifters. It's not bringing back up Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, that one. We'll cut that in that. That doesn't need to grow up in the daily wire I don't after we talked about showing greater discretion. But look, part of that is the point though, because one of the things you said that I thought was valid

is you said, look, you have to work up a certain amount of vehement to go up against the world. And that's true with this conversation with me. And part of it is I was like, look, I can't not make jokes that, I mean, I could if I was no better than I am. No, no, no, I have to get up ahead of steam. I have to get up ahead of steam. And it doesn't mean I feel that vehemently in some great moral sense.

There's tons of, you come back constantly and cut down my argument to size as you should. But so part of what you were saying is there's a certain amount of vehement that I need to enter the marketplace, especially newly out of a healing crisis in which you die. Well, with these pre-prepared, more journalistic pieces that I've done some of with the daily where I was doing them before, I read them and people are less happy about that in some sense, you know, because it's not spontaneous. But I wanted to think through the argument partly to address some of the issues we're describing. But then, for example, I recorded one this week, which was a criticism, let's say, of the Trudeau government.

And there's like 100 criticisms in the article. And it's very, it takes very much effort to lay out a argument like that that's 100 criticisms, and then to face down the government in some real sense, and it's very difficult to do that without building up somewhat of a head of steam. That's right. It's like, because it's easier just to lay in bed and read a Stephen King novel or something. That's right. Which is like the best thing that we should all be doing right now instead of this.

However, I totally agree. And so the standard for me, and that's the balance between what Urban was saying, was wisely saying, right? Because the point isn't that we cut you down to size and we take your rough edges off and we moderate you. That's what people think with moderation. We don't compromise. But we don't want to compromise. We want transcended. And transcended is if you think long enough you get to something that the majority of same people can agree on And that's better and subjugate themselves to to have something to aim out And that's the work that needs to be done

So if you take a misstep because you're human and because you're doing stuff that's incredible and because you're under an Amazing amount of pressure and because of different times your brain's broken, or revved wrong, all that matters is the humility which you're doing to address the complexity of it, and not do one of those hostage prison fake apologies. But there's a certain set of things that you could do to say, maybe you do owe that young woman an apology. I don't know. It's something to think about. What's the most important is that you're willing to hear the fact that you should

and entertain that as a realistic option. You can do whatever you want. See, I scoured my conscience, I would say, on this tweet, these tweet fronts in some sense. And I had the same response in some ways that you did in your dream, which was I didn't feel guilty, but by the same token, I didn't feel that I had done it optimally. Right. And so, and you hear these things and maybe that's, and you can't apologize.

And you won't apologize to a mob. If you apologize to a mob, you're coward. Yeah. Right. Don't apologize to a mob. Well, it also, and you never apologize to the same mob. Yeah, it's a mob. Because the mob's fluid.

It's like these mosquitoes, you would talk about. But yeah, it's like, oh, I will outsource an apology to a bunch of people who I don't know and who are not democratically elected as representatives of their party. Who it's like when people criticize me for something that I feel, it's like really over the, like 15 people who are of somewhat like

mind in my community, who I have like trust like 15 people who are of somewhat like mind in my community who I have trust and relationships with who criticize me way more vehemently than that. I'm gonna outsource this to you that I'm so super apologize to you. And you're really not even real. Well, that's the specific versus the general.

Like, of course you're, I have better critics than you. Not that's right. Yes, that's the more, that's right. You think you're critics. Right, like someone comes to you. Like I do Kellogg's. Yeah, whenever I, that's right. Yeah, Jim's right. That's right. Yes, that's the mom. That's right. You think you're critics? Right, like someone who knows the idea. Like I do Kelly, whenever I, that's right, yeah, Jim, right, with his like sunshine and unicorns of Jim.

Like Jim, tell me what you think, but just like, right, try it, like you need Matt, you need like, Zofran before he has Jim for advice. But so, right, and so part of it is is that we're, you can, but there are some, so it's like, well, what's the difference between apology that's performative and stupid and something that is,

they separate, they use it the week from the chat. And it's also a show of proper respect, which is, okay, you talk to Muslims not optimally. You talked about race and American not optimally. You talked about the Supreme Court justice not optimally. Given that you can't just flee the institutions and only talk to people who've been rejected by the institutions, among whom there's amazing people,

you have Bret Weinstein, you have James Orres not, you know what I mean, but close enough, right? But I mean, you have incredible people. We also aren't, I don't think we want to decimate all the institutions. Like, no, it isn't. If you want to go back and revive a fire. Well, that's when you get into a dangerous,

what I would say is a dangerous right wing populism. And I'd be talking to the conservatives about that. It's like, you cannot come out and say, well, the institutions are trivably corrupt. And that's certainly one of the dangers of the Trump side of the populist right. So what would be something like this is me thinking, not giving a directive.

So you don't go make some apology, and be like, I didn't understand race in America, and I'm sorry, and I'll read more Tony Morrison and Fox. Yeah, it's like, who cares? But what you could do is to take steps to ensure that Justice Jackson, who, whether you agree with her or not, and whether you agree with all the political IDC

that surrounded her, and maybe one dumb answer, is received in company that's around you with the due measure of respect and admiration that she deserves, and deserves to be disagreed with on other tenants. That's the thing that's owed for, I think, so- Well, look, you and I have been trying to do those sorts of things where we have the ability, because we've been trying to bring respectable Democrats into the conservative discussion. And I would say, and you can say what you want about this because I'd be interested

to hear it, but I think we've had more trouble finding Democrats who are willing to do that than we've been having trouble finding conservatives who will invite them to do that. Certain conservatives on the invite. I have no trouble with a whole tranche of conservatives. There are certain red lines. It's very hard to draw people across to it. That's why I think we should not go into that. So shall we close up with the Elliott Page tweet? I think that we've talked about it all through.

Yeah, we have. And I think that, I don't know, I don't know, there's more to really add. So here's with me, I mean, choose your words carefully. Yeah. Choose your words carefully. Criminal physician has a bunch of connotations. If you're, is it a criminal physician

if somebody gets their face tattooed 500 times if they get implants all over their body? There's a million things that adults do. Well, that's a good question. And that's a whole separate discussion, right? Because you have not really, because you're picking one out and you're not looking at the others just like you did with Justice Jackson. Well, you can't look at all of them at the same time.

But you look at one set particularly mostly recently. Yeah, but I know. I know that. But it's also the case that it's in that set is causing a tremendous amount of trouble. The first look, Greg, I knew when the pronoun bill came out, I knew that for every trans kid that was hypothetically saved, we would doom 100 confused adolescent females because it had already happened on the anorexia front. It was like, if you knew the literature, it was obvious what was going to happen. And so this is, there is an element of the argument

that's like, well, where do adults have the right to draw the line with regards to their own surgical transformation, Perfectly reasonable thing to debate. To what degree can physicians be complicit in this? Because there is a, there is a, a Hippocratic oath problem there. It's just because someone wants to, it pours implanted in their head, which people have had done. Doesn't mean the physician has a moral right to do that.

And I know that those lines have to be drawn. And the, the issue with regard to surgical enhancements, say, sexual surgical enhancement is also another borderline. But this is, there is a line here. It's like we're enticing young people with this fluidity issue. We're enticing young people to sterilize and mutilate themselves.

And not just a few, a lot. And the incidents has skyrocketed to the point where yesterday, the day before, the UK closed its primary gender transformation clinic. It's like so. This is not just a difference in degree. With porn, it isn't. With what?

With porn, it's kind. Porn is decimating. Oh, right. Well, right. And you think it's reasonable to Porn is decimating. Oh, right. Well, right. And porn has. And I think it's reasonable to say that I shouldn't have gone after the trans minor problem, because I didn't simultaneously go after the porn problem.

But you didn't go after a trans minor problem in a way that made any sense because you didn't? I don't know. Okay, well, I'm sorry. Let's say, like, Elliot Page is not a rapid onset gender dysphoria convert who spent too long at Marboroschool and LA. Maybe. This maybe.

Okay. I don't believe so. We can just let- I think you could make a case that he isn't. But he did it when this was not trendy. He did it when Ellen Page walked away from a lucrative quarter. Right, but people can be unbelievably confused

for a very long period of time. And the mere fact that it's been a long time that they've been confused doesn't mean that they've thought it through when they make their decision. And I would say it hasn't been thought for anyone. Okay, can he get a wooden of being public? That's the thing.

It's like, okay, you did it. Everything you think through wrong is public. And we're having a whole conversation about the fact that you make mistakes. So here's enticing adolescent girls to sterilize themselves. Okay, but are you enticing when you make that comment about a swimsuit model, young men who worship you and think that you're saint likelike to act like pigs to women.

No, but I might be encouraging them to not respect the things I'm saying because I'm being incosious. And I would say even if the first act is same with Elliot Page. Okay, yeah, but the consequences here. It's okay. Look, you had your psychological problems, whatever they might be. I'm not going to argue about what they are. You rectified them in a very, very dramatic way, and perhaps that was your right, and perhaps it was the right of the surgeons, although I'm not convinced of either of those things, by the way.

It may be the case, but I'm not convinced of it. But then you made it not only public, but triumphantly public. I finally found my true self and I'm a model for emulation. It's like, I don't think so. But if he did, do you believe anyone is trans? I wouldn't, like with all the variations in the world,

including so many. I know the answer to that question. Someone comes to me and asks me that question because people have asked me those questions and the answer is we need to talk about it for 5,000 hours. That's the answer. Okay. So, and so, okay. Because who knows what someone really is? I mean, none of us know who we really are. So if it were to, I believe that that that men can be born in women's bodies, I certainly don't believe that statement is this is in any way an adequate representation of either the problem set or the solution. Here's an example. Do you believe that anorexic women who think they're too thin are too thin? Because they sure think they are and I really I do not see how that's not analogous and

You know, we wouldn't have I don't say for me. This is where it taxs to the personal. Yeah, where I have a friend a family member who lesbian Working class Mexican Really funny really irreverent. Went through therapy, master's degree, two years of therapy, calmly decide huge fan of yours. Yeah. Listen, see you every night, went through transition, only questions that he came to me with were,

how do I be a better man? Because I always say it's hard enough to be one gender, to do one gender well. Half of us aren't doing it right. It's hard enough to be gay, and then if you want to switch gender. And to me, in this individual, and I don't want to get into stats and numbers,

because it's a different argument, and I probably can't keep up. Yeah, this person is the fullest embodiment of who he is meant to be, and it's somebody who I know intimately. Maybe. Well, as much as you could judge any, as much as you are for me in my eyes.

So whatever my opinion estimation is worth. Well, okay, that'll switch things into a slightly different, so argument. I'm willing to accept that, because I already said that. So if that's an acceptance Well, okay, that'll switch things into a slightly different, so argument. I'm willing to accept that because I already said that. So give that to acceptance then. Again, wait a sec, there's contingency. Okay. If in finding your true identity, you violate a cultural norm that's so profound that you destabilize the entire country, the entire culture, then maybe you don't have the right to do that, even if it actualizes yourself. Mm, but then-

See, I don't know, right? Is the manner of Twitter, right, like how many people who are not activists are you engaged with regularly with their opinions in the public marketplace of ideas? Like, not a lot, right? There's a bit, they haven't had a full negotiation with the American public yet, right?

There's no RV milk, there's no Martin Luther King. Like, it's a conversation that hasn't happened. And it's, and it's, and it's easy to, that branch of the, the LGBTQ plus community should be conceptualized in that manner. That's the thing that liberals do immediately. This is another civil rights battle. It's like, yeah, oh no.

But what I'm saying is, well, maybe, but maybe not gets proven if somebody can come forth who appropriately negotiates with the culture exceptance in a manner that is moral. And by moral, it doesn't mean, like, so John Lewis. There's another problem that's emerged out of this that's very very complicated it's like okay so now the trans community is brought into the realm of normativity in some sense let's say and so now and here's where the wheel that wheel hits the road it's now you're a 10 year old and you're you're

wondering about your gender identity and your sexuality or maybe you're 11 and you're a 10-year-old and you're wondering about your gender identity and your sexuality, or maybe you're 11, and you're confused because maybe you're a pretty feminine boy, and maybe you're tilted biologically towards being homosexual, and now the conversation is, well, maybe you should be castrated. And the answer to that question is, yeah, maybe that'll happen. And then there's another question that comes up, is like, so is it so clear that the gay community is better off under the ages of the Trans and Brelah than they were under the ages of the monos, the heterosexual monogamous?

And the answer to that seems to me to be, not only are they not better off, they're way, way worse, way, there's one more thing. There's one more thing. The inclusion violates the ideal and the norm. And you think, well, that's necessary, because then it includes. But one of the consequences might be that if you extend the ideal so that it's too inclusive, you blow the ideal

so that it's even worse for those who are marginalized. Yeah, yeah. And I already do think that's happening. I know that. And I disbattle. I do too. I do too. And I agree with everything that you've said about the complexities and the thing that is the hardest is the removal of counsel Teachers physicians everybody

Psychologists who are no longer no longer allowed to have these conversations and I'm say well how do I know they're not allowed to have these Conversations in the answer is because I have 10 lawsuits against me for having these conversations. However, badly I'm having them. So now we are so logically transformed children that we are not allowed to talk to. Yes. And I think that Elliott Page aided and abetted that. Okay. And, quite successfully. So there's two conversations that we're having, and it's important to break it down. So one of them is in me saying, do you think anyone's trans?

There's not a clear answer you can get for that. I have a different opinion that I believe that there are people that that is their fullest most embodied self. That's my opinion. You don't need to share it. Well, I would just say I don't know, because I have to talk to them.

Great. So then, so talk to them. I mean, people have all sorts of weird identities, of course. God only knows. But so part of it for me, and then there's the whole issue of how it's moving through the culture, which I do not want to defend because I don't agree with that. So I don't want to get pulled into a defense from me saying this, if you saying, well, that's what you liberals do all the time. You bring it in and you normalize it,

and you pull it, and then you decimate what the norm is. I'm saying, well, there's no saying- Well, I'm saying- And the advantage is to bringing in the margins into the center, to the degree that you can manage. But what I'm saying is, is it has, that is a conversation that has gone too fast, given Twitter and the pace of conversation.

Like, if you're blowing up Dave Chappelle, right? Right. And Dave Chappelle is like special. Especially for that comedy performance. Did you listen to it? Right, right. You think up Dave Chappelle, right? And Dave Chappelle is like, especially for that comedy performance. Did you listen to it? You think he's anti-trans? Are you utterly clueless? I would never hesitate to have Dave Chappelle at my house with my transgender gods on at the table

and think it would be anything. He's like the most soulful gesture of the court. And you can't cut down the court gesture because they're the source of wisdom and saying things that aren't allowed to be sad. And you can't cut down the court jester because they're the source of wisdom and saying things that aren't allowed to be sad. And you don't get to cut the line in front of everybody else to do it either. But part of that is also like with your issue, well, who's democratically electing that leadership to criticize him? Well, no one. It's like who knows what anybody thinks about anything. So that's part of why I'm saying, I don't

want to wear and have an argument with you about the entire movement of trends through the culture and all the ways that that's being mismanaged. Because we're in agreement on a lot of that. But I'm saying if there is an absolute version of it, then again, landing here from outer space and you get to pick your team of experts that this is something you want to discuss. As a world, the most famous psychologist in the world. Yeah, well, I think part of the moral of this story is, and this, and this right be the fundamental issue, is Twitter is not the place to have a discussion about your existence. And when you set it on a set, I think maybe because we did want a wrap up.

Yeah, we should wrap up. We should wrap up. I'm going to get one thing in and then I want your wrap up. Okay, and so how you did it was in preciseise because it was like everyone was confused about it. If you want a real solution, in some ways I think any real solution has to involve both instead of just like crushing and subverting. So who would be a really interesting conversation

like this one for you to have, is if you and Elliot Page reset in another time. I have someone in the UK, I think you can talk. And you're willing to say, you know what it's like if I take you at your word of what it feels like to be trapped in the UK I think I can talk to. And you're willing to say, you know what it's like if I take you at your word of what it feels like to be trapped in the wrong body. Here's kind of what's happening.

What are your concerns? Well, where am I did with Rubin on the issue of gay parents? That's right. It's a missed opportunity to do the thing that you are in many regards best suited to do, which is say, okay, well, where's your line and where's my line and here's a bunch of concern and you have concern to if a bunch of kids if there's a wave of rapid onset gender dysphoria and a whole bunch of kids are having hormonal conversions that are irreversible for the ready you don't want them stuck in the wrong body what's the ball where do you think the balance is. Where do you think the balance is? Yep. Pulling out from the details of the different tweets

and the different messages that have come out, I think that one of the things that Greg is expressing, and I think that there are actually, you would be surprised to know that he's not just expressing it from the left. Like there's also, I know conservative right when people that have expressed some, just a concern about role.

And that is something that you have to decide also what your role is, because the way in which many of us perceive you is a role which is able to raise to be raised up above the frame of politics without being afraid of getting into politics, but is able to raise up above the frame of politics and is able to kind of cross over and disarm each side to a certain extent because the manner in which you have people don't realize this but the manner to which

you have de-radicalized people that were moving in a frightening way towards the right and the manner in which you have pulled people who thought that people who are going also in the left and they didn't know where they were, you were able to kind of tell them look, this is not what you think. You can think certain ways and it doesn't, you've been able to really act as that strange pivot. And so I think that in a way, if there's a lot of weight on you, it's very heavy.

But I think that maybe that is what you're seeing. It's not as heavy as doing it wrong. Yeah, but maybe that's what you're seeing is you're just seeing this call of people saying, look, if you fall into into the pundit, we're going to lose that which we love the most about Jordan. And so yeah, just say be attentive. Is the only thing I think of the call. And you know what the left doesn't realize? And the means, let's say the the the part of society that doesn't understand or judges Jordan in ways that are unfair rather than fair, so negative judgment, is the amount of

work he's done pulling people out and criticizing the alt-right. That's been a huge role, right? And if you're on this side of the fence, everyone's like, he's creating the alt-right, he's participating in positive masculinity and enforcement agony that doesn't have the meaning that anybody thinks that it has. But there's whole podcasts where you're speaking to the alt-right in a manner that is unbelievably critical

and offering a different path out. And you had one person who wrote you a letter last time we were there that I don't think you've talked about publicly. The high school? A high school is who literally was gonna be a high school shooter who said, I was gonna go shoot up my high school.

And I listened to you and I didn't shoot up my high school. And I thought, and got help and was inappropriate hands at that point. And I thought, that's like a, that's a piece of script. Like the importance of that thing that happened, it's like so literally there now are a number of families in a whole community whose kids weren't murdered as a result of that.

And so if there's certain things people are worried about, you always say if you, if you, always say if you're afraid of weak men, I'm sorry, if you're afraid of strong men, you should be terrified of what weak men can accomplish. And so that's the part of it. And so that's why these small, seemingly small, corruptions in the facade, where it's like you're not being gentlemanly, you're not being this.

It feels nitpicky in the face of so much of what you're doing, but it's, no, no, the details matter. The details matter. That's why Elliot Page and the swimsuit model matter. That's right. That's right. That's not just details. That's right.

And you getting that right is important because the more that people on the right who have said, hang on a minute, I was going alt-right, I don't want to go alt-right, I don't want to go far-right and part of that's Jordan Peterson and people on the left who said, I don't want to go far-left, I'm liberal, I'm still going to stay liberal, but there's a whole bunch about him that pulled me out and moved me towards transcendent values, responsibility, right? Responsibility more than humility. That was your... And humility, right? And love, community.

Well, good, that's what we're trying to do. So, we're trying to do it with this conversation. That's right. Responsible humility. On both our parts, on all of our parts, is to engage in the discussion of your faith and see if we can figure out how to do this. Well, Johnathan is moving forward.

Johnathan's been insufferable, but I think we did a good job on that front. All right. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Greg. It's definitely a tribute, I think. Indiana, it is a tribute to you that you're even willing to do this. I agree.

We appreciate it. Yeah, well, I'm more terrified of the alternative than of the conversation. And that's definitely the case. So, all right. Thank you all who are watching and listening and appreciate the time and attention and to the daily wire crew. That's also much appreciated. Thank you. That's rap, gentlemen.