The Megyn Kelly Show - Jordan Peterson on Radical Honesty, Raising Kids, and Getting Your House in Order | Ep. 84

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Jordan Peterson, author of the new book "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life," to talk about radical honesty and marriage, parenting and raising kids you want to be around, getting your house in order, confronting the darkness within, identity and the value of discussion, equality in America, his own marriage, the gender roles for men and women, men and women in the workplace, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today, Jordan Peterson, the one and only. I've really been looking forward to this interview. I've never met him. I've never spoken to him, but I i i've never met him i've never spoken to him but i have seen so many videos i've read his books his massive book that was hugely hugely popular 12 rules for life an antidote to chaos was an international bestseller it's over 4 million sales the new york times let me put it to you this way. The New York Times has called him the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now. And he is. He's taken a lot of risks. He's put himself out there to defend free speech. And of course, he's taken a lot of

crap because of it. And I admire his courage and willingness to take the slings and arrows because they have come his way. He's got a new book out, which we'll get into 12 more rules in a book called Beyond Order. And he's got just a different way of thinking about the world. And unlike most of us, he has spent his life thinking about the world, thinking about our problems, thinking about history, and how does it affect what we're seeing now in the culture and the claims of the patriarchy. And, you know, he's a, he's like a hero to a lot of young men in particular, because he's one guy who pushes back on some of these claims, like it's a massive patriarchal system that's been created to stifle anyone who's not a white male. Well, you hear him talk in some

of his lectures about how, well, lobsters have a hierarchical system and were descended from them ultimately. And so like, did the lobsters create it? Or was it like really the white men who got together at a roundtable and created things the way they are? Anyway, my point is that Jordan Peterson has thought about all these issues and has deep thoughts on all of these issues. And I really enjoyed talking to him. We got into like a more personal side of him. We got into some of the comments he's made on women, both alleged and real, because of course the press exaggerates what he says and take things out of context. We had some spicy back and forth, which was fun too, all in good spirits. But I think when you

listen to Jordan, you'll learn and you might feel inspired to do better in your life. And you might feel inspired to try harder and read more and think the way Jordan does, even if you agree or disagree with the things he says. Anyway, I know you're going to enjoy the back and forth. If I do say so myself, it's pretty compelling. I got the chance to listen to the interview before we released it. And I just thought I'd give it like one year just to make sure everything was cool and the sound was good. Usually my team does it, but I was like, I'm going to make sure on this one. And I couldn't pull my ears away. And I hope you feel the same. So we'll get to him in one second, but first this. Hello, Megan. Jordan Peterson, what a pleasure. I'm so excited to be talking to you. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. I have been neck deep in Jordan Peterson, YouTube videos, all of your website, your

books. And I have to say, it's been really illuminating. And I'm just coming off of a two week vacation with my family. And I just thought to myself, what a small person I am. I've literally been sitting around thinking, how can I get the self-tanner to last more than five days? And you've been actually trying to figure out the meaning of life. Well, sometimes the meaning of life is whether or not you can get your tanner to work. And when things are going well enough so that that's a concern, that's definitely a time to be grateful for things. Well said. You know, it's funny. My husband and I went out to dinner, just the two of us,

one night on our vacation. And all the other nights we had our kids. And my little guy, Thadger, who's seven, sent me the most pathetic, sweet little voicemails while I was out. And it was all about how he really needed some help finding his Kit Kat. Mommy, I can't find my Kit Kat. You said I can't find my Kit Kat. You said I could have it. It's been two days. It was the sweetest thing. And I thought, just what you said, if this is my kid's biggest problem,

I'm doing a good job and he's a happy boy. And, you know, we sort of have it made. But I did look around while reading your book at some other families that were at the beach. We were in the Bahamas and saw some evidence of the thing you point out in your book, which is, and you've said in your lectures, not everybody really enjoys their children. And it's okay to admit that. And it's okay to admit a lot of negative feelings that you may be having about your spouse, about your life, about yourself.

And it's much better than the alternative of repression. Well, it's failure to unpack, you know, and with your kids, if they're annoying you or you're not taking pleasure in them, it's worth noting that and not pretending that it's the opposite and then trying to figure out what to do about it. And that's difficult and horrible, but it's a lot better than the alternative, which is endless misery and then alienation. I mean, if you're, you know, families can have unfortunate circumstances and no amount of striving will pull them out of it. But generally speaking, if you're not enjoying your kids, well, something needs to change and can be changed. But first of all, you have to admit it.

How do you figure out, you know, I don't know. I looked at the news while I was gone, you know, and it was the darkest of the dark, right? We had more than one to mass shootings while I was away. And it keeps happening. You know, we had the massage parlor situation. We had the Colorado supermarket. And when I see this from afar, what I see is everybody wants to figure out what went wrong. Like, what's wrong? You know, like, is this kid crazy?

Was this kid raised by bad parents? Is it a Columbine situation where they just hate the world? Is it a white supremacist? Is it somebody who hates Asians? Is it about the guns? We got to ban the guns. And having covered so many of these, Jordan, my takeaway is basically always that we search so hard for understanding, for a reason, because we want to tell ourselves that we can prevent the next one. And if we can find the reason, we can prevent the next one. But the thing is, we never do or can prevent the next one. Well, not of events like that. Part of the reason that I'm motivated to do what I've been doing is to help people broadly avoid ending up in the kind of horrible pit where they might be motivated to do such things. So you can do something about the causes of such events on a general scale, but

when you're dealing with a nation of 300 million people and a planet of 7 billion people, there are going to be random, essentially rare, psychopathological events, and the idea that you can predict them and somehow bring them under control in any specific sense. It's just nonsensical. First of all, even though they're far more common than anyone would like, they're still unbelievably rare. So it's very difficult to do anything about statistically improbable events. But what does it mean? Because you talk in your new book now, Beyond Order, about paying attention above all, even to what is monstrous and malevolent. What does that mean? Because I look at those acts and I'm thinking, that's what those are. But is that what you're trying to straighten up the world, I suppose, if you're concerned about the dismal state of the world, my estimation, it's safest in some sense to work on your own trouble and to note your own contributions to look at what's dark in your own psyche to look to notice when you're envious to notice when you're jealous to notice when your anger gets out of control to notice when you're lying about who you like and and who you don't like or when you're trying

to put yourself up on a pedestal for some reason and to note your moral inadequacies in that sense and to pay attention to your conscience. All of this is extremely important, and it's the right focus as far as I'm concerned, as opposed to paying attention to the more general evil in the world, at least to begin with. Once you have your house in order, well, maybe you can start solving wider-scale problems

if you have the ability and the will will but until then it's better to confront the darkness within as far as i'm concerned that straightens up your own life and that's of inestimable value to everyone around you so and you don't you know you don't do any harm in that right i mean that's the thing is you're experimenting in your own domain at that point the other thing too is that if you don't confront malevolence, if you don't understand it, then you're completely, you lay yourself completely open to it. If you confuse your naivety with goodness,

and people often do that, you know, I wouldn't harm anyone is generally shorthand for I couldn't if I wanted to, which isn't an indicator of strength. It's an indicator of lack of ability. If you have no theory of malevolence and no familiarity with it, you're an easy target. You're a pushover.

You can't defend yourself. And that means that people who are like that or forces that have that nature, you have no defense against them. And there's nothing moral about that. You know, I remember 20 years ago or thereabouts when the terrible genocidal processes were seeping through what was once Yugoslavia. The foreign minister in Canada said, Lloyd Axworthy was his name. He was a pretty well-seasoned politician.

He said he just didn't have the imagination for that kind of evil. And I thought, well, what the hell are you doing being foreign minister then? I presume he was familiar with the Holocaust and with what happened in the Soviet Union and Maoist China and Cambodia, et cetera, et cetera. How would you dare be foreign minister and not have the imagination for that kind of evil?

So what happens when you meet someone like that? Well, they're going to walk all over you. And he thought that was, I'm so moral, I couldn't imagine that. Like, no, you're so timid that you won't go there. That's not the same thing at all. Just study history. Well, history and just to pay attention to what's going on around you and your own family,

often terrible things happen to families with great frequency. So, you know, we started this conversation with your observations about the beach and seeing people who don't enjoy their children. I mean, if you see a family where the relationships between the children and the adults are seriously disturbed, you don't have to pay attention for very long until you see some really dark things.

I mean, it's very dark. It's very dark to not love your child. You know, and you may have all the reasons in the world, but that doesn't mean that there isn't something terrible going on there. Deeply terrible. I've seen that sort of thing in my clinical practice over and over and over. Kids who had no words of encouragement from their parents, in fact, were punished continually every time they did anything good. What? Why? Well, it happened all the time. Well, let's say that you don't want your children to leave because all the meaning in your life is a consequence

of being a necessary primary caregiver. So that every time you see your children do anything that moves them towards independence, it's a threat to your own security. So what you do through blindness is fail to attend or punish every time the child does something that would indicate competence. Oh, wow. Now that's- It happens all the time.

It does? That's the dark. Yes, it happens all the time. I've never seen, I feel like I have a pretty wide web of friends and mothers and so on, and we all have different things that we complain about or brag about with respect to our children, but being so in need of their constant presence that you ruin their maturation and independence, gosh, that's, I mean, that's pathological. Well, that's how maturation and independence get ruined. And it's not like it's uncommon. Really?

No, it happens all the time. And, you know, the other thing that you see in families very frequently is really the hallmark of proper behavior for children, or the measure of proper behavior in children, because you want your children to be desirable to other people. That's the best gift you can possibly give them. So let's say your children act in ways that shed a dim light on your abilities as a parent or interfere with your own activities the children are too demanding so you never have any time for yourself or any time for your

husband or wife and they misbehave and you're embarrassed about that and angry and then instead of doing something about it instead of noting that you know your child will run up to you at one point with something they've accomplished like a drawing that they spent a lot of time on or you know some manifestation of a special talent. And because you're annoyed at them chronically, you'll just fail to attend to it properly. And so you punish them for their virtue, and that's revenge against them for acting in an undisciplined manner. And that happens all the time. I know. One of your, one of your rules is to basically raise children who you want to be around. Don't,

don't raise children who you don't want to be with. And I love that because I just, I mean, instinctively we've been living that just like, I think it's just a matter of not having too much time on our hands and being somewhat selfish. It's like, I don't want to be around you when you're like that. And I got to tell you, as your mother, nobody else is going to want to be around you when you're like that either. So either stop doing that or we're going to have a problem

because you are in this family and if you want to stay here, right? So it's, and they get that. Like they can totally get that, that it's like a bargain. I'll let you go this far, but I won't let you go that far. And it's really not that hard

to sort of reason with them about bad behavior. You don't have to have a complete level 10 meltdown all the time. and fathers of course too but mothers doing terrible things to their children you know incomprehensibly terrible things and you think well how can that happen and generally what it is is that the parent and has very ineffective disciplinary strategies and a very underdeveloped disciplinary philosophy and lets the child get away with blue murder and is extraordinarily angry about it because they're being tortured constantly by their child and then one day you know the child goes too far and maybe mom has just lost her job or broke up with her boyfriend or is hung over and she just has had it and snaps and then you know all hell breaks loose and all the punishment that should have been meted out all the discipline that should have been meted out over two years is compressed into a single episode

and the result is catastrophic. And so, because you can't, if you're an adult and you're constantly being what, dominated by your two-year-old,

your three-year-old, there's not a possibility that that's not going to enrage you at some level. So, what do you do with all that rage? that's not going to enrage you at some level. So what do you do with all that rage? It's not going to just vanish. It's nurtured. And you have to notice that and think, well, I can actually dislike my child.

Well, what kind of person am I? Well, that is the kind of person you are. It's exactly that. And you should be. Now, maybe you're unreasonable and you know your your criteria for being upset aren't appropriate but that hopefully you'll have a partner some other people you can talk to to help you check your own pathology so you don't mistreat your children or use counterproductive disciplinary strategies but you know and i see

parents all the time who are afraid to discipline their children. They don't even like the idea of discipline, even though they think of discipline as punishment, and all discipline equals punishment. Any constraint on the child is an impediment to their creative ability, et cetera, et cetera, and that's all rubbish. And children without discipline are often terrorized, terror in terror, because they

have no limits. And they can't tolerate that because they're not competent. So no limits faces them with a terrible, with the terrible reality that they're in charge, and they have no idea what to do. Well, you're talking about letting things build up. And I know you feel the same way about relationships. There's something in the book, Rule 3,, maybe especially during the COVID quarantine who just choose not to have the fight because they want, they'd rather keep the peace and you're trying to tell people. No, they'd rather,

they'd rather pretend that the peace is there that work for it. That's, that's the reality of it. I mean, some it's often too, because people don't know how to negotiate. They're just not taught how to negotiate we're very bad at teaching our society is very bad at teaching negotiating skills and it's really too bad but people it's very difficult to establish peace

in a household true peace and what's substituted for that often is, well, we don't fight. We never fight. Well, then you never talk about anything important. Or one of you is rolling over. One of you is pretending. Or both of you are. Because two people can't live together and not disagree. Because they're not the same person. Plus, things are really complicated. Life is really complicated.

And if you're not disagreeing about certain things, you're actually not thinking about them. You should disagree about your finances because how to handle your finances mutually is a really difficult problem. And so if you're not disagreeing about it, that means you're actually not discussing it. You're not walking through the full range of options. I mean, thought itself is a dialectical process, right? It's a form of internal disagreement. And couples can engage in mutual thinking by taking opposing positions. And then you think it through. And because the question of how to arrange your household finances, maybe one of you

works at a salary job and the other stays at home and takes care of the children or something like that. Well, how do you divide the money? Well, how can you, it's not like you're going to magically come up with a solution to that, that both people instantly agree on. It's a really complicated problem. It's, it's, it's attached to the problem of how you value domestic labor, how it should be valued. And our whole society hasn't really figured that out. Right. So I just think you've got, you've got some good points about, I've a long time ago, I heard a guy who was, he was a proponent of what he called radical honesty.

And his whole point was, you got to say the thing, just got to say the thing that's on your mind, even if you'd rather filter it, you'd rather not, quote, hurt the other person. But ultimately, the radical honesty program, if not, if not, you know, you're not intending to be hurtful, you're just intending to be honest. And it might have the effect of being hurtful short program, but but I think that sort of general approach to understand that it's not it's not mean to say how you feel just because it might wind up hurting the other person's feelings. It's actually it's almost a compliment to them. It's it's honoring your marriage. Well, it might be mean. So I would say I am a proponent of radical honesty, but virtually no, like morality is complicated enough to require virtue across multiple dimensions simultaneously. So if you're going to tell the truth within a relationship, you could use the truth as a weapon. Now, you might regard that as a form of untruth if the truth is weaponized, and that's actually true, but it's a complex distinction. But in order to tell the truth within a relationship, there are certain preconditions that have to be met. You have to have vowed to trust each other

and both honor that vow and decided that that's actually the case. You both have to be honestly working towards what's best for each of you and the relationship. So you have to be oriented towards a positive outcome for the relationship. Then you have to have some humility because let's say I tell you what's on my mind. It's like, look, we went to this. So I'm speaking to you as if you're my wife. We went to this party yesterday, you know, and I saw you sitting in the corner with mark and you know you were a little too close and i wasn't exactly sure i liked what was going on but you know maybe i'm jealous and stupid

and i'm completely off base with my uh characterization and if so i'd really like to clear that up and so I'd like to hear your interpretation. And like, that's not false. It's like, well, maybe you were flirting and maybe I'm a jealous idiot, or maybe a little bit of both. But wouldn't it be good if we could sort it through so we both knew? But if you're going to do that, if you're going to throw forward a feeling-based accusation, which can obviously be damaging to the other person, you have to accompany that with the willingness to assume that your fault might be as great in the error you're making with the accusation as the

fault that you're pointing out. And that's another thing that stops people from being radically honest. It's like, well, I feel this way, but it doesn't mean I'm right. It might mean that I'm so warped that I'm feeling something completely inaccurate. And so by throwing that out at you, I'm going to have to look at me to see what makes me so bent.

So all of that stops you, if you're at least a bit alert alert from using the truth as a weapon, because it certainly will absolutely backfire on you if it's actually the truth. are, no matter how petty you may think they are in your head. And it requires some courage to do so because you know, at some level, they might be petty, they might make you look bad, they might not be well founded, but it will be a relief to you to discuss them if you approach it the right way. And it will be potentially, you know, good for your relationship. And I'm telling you, I can relate to this so much. I've had, Doug and I have a great marriage. And I think one of the reasons we have a great marriage is because we do say this stuff. We were skiing a couple of years ago and I got mad at him because I was convinced when

we got to the flat light Hills, he was making me go first because he wanted somebody to cut the trail who he could keep an eye on because it was very difficult to see. It's absurd. This is, of course, not what he was doing, but it was in my head. I was getting progressively ticked off. It just seemed to me every time we got to a flat light trail, he was like, do you want to lead? And finally, I told him, I'm like, I'm mad. I'm like, you're making me go first on the flat light trails because you need somebody. And he was like, what are you talking about? Absolutely not, honey. And then he had an explanation for what was going on. And we both wound up laughing about it. I was so glad I said it. And now it's just like an ongoing joke between us. But it is hard to show how petty we can sometimes be. Yeah, well, the only thing that can convince you to show that is is some

consideration of how terrible it would be if you stayed that petty for the next you know 40 years and so i don't know if it's so much courage that that that is what pushes you forward to that kind of admission as terror of the right thing it's like well i could either look petty now or be petty for four decades. So, well, anyone with any sense would, well, because problems don't go away of their own accord, generally speaking. Like if you have a habit of some sort, it just, it doesn't vanish.

You have to modify it. And if it doesn't vanish, you just bring those things forward endlessly. And so people can be having the same problems with their siblings that they had when they were 12, when they're 60. And that happens all the time too. It's the norm more than the exception.

I would say that might be pessimistic, but I don't think so. I've seen it, at least in some aspects, I've seen it very commonly. Up next, getting personal with Jordan about his own marriage and how that's going. So stay tuned for that. But first this. It seems to me from where I sit that you have a good marriage. You've been married to Tammy for a long time. I know obviously you two, you both have had hellish couple of years physically health wise, but she's, she's gotten through her cancer, which you read about in the book, and you're on your way toward mending.

But do you practice what you preach, and do you feel like you and she have what you'd call a happy marriage? I do my best to practice what I preach, although I would say that I include myself conceptually in the audience that I'm talking to, I'm not presuming like the rules that I lay out. And they could have been other rules because there's many valid principles that you can use to guide your life. They're not coming down from on high, you know, for me, essentially. There are things that I strive towards and the chapters are explorations of that striving.

And I think that's part of why I get away with it, so to speak, you know, because why should someone who's handing down rules be popular, be listened to? It's a pretty presumptuous thing to do, or it can be. So how can you approach that without being necessarily hypocritical or self-righteous or any of those things you know perhaps i'm sure a certain number of people would argue that i am exactly all those things but the public response doesn't seem to indicate that that's widespread feeling quite the contrary but i think the reason for that is is that i know these things are very difficult to attain their ideals right to do them perfectly that's an ideal and we all fall short of the ideal constantly but that doesn't mean we can't strive to do it and tammy and i both decided when we got married that we were going to tell each other the truth and

that that is that we provided by that to the degree that both of us were capable of doing that so at least if it wasn't uh uh 100 honesty it was an honest attempt on both people's parts and that continues and that's got us through some very hard times so so far and on god willing that will continue so um but it's a real relief to have someone to talk to. I mean, because now and then you find that you're in trouble. And you need to be able to say that you're in trouble. And you need, because you're in trouble. And if you're in trouble, you don't know what to do about it.

Because otherwise you wouldn't be in trouble. You would have avoided it or fixed it. And if you don't have a history of being able to tell your partner everything essentially um then you're alone when you most need someone and and that's exactly when it's so good to be married you know i mean that's part of the strength of a marriage is that there isn't just one of you there's two of you and that's better it's it's it of you, and that's better. It makes you more resilient and robust, well, and less lonesome and all sorts of other things as well. Often you go to social events, familial events, but social events where there's discomfort. There's unspoken discomfort characterizing the gathering.

People are pretending to get along, but there's unbelievable tension just under the surface. That's why Christmas and events like that are often so difficult for people you know everyone's walking on eggshells and smiling at the same time and it's really really stressful to live like that and it's way better to have the fight sporadically sort things out so that now and then you can actually have some genuine peace because now you know there might come a time when you really need it i know well you've been you've been through it i mean how she probably just thought you becoming famous was going to be the most difficult thing you guys are going to go through together and then for some reason i don't know you tell me what what it was but the universe unleashed some personal and medical hell on you two.

You're still standing. I don't know. What do you think about that? There is a saying like the universe did this or the universe did that. Do you believe the universe somehow brought this upon you? Do you believe you bring trauma, physical health otherwise upon yourself in some way? Well, the degree to which you're responsible for what happens to you is always questionable. I mean, you certainly can't say in any realistic sense that people are finally 100% responsible

or at fault for everything that happens to them, because you'd have to say that it's everyone's moral inadequacies that make up their mortality. Everyone's died. And I suppose in some abstract sense, maybe some ultimate religious sense, you could say, well, that's because we fall short of the glory of God. And perhaps that's true. But in any realistic human sense, we're all vulnerable to fate and accident. And you always have to factor that in because, you know, otherwise, every time you get sick, you have cancer, let's say, or something like that, or a family member does, not only are they sick, but they have to presume that if they weren't morally at fault, this wouldn't have happened. It's like, well, look, if you act immorally, virtually by definition, the probability that bad things are going to happen to you is much increased.

But that doesn't mean that every time something bad happened to you, there's a moral fault lying underneath it. So I don't see that that's disputable. Because we're fragile, we're susceptible to earthquakes, you know, lightning bolts, acts of God. the situation and trying to discern moral culpability, because maybe if you did something stupid and it made you vulnerable, you'll learn not to do it again. But, you know, you don't want to take that too far. Yeah. Well, I look at you and I see somebody whose life has changed so dramatically since you first came out with that video, refusing. Well, you were objecting. This was the big thing about you. It's funny because a lot of people brought your story to me and said,

oh, yeah, you should talk to this guy. And so many times, Jordan, people have been like, oh, it'd be great to see you're going to kill this guy. You're going to battle him on women's issues. And then I started actually reading what you were writing. I'm like, oh, but I agree with a lot of I don't I'm not looking to do battle with him. I actually think he's got a lot of great points because once you actually read what you've said, you've been grossly misrepresented by a lot of people who write about you because you're not some hardcore, I don't know, woke, cancel culture, identity politics activist. So you first sort of came to national or international because you're Canadian prominence, I think. You know, you taught everywhere, Harvard and Toronto, and you

were a very respected intellectual, but fame didn't really come until you took a stance on the Canadian law. Law, they were going to outlaw and did, right? Anybody from refusing to say somebody's chosen pronouns. Like, you'd be violating the law. Yes, there's a Canadian man in jail right now because of that. And it happened exactly the way I thought it was. He was jailed for contempt of court. A dad? Yes, a dad.

That was the pathway to jail that I saw emerging as a consequence of this bill. And people said, well, I was exaggerating the danger. And I thought, no, it's a law. You break the law and you continue to break it. Then mechanisms kick in and eventually the punishment is force. That's how law works. And so that is how it works. And, you know, I was unhappy with the law because I believe that it was an unwarranted intrusion by the government into the domain of free speech. And I do believe that.

And certainly I believe that in the United States that law couldn't have held. And there was a challenge here recently, sixth court of appeal in Kansas, I think, indicating that those sorts of provisions are probably illegal, even as workplace guidelines. In any case, I thought that the government had overstepped its boundaries. And recently, I realized also that I was upset about the theory of identity that constituted the core element, one of the core elements of the bill. And so, yeah, that's what initiated all of this. In what year was that? 2016, in the fall. So you decided to stay on that one. But there was another element to that too,

because what happened was, well, that accounted for the first 15 minutes or the first week of of public attention let's say but this has been going on like i've been at the center of of public attention for almost five years now and part of the reason for that is that even from the beginning people went to my website to youtube actually because of the news reports but I already had 200 hours of videos up at that point and so it was the that fact that at least in part made this continue because it turned out that I was talking about something that well other people weren't talking about and still aren't talking about. But starting to.

But I mean, I think the thing about you is you have the intellectual goods to back up the things you're saying. You've got really deeply thought out positions on these issues and are looking for conversation. You're looking for discussion. What could be more laudable? But of course, as you know,

the other side in these identity issues are they're not looking for discussion they're looking to stifle discussion and as this canadian dad just found out sitting in a jail cell because he doesn't he won't call his biological daughter a boy and he's objecting to her getting testosterone and the judge has actually declared that the parents must affirm the gender switch or they will be implicated in a criminal offense there's no doubt about that i mean he's in jail for complex reasons he he was also forbidden to speak to the press and continued to um there's a variety of reasons that he actually ended up in jail but it it it doesn't in some sense it doesn't matter it's

smoke and mirrors in some sense because the the point is that he is in jail for discussing the issues that I thought people might end up in jail for discussing. And this trans issue, I mean, as a clinician, I just can't help but see that the proper and moral way forward is the actuarial way forward. And the data that existed before all the politically correct discussion around this topic emerged was that about 85% of children with gender dysphoria accepted their biological reality

by the time they were 18. And so the prudent thing to do, which is what you should do if you're a physician or a psychologist, a clinician, prudent thing to do, which is what you should do if you're a physician or a psychologist, a clinician, prudent thing to do is say, hold off. But that's not what's written into the law now, and the laws are getting ever more restrictive in that regard. And so now it's the treatment of choice from the legal perspective is transition if the child demands it and no one is allowed including medical professionals allowed to question that in a manner that might be regarded as interfering and god only knows when the discussion of an issue like that becomes interfering i can tell you as a as a practicing clinician um I would be unbelievably loath to have a discussion with

someone who has gender dysphoria about any of their plans under any circumstances whatsoever, because the probability that I would misstep in some manner and be investigated and convicted by the college is so likely that the risk is unacceptable. And I say that as someone perfectly willing to take risks if I believe that they're in my client's best interest. Now, I'm not a child psychologist, so this particular issue isn't going to affect me, but I've had enough dealings with the colleges that regulate clinical practice to be extraordinarily leery of their reach. That's crazy. I mean, that's just crazy now that we've come to that point. these kids who are having confusion around their identity will never be able to talk to someone who doesn't have an ax to grind. Yeah, that'll help them flesh it out. So actual discussion of it is, right, exactly.

And that sort of thing has to be fleshed out in great detail. I had a, yeah, yeah, it has to be fleshed out in great detail. And those conversations are unbelievably complicated. And, and they wander into territory that the current legal structure makes absolutely the risk absolutely unacceptable for anyone who knows the law. It's the best thing to do would be just to not do it. You know, I wouldn't do it. I know, I know, you know, who Abigail Schreier is and she's taken on this interview about a week ago. Oh yeah. That's right. On your podcast. So she's out there, she's written her book, Debra So has written her book and they're trying to call attention to this issue, but it's so much deeper than just the trans thing, as you know,

and, and Abigail's talked about this, but others have too, the need for an identity, the need to sort of be in a protected group. And this goes to the heart of one of your messages of the book, which is the meaning of life isn't found there. If you're looking for meaning, which all of us presumably are, you're not going to find it there. You're not going to find it by tearing down structures, cultural institutions, and blaming society at large for your woes. You got to start with yourself. It's safer morally, you know, because at least you pay for your own mistakes then. And that's the thing. If you're going to do moral experimentation, well, you should be responsible for your failures.

And if you're attempting to clean up your own mess, then you do it badly. You're the one that suffers and learns from that. You know, I mean, we do find identity. We do find meaning in our group identity. That's a valid source of meaning. It's certainly not the only source of meaning, and it's not the primary source, not in the final analysis.

And the theories of identity that underlie identity politics aren't, what would you say, sophisticated or comprehensive enough to provide people with a guide through life, which is really what your identity is. That's what you want. You want an identity that you can act out functionally in society. That can't just be your sexual identity, your gender identity, any of that, because it's

just not enough. No one else knows how to play the game, which is a big problem when you're surrounded by people. You know, you say, well, I want you to, I want, I'm an exception. I want you to treat me the way I want to be treated. It's like, well, if you're an exception, I have no idea how to treat you by definition. Well, you're going to inform me every time I make a mistake? It's like, why am I going to be around you? Why would I want to be around you?

That's just endless trouble. I mean, most of the reason that any of us can be tolerated by others is that most of the time we act predictably. We have very little ability to handle people who don't act predictably. Virtually none. It's too frightening, off-putting, threatening, and for good reason. So you have to be a conformist. I mean, you shouldn't ultimately be a conformist, but I'm not even touting conformity as a virtue in some sense. It's just necessary in huge societies.

Coming up, Jordan and I are going to talk about inequality as that term is bandied about these days. And even better, we're going to get into men and women and women wearing makeup, what signals that sends inadvertently or otherwise. And we do have some fun back and forth this year. So you're going to want to hear that. Before we get to that, though, let's talk about our latest feature of Sound Up.

This is a feature where we play you a soundbite that was in the news recently and talk a little bit about it. And today we've got one that made the rounds this week. It's courtesy of, I think, CBS, where the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, wanted you to feel her pain. Listen. Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and I have to hope and trust you will listen. I'm going to pause here. I'm going to lose the script and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I'm scared.

Oh, Rochelle, your instinct to pause and lose the script was a bad instinct, Rochelle. It was bad. I should have rethought that. You're not very good off the script was a bad instinct, Rochelle. It was bad. I should have rethought that. You're not very good off the script. You say bad things. Like no one needs to hear a teary CDC director, right? She was doing a White House briefing. The clip we just used from CBS, but she was doing a White House briefing.

She went on to say, we're not powerless. We could change this trajectory of the pandemic and went on to do the old, I'm speaking today, not necessarily as your CDC director and not only as your CDC director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter asking you, please just hold on a little while longer. You know, it was like Jack to Rose on the board in the water next to the Titanic. Just hold on a little longer. Rochelle, could you try to project strength?

Could you try to be a leader? You know, it's like she saw Trump telling Bob Woodward that he was just trying not to scare people. And so he was projecting like nothing to worry about here because he didn't want to create a national panic. And she went exactly 180 degrees the other way. I do want to panic. Now's the time. I'm scared. I'm scared. Impending doom. See these tears? They're real. Whenever I see that happen, I feel like all of womankind takes a hit. I have no problem with women crying in their professional setting if it's appropriate. Like if it's something emotional happens, Brooke Baldwin broke down

on the air the other day when covering a witness in the Chauvin trial. I understand that sometimes emotions get the better of you. But when you are at the White House lectern briefing the nation about a pandemic that's already emotionally charged for a bunch of people and people are unnecessarily panicked over? Keep it together, sister. Otherwise, womankind takes a hit. Professionalism certainly did. And it was an unnecessary and bad moment for her. So, Rochelle, you're going to have more opportunities rooting for you, sister. But this time, thumbs down. Back to Jordan in one second. I mean, why do you think there is such this push to identity politics? I mean, over the past

15 years, I don't have the exact number, but what's what's missing? We've had some people say God. We've had some people blame socioeconomic conditions. What's driving this? A lot of it's just bad ideas. I really blame the universities, the huge part. I mean, the universities, first of all, created all these pseudo-disciplines starting in the 60s. That was a catastrophe. They had no intellectual rigor whatsoever. No history of intellectual rigor.

No practice of intellectual rigor. They weren't disciplined. They were bones thrown to the mob, I think. And so, and that, and the people in those disciplines played politics within the universities and very effectively. And so the administration came to adopt their theories such as they were as doctrines.

I mean, they didn't have any ideas, so they played politics. They took the systems over politically. And they're doing the same thing now with the hard sciences. The journals, the scientific journals, mathematical journals, that sort of thing, they're increasingly politically correct. They're going to demolish the hard sciences. That's their end goal target, fundamentally, at the moment. And the hard scientists, they think they think well we're resistant to

that it's like no you're not you're so naive politically you don't even know that you're naive politically they're just going to roll over you guys that's how it looks to me well i think so you know and what's happening is that every day the universities universities are dying because of it the humanities like enrollment humanities plummeted and the reason for that is that no one in their right mind would would study what the humanities have become in their in their most absurd uh incarnations you know that's good not good for anything i mean humanities are supposed to train you to think and to provide you with a certain degree of historical uh wisdom historically derived wisdom so you could be a good citizen if they're not doing that if they're just teaching you how to be a radical

essentially you know to swallow a couple of presuppositions the culture is essentially oppressive morality uh is is to be found in the attempt to tear down arbitrary power structures. Christ, you can learn all those axioms in 15 minutes. Why go to university for four years? And once you learn it, what are you going to do with it? Be an activist. Okay, fine, if you want to be an activist, but most people don't. Well, you know what they say. We don't like inequality. We don't like inequality. Well, no one likes inequality. Nobody likes inequality in some sense. I mean, there isn't anybody who celebrates when they walk down the street and they see homeless people.

Everybody, virtually without, you know, the odd person might think, well, if you just straighten up and get a job, you wouldn't be on the street. And, you know, that sort of attitude is usually rather flip and not very well thought through and also rare and not very deep. But most people are, very few people are in favor of absolute poverty. But inequality is a really complicated problem. And part of the problem with ideology is that ideology makes every problem simple and every answer obvious. And every problem isn't simple and every answer isn't obvious and it requires real education to decompose the problem to see that it's more than one thing like poverty isn't absence of money it's many things one of which is relative absence of money and sometimes absolute absence but in especially in a western society poverty and absolute deprivation

are only loosely linked there's you know alcoholism drug abuse criminality uh impaired intelligence low conscientiousness low agreeableness uh prejudice, malnutrition, ill physical health. There's endless numbers of contributors, and each of them is a complex problem in its own right. And you have to have a trained mind to decompose the problem to see that it's any more than just the label. But you know that the argument today is that it's the system. It's none of that.

Well, it is. It is the system. But what the hell good is that? It the system it's not it's none of that it's it is the system but what the hell good is that set up right the system has to be dismantled because it's based on this hierarchy created by men white men and um they have all the power and none of these disadvantaged groups have any and so that's why everything has to be deconstructed and torn apart thrown out and then we have to start anew although they kind of run out of the plan when you get to the point of, like, what happens when we get rid of all the white men, or at least their dominated systems? Yeah, well, I guess the convenient part of that is that it gives people an identifiable enemy,

and that gives you something to strive for romantically and morally, but it's extraordinarily dangerous. You know, and the thing is, it's true in some sense. All failings are a consequence of inadequacies of the system. Now, all systematic insufficiencies aren't a consequence of power misuse, because there's ignorance, obviously. Part of the reason systems don't work is because we just don't know what to do. It's corruption, of course, is a problem, but ignorance is a bigger problem, at least in our functional society. And so, but if you eradicate the patriarch,

you aren't going to get rid of ignorance. That's for sure. Well, you're not going to get rid of inequality, right? Because you talk a lot about competence. What about competence, variance in competence? Well, yes, absolutely. But you have to admit that this system does something that is laudable in order to believe that movement up and down it is dependent to some degree on competence. It's always to some degree, you know. Well, is the system patriarchal? Well, to some degree.

Is it corrupt? Well, to some degree. Is it based on competence? Well, to some degree. Is it corrupt? Well, to some degree. Is it based on confidence? Well, to some degree. And those answers aren't as satisfying in some sense emotionally as the more cut and dried answers like, well, it's a hierarchy, it's power. And the hierarchy itself is based on power. I mean, even chimpanzee hierarchies aren't based on power, not if they're stable. It's a stupid theory. It's an ignorant theory.

And in our society, at least when its subcomponents are functioning properly, people who maneuver for reasons that only have to do with power are generally not successful for very long because no one wants to have anything to do with them. That's interesting. Who wants to work for someone who dominates them all the time? They're just going to, well, first of all, they're not going to be very motivated. And second of all, they're going to take every opportunity they possibly can to take revenge on the person who's power hungry above them.

They'll sabotage them. They'll inform on them. They'll go over their head they'll conspire against them like power is a very very unstable basis for for uh for hierarchical position and it is what the incompetent people default to but that doesn't mean that it's the rule it's not the rule among success among people. I mean, partly you see that. If you know successful people who are good people in the main, one of the things they delight in doing is mentoring and helping people establish their careers and move up.

And it's a primary source of gratification. These professors have that with their graduate students. And if they're good professors, they strive to make their students successful. And they do that because it's gratifying, at least in part. It's great to foster someone's career. What do you make of people? Because I've certainly heard this said in women's circles many times, that the system is male-dominated, just corporate America is male-dominated, political systems are male-dominated here and in Canada. Um, and that, you know, you can, you can, I certainly understand the argument that women make different choices.

Women may prioritize family. Women are the ones who have the children and that necessarily pulls them away from the office and so on. I get all of that, but men are the ones who set up the systems. Men are the ones who initially placed the values on the traits that men have. Like that's where I see the patriarchy that, you know, the systematic, the systematic sort of bias or set up that is that doesn't inure to the benefit of women. What's valued? It's not the feminist. Men and women set up the value structure, not just men. I mean, women are and this is painfully obvious,

women, biologically, women are much more likely to be sexually attractive to men who are successful in their hierarchical structures. It's one of the primary determinants of male attractiveness to women. So women reward men who are successful in the patriarchy by granting them sexual access. You're not wrong. You can be less cynical about that. They're more likely to marry them. Well,

they're way more likely, and it's true cross-culturally. I mean, it modifies to some degree in the Scandinavian countries. That's actually one place where egalitarian social policies have dampened a sex difference. As a general rule, they make the sex differences bigger. Differences in personality and in interest are bigger in the Scandinavian countries than they are in less egalitarian societies. But the proclivity for women to... Oh, well, the biggest differences between men and women in terms of personality are in the Scandinavian countries. And the more egalitarian the countries become, the more different men and women become in personality,

not the more similar. And they also get more different in interest. It's because if you get rid of the sociological differences, the biological differences, maximize. They don't minimize. In what way? Give me an example. Well, there's five cardinal personality traits. And women differ from men primarily on two of them.

They're more agreeable. And so agreeable people are warmer, more empathic, more polite, more empathetic, more compassionate. Less agreeable people are harsher, less agreeable, more antisocial, more likely to be imprisoned. And men, on average, are less agreeable than women or women are more agreeable and it's if you took if you if you take a random man out of the population and a random woman and you bet that the woman would be more agreeable than the man you'd be right 60 percent of the time that's about the size of the difference so that's that's one difference between men and women and another is that women are higher in they experience more negative emotion and they experience it more intensely. Now, there are some women who are like that compared to some men

because the curves mostly overlap, but that's where the biggest differences are. Okay, so then you might say, well, those differences are so social in their origin. And so then you would look at countries where the men and women are treated the same, and you'd expect the differences culturally, you'd expect the differences to decrease. But that in this society, the less men and women are the same. Also, the other thing that happens is that in the more egalitarian countries, the difference between male and females in terms of interest also grows rather than shrinking, which is why even in the Scandinavian countries, the vast preponderance of nurses are female and the vast preponderance of engineers are males and the vast preponderance of engineers are males and no amount of social engineering short of absolute tyranny looks like it's likely to

ameliorate that it's a not a difference in ability it's not a difference in ability the data on that are pretty clear there might be a slight edge for men in spatial intelligence and a slight edge for women in verbal intelligence, but the fundamental determining factor driving career choice looks like it's interest. Different career choices between men and women looks like it's interest, not ability. When you understand that you have to be really interested in something to pursue it as a career, then even small differences in interest between men and women can drive huge differences in occupational choice at the extremes. And that's where all the selection takes place.

So that's why, you know, 10 times as many people in jail are men rather than women. You know, men aren't that much more aggressive than women physically. They are more aggressive. But at the extremes, it's all men. And these differences matter. I don't think you're wrong that we are sort of biologically, we lean towards certain traits. And I don't think we need to deny that in order to... Well, we lean. We lean. That's it. It doesn't have to be a walloping effect to make itself quite manifest at the level of occupational choice. It doesn't mean men and women are radically different. I've heard you say that women who have some more masculine traits have tended to do better in the professional world at times

and get challenged by that. And I have to say that's been my own experience. I understand what you're saying and I can relate to it. One of the predictors of income is agreeableness. All other things being equal, more agreeable people get paid less. And it's probably because they don't push as hard for salary. It's not like people come up to you and say, do you want some more money? I mean, that happens now and then.

But often you have to go push for it. Say, look, you're not valuing me properly. And if you don't increase my salary 15%, I'm going to leave. It's not a pleasant conversation. You know, and if you don't have those conversations, you're somewhat less likely to get a raise. Well, and women are socialized to be liked. I mean, we're raised to be liked. That's what's valued in us.

And men, not so much. Men are socialized to win, to get ahead, to be tough. is a warrior type of guy and a lot of that's just right in his character and he's very aware of that and you know he went through navy seal training for example and you think well here's dominant aggressive male and physically intimidating as well by anyone's standards um and interested in that sort of thing like he's got a warrior spirit combative spirit you know what the the first rule for the navy seals is you have your buddies back it's not like every man for himself it is not that at all it's not that at all and that's something that i don't know that can't be emphasized enough that isn't how male groups work it's like yeah we like winners but winners. It's like they get stomped, man.

They get. You want your guy to have your back. And the more men are raised to be nice, because I can tell you, I don't know a woman who doesn't have 50,000 stories about how she was praised for that. That was the thing that was like reinforced over and over by teachers, by parents, by every adult. Like, that's what's expected. And that and being pretty, those are sort of the two best things you can be, sadly, as a young girl. I think that there is no shortage of that. And, you know, women are more agreeable than men.

So there's a biological end there. And it's certainly possible that that's also reinforced by society but i can tell you that the consequence of that still in the scandinavian countries is that despite the movement towards egalitarian treatment that difference has got bigger not not smaller so you can't tell what it means that that women are treated that way exactly you can't tell if that's a social function or if it's a biological function or what it means that women are treated that way. Exactly. You can't tell if that's a social function or if it's a biological function or how it's operating or what should be done about it, if anything. If anything, right.

You know, certainly women are, are women encouraged to be beautiful? I mean, well, that's a tough one too. Yes, I would say, but they're also inclined to desire that intensely so yeah that's a chicken or the egg situation well i suppose it is i i think the desire to be attractive or the necessity of being attractive for that matter is so deep that um you know to to attribute it to purely social forces is it's it's absurd the the preference of men for youth in women sexually is not social fundamentally. It's biological. I mean, it's tied extraordinarily tightly to fecundity. You can just, you can just map the distributions.

If you look at how men rate women in terms of attractiveness across age, and then put that graph against a fecundity graph, they're the same thing. It's crystal clear. And how could it possibly be otherwise? I mean, how could it be that the human race would have possibly survived if men didn't find women at the peak of their fertility most attractive? Well, this is what we're up against. This is what women are up against, because we do have to have the babies and we do have to find male suitors. And yet we've emerged into this time where we also want, some of us want to run the corporate world. And some of us want to be taken perfectly serious at the office, even though, you know, we're wearing makeup and our hair looks

good and all that. Well, it's great that that's how it is. I mean, look, as soon as women enter the workplace, the human race has twice the brain power. Who in their right mind would object to that? Well, it's not that they object to it, but managed to figure out how to provide women with enough freedom so that now their capabilities can be manifested in all sorts of places they hadn't been manifested before that's a net win for everyone now is there some resistance there's going to be resistance i mean it's also partly because men don't actually know how to compete against women in the workplace. That's true. I mean, well, what's the rule for a man? Like in a law firm, for example, the guys have each other's back in a particular way.

But they're competing with each other like mad, right? Because they want to, well, they want to win. Okay, so what's the right attitude towards that? What's the right attitude for a man towards a woman who is competing with? Is he supposed to win? Is he supposed to stomp her like he's going to try to stomp his buddy next door? What's exactly the moral thing to do? Well, is it? Yes. Yeah. I mean, listen, I can tell you, look, if you're playing if you're playing mixed doubles and you're the male half of the cup, the pair on the one side, you're not supposed to you're not supposed to kill the woman on the other side. But in a corporate setting where you're it's a battle of minds killer. And if you if you take your foot off the gas, it's sexist. Yeah, well, that's easy to say, but it doesn't play out like that in interpersonal interactions because it's too complicated. Well, I think men need to talk about it. I mean, one good thing you've been doing is raising some of these issues. I mean, men need to ask about it. We're sort of just getting to the point where people are openly having these discussions.

I have the answers. On this, I'm going to write the rules. Just go and talk about it. You know, I mean, I would the answers. On this, I'm going to write the rules. Just go and talk about it. I would certainly say, I'll just give you one silly aside, but Oprah Winfrey did the big interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. And I had some criticisms of Oprah because I thought she really should have drilled down on some more details the night she did it. And some people were accusing me of being racist because I had some criticisms of Oprah, who happens to be black, but is also a billionaire and a very successful journalist. Well, she used to be a journalist. Now she's talk show.

And my point was, it would be it would be an insult to her for me to hold back. I respect her enough to punch her right in the face. I don't care what her lady parts are. I don't care what her skin color is. If I have a criticism of her as a professional, I will do her the courtesy of not holding back. And if a man ever didn't criticize me because I was a woman at the office or didn't go for the jugular when we were both vying for a job and trust me in the media, that's happened to me many times. I've come out on top a lot, but not in every circumstance. How can a man hold off in the corporate setting and expect not to wind up loathing women? Well, he's going to hold off because he doesn't know how to do it.

You know the rules with another man and head-to-head competition. You know the rules with another man in a head-to-head competition. You know the rules, but if you're competing against a woman, you don't know the rules, neither does she. That's why there's so much friction between men and women in the workplace. I mean, some of the rules we know. I think we know the rule. I think women are expecting men to give it to them professionally.

How could you possibly know the rules? We've only been working together for 50 years. No possibly know the rules? We've only been working together for 50 years. No one knows the rules. This is new. Go for it. No, but women are used to competing against other women. No, you don't.

Yeah, but the way women compete isn't the way men compete. It's a completely different thing. No, but it's really different. No, but it's really different. Like the male pattern of aggression, let's say. The male pattern of aggression, if you look at antisocial people, the male pattern of aggression is physical. The female pattern of aggression is reputation destruction.

Those are completely different things. No, it's really true. But no man in the corporate setting can use physical aggression as a means of settling a dispute or getting ahead. That's not appropriate in any workplace setting other than, you know, wrestling. I know. I understand that, but it's still that, that, that, that, the basic pattern still underlies the interaction. So if two men are talking to each other, competing with each other,

there's always this idea in the background of how far it can go. If it goes too far, the physical element enters in. And so that binds the so that binds the discussion. It's always the case in discussions between men. And that just doesn't pertain in discussions between men and women. It's not the same. It shouldn't. Well, it can't.

It can't. I mean, roughly speaking, one man is a match for another physically. But that's just not the case between a man and a woman men have a terrible advantage especially in the upper body strength i know but an overall size i've been in corporate america now for almost 30 years um in both very male dominated industries 10 years as a lawyer and the rest in journalism, very male dominated and certainly controlled by men at the highest levels. It's been fine. And like, listen, I certainly had more than my fair share of sexism and I've had male jerks and I've had female jerks,

but I don't know what you're talking about. Like, I don't think it's a mystery to me how to compete against a man at all. And I don't think it's been a mystery to my male colleagues and how to compete against me. They gave it to me good and I gave it right back. Well, that may be true in your situation that I can't say because I don't know enough about the particulars of your situation. But I've had plenty of female clients who've been in the corporate world and I've watched the complexities of their interactions with men. There's a sexual aspect that enters into it, too, that's also extraordinarily complicated. Yes, that's true. Yes, yes, definitely.

And it's not like we know the obvious rules, but we certainly don't know the subtle rules. And we don't know how that plays out in the workplace environment. What about that? I'm not saying this is hopeless by any stretch of the imagination just that it's complicated and it's just that it's complicated we got to talk about it but what what about that because i did read what one quote i read from you that i was like okay i do gotta ask him about that was somebody asked you if a woman wears makeup to the workplace and she doesn't want to be sexually harassed in the workplace

is she being hypocritical and and you said yeah i do think that that it's hypocritical for a woman who doesn't want to be harassed in the workplace to wear makeup to work is that true no i didn't say that no it's not true i wanted to ask you because i know how many i know how the press is no what i i was talking to a reporter who was particularly provocative and ignorant and who thought he knew far more about everything than he knew about anything and we were talking about makeup and i said that the purpose of makeup is sexual signaling and you know he just blew his top it's like well that just surprised me it's like what the hell do you think the purpose of makeup is you know obviously that's what it is it's it's clear

by every possible standpoint of analysis and i talked to helen about that too no it is it is what do you mean what is that bad acne and you just want to cover it up because you don't because you don't look nice why do you want why do you want to cover it up because it's embarrassing you're more attractive. Well, it doesn't necessarily need to be to a man. Like it could be, you know, I mean, a lesbian could be working with all men and could wear makeup just because she thinks it makes her look nice. It's not all about sexual attraction. It's not.

Nothing is ever all about one thing, you know, and there are norms as well. But look, the reason that women put lipstick on is to make their lips look luscious and youthful. That's why. Why use red? Because it looks nice. It's a sign of youth. Well, yes, that's not the issue. The issue is, no, no, no, I'm dead serious. Yes, it looks nice.

The issue is, why does it look nice? What does nice mean? You know, it's so automatic. You think, well, that looks nice. Yes, that's exactly my point. It's so deeply embedded in our biology that the attractiveness of it is self-evident. So I pointed out to Helen Lewis, for example. How is it different from wearing a nice outfit,

how is it? How is it? How's that a bridge? Putting on a dress or? Well, it's more direct. Styling your hair. There's plenty of sexual signaling and dress and hair choice. I mean, you don't want your hair looking old. That's why you dye it so that it looks younger. You don't want it thin because thin is a sign of age. So you want it to it looks younger. You don't want it thin because thin is a sign of age. So you want it to be fuller. You don't want it to look unkempt because that's a marker for ill health. You're basically saying, unless a woman rolls out of bed in the morning, maybe takes a shower and goes in looking like the drown rat we all look like when we get out of the shower, warts and all, we're asking for somebody to come on to us. And that's not true.

No, I'm not. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the reason- Well, makeup is a hypocritical move. If makeup is somehow sexually provocative- I didn't say it was a hypocritical move. It is definitely that. It's definitely that.

It's definitely that. It's an attempt to mimic fecundity. It's precisely what it is. So how does that- I mean, honestly, like men die there. Look, you don't make yourself up to look old. You make yourself up to look young, unblemished skin, wrinkle-free skin. I really don't know that. No, no, no. But blemished skin is young. That's young. It just doesn't look pretty. Yeah, but it's not young and healthy. It's not young and healthy it's not young and

healthy and that's the real hallmark is and youth and health are very tightly associated what about men i i know i know a man in new york who i constantly see at the place i get my facial done and he's underneath the lights and he's getting his skin to look it's somebody whose name everybody here would know he worked in the Trump White House for a short time. Anyway, my point is- There is some association for men, certainly for physical attractiveness is sexually desirable. Symmetry, for example,

and some signs of youth, like a full head of hair. Men, the signals that attract men to women, no, the signals that attract women to men are different than the signals that attract men to women. So youth isn't as important for a man to display. True. As you point out, the big bank book could be it. Well, it isn't even the big bank book. It's actually more like the ability to generate a big bank book because women will settle for markers of wealth, but what they're really

looking for is markers of competence. And wealth is a decent marker for competence, although it's not unerring. What do you say to your daughter? Do you say, if you don't want to be harassed at the workplace, don't put on foundation lipstick or mascara because that's going to be a problem for you. I'm not saying at all that women who wear makeup in the workplace should be harassed. No, I know. I know. I'm saying that if you wear makeup, you're trying to magnify your sexual attractiveness. And that's definitely the case, even if you don't know it, just because you don't know it doesn't mean that that isn't what you're

doing. We do all sorts of things that we don't understand because we don't look into them deeply. I understand. You're saying that we're in the same way we're programmed, as you point out, men want younger women because they want to procreate with them and they like the wider hips. I mean, all this has been proven. They want the wider hips and they want the breasts and all that stuff because, you know, evolution. I get it. You're saying it's sort of an extension of that. Yes, definitely that. There's no doubt about that. And, you know, I told Helen Lewis when she interviewed me for GQ that red is attractive because it's associated with ripe fruit she didn't like that at all but all you have to do is leaf through a woman's magazine you figure out pretty quickly

that red is associated with ripe fruit well we evolved color vision to detect red i mean i'm not offended by that this is all possible well i just you can even be offended if you could find it offensive and perhaps even rightly so but if if it's offensive, it's not my fault. And it's not like I'm inventing these ideas. It could easily be offensive, you know, that women, let's say, are valued more than might be deserved because they show signs of fecundity and youth and that gets confused with their competence.

That might be deeply offensive. It also might be something that we should struggle against. That could easily be the case. But that doesn't mean that that isn't how it is. And, you know, why do you think women wear high heels? Because they were the options placed in front of us by men who wanted to stifle us? Yeah, sure. Yeah, right. No, listen, no, I don't think so. For I'm not, I don't deny any of this. Because I you know, like we've been talking about the, um, the Miss America pageant and, uh, they, they've taken away the swimsuit competition because they somehow they think

it's more empowering just to have just the evening gowns. Right. And now people are going to take them seriously, which I don't, I don't think they will any more than they did. Um, but I am somebody who believes part of being a part of the fun being a woman is your sex appeal. I think it's awesome i think it's great like you i think it's great we get to wear high heels and we get to wear saucy dresses and we get to do our hair and we have a lot more tools at our disposal than the average man to make

ourselves look good and i do think it is a source of power you're not wrong it's a source of power whether it's sexual power maybe that's those are the origins and whether it's sexual power, maybe those are the origins. And you can feel it. It's a stunning source of power. It's just not corporate competent power. It's a different kind of power. What do you mean it's not corporate competent power? Well, looking good in a swimsuit isn't going to necessarily make you a good CEO. No, no, but looking good may because people tend to like attractive faces, male or female.

Yes, definitely. There's some overlap in terms of charisma. There's no doubt about that. And so differentiating, you know, determining what criteria should be used in what situation gets complicated in situations like that. I mean, all things considered, it's better to be attractive than unattractive obviously in all sorts of ways i just think if women get attraction get attention right whether it's based in some latent need for sexual attraction or what have you um then good on them because it's not i don't think most women are consciously looking for that kind of attention they i can certainly say they're not looking to be harassed um but sometimes they may not've got to jump up and down.

But everybody's looking for attention. It's just foolish to... Yeah, so... And of course people wear makeup for attention because they wear it because everyone else can see it. If you weren't wearing it for attention, you'd just stay there and look in the mirror. Obviously you're wearing it for attention.

I just don't see it like that i have to say now why wouldn't you just stay home with your makeup why wouldn't you stay home with your attention to me it's the same thing as working out you just want to look your best you feel good when you feel you look your best you you you'd like as little ab flab as possible when you work out you know that that has direct impact on your health. It might also make you more attractive. So that's a different issue. You get healthier when you work out.

You don't get healthier when you put on makeup. Makeup is to regulate other people's response to you. Obviously, it's like a mask. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm just saying what it is. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm not accusing you of saying that.

I'm certainly not saying that women who are wearing makeup are inviting negative sexual attention and they deserve it if they get it. I'm not saying that at all. Got it. Not the least bit. I hear you. Sounds like some other reporter accused you of that

but this one isn't i'm just trying to figure out you know if you're advising your child right you have a daughter and so do i how to go to the office and behave appropriately while minimizing one's chances of sexual harassment that's something with which I've had to deal. What do you say? What would you say? Well, I guess one thing I would say is that if anything untoward does start to happen, to document it right away, to write it down and to tell someone very quickly, someone you trust, but to keep a written record of it. So that protects you. And I would also say that you should think through the relationship between romance and work very carefully. And it's tough, right? Because people tend to be attracted to those people that

they're around. And so it's very frequently the case that workplace romances will erupt. And it's going to be inevitable to some degree when you have men and women together, unless you put draconian policies in place. and that's not sustainable in the long run. No, it's fraught. I don't know. It's fraught. You know, advice is tough. I would say with my daughter, I hope that, you know, in the main,

she's learned enough from her own experience and from our attempts to raise her properly, that she's wise enough to wend her way through complex environments and not find herself in trouble unduly. Wow. So there's no simple solution. There's no,

there's no simple solution. Pay attention to your conscience. That's a good one. Don't lie to yourself. That's a good one. Try to make sure your messages are clear and make sure that you're clear in yourself about what you're after and what you're up to. But and then, you know, beware of predators. Yeah.

Beware that they exist and be careful. Let me ask you this, because we didn't get around to, I think, the most poignant message of the book, which is responsibility, taking on the difficult task, because you seem to conclude in the book that that've talked to is that you need a sustaining meaning in your life because life is difficult. It's tragic and it's rife with suffering. That's inedible. And so the question is, where are you most likely to find that sustaining meaning? You take responsibility for your career, for your education, for people that you love, for your family and your community if you can manage it. And that's where you find the meaning that sustains you to the degree that you take responsibility for it. It's a very reliable source of significance. And it's to everyone's advantage as well, not just yours. Well said.

I hope we can do it again, Jordan. I feel like we've only scratched the surface, but I'm a big fan of yours. Thanks a lot, Megan. I feel like we've only scratched the surface, but I'm a big fan of yours. Thanks a lot, Megan. I appreciate it. Well, that was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him and only wish we had more time, right?

He was very generous with his time, but I want more. I feel like I always want more with big brains like his, right? It's like we only scratch the surface. So hopefully he'll come back. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Let us know.

You can go to the Apple reviews and tell me what you thought of the whole exchange because I know I had fun. I hope he did too. And I hope he's doing well. He's been through quite a battle with his health. He's written all about it in the latest book. So wishing him nothing but wellness and a willingness to come back on Monday. Don't forget to tune in because we have Candace Owens. I'm psyched she's coming on again. She's got a new show to promote. So we got her back and she's

always spicy about virtually every issue. And we're going to ask her about how she basically got this Democrat politician who's been bothering her for a couple of years to bow out of politics. And she's involved the police. Don't just don't mess with Candace. That's a good rule. Just don't mess with her unless you are truly intellectually gifted and willing to do severe battle. You might want to keep your powder dry. In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely, blessed weekend.

Happy Easter. Happy Passover as well. And don't forget to not eat meat and go to church this weekend and talk to your kids about what we're actually celebrating, which is fun to sort of kick off with a bunny, but isn't ultimately about her. So anyway, I'll be thinking about you and I'll talk to you on Monday. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures. you