Will Cain Country - Revisit Will's Heartfelt Interview with Dr. Jordan Peterson

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Will is off this week, but he wanted to share some of his favorite conversations from the launch of The Will Cain Show. Dr. Jordan Peterson joined Will to have an honest and candid conversation about changing education, Dr. Peterson's relationship with faith, the potential for societal upheaval in the West. Tell Will what you thought by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Hey, it's Will Kane. I'm off this week, but I want to show you. with you one of the biggest interviews so far on the Will Kane show, which streamed live at Fox News.com and on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. That interview, Dr. Jordan Peterson. We talked about changing education. We talked about his relationship with faith.

We talked about societal upheaval and diagnosing at a deep philosophical level what's happening not just in the U.S. but across the globe when it comes to Western civilization. I think you're going to not just enjoy, but get a lot out of this conversation with Dr. Jordan Peterson. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gatty podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcast.com. This is Jason Chaffetz from the Jason in the House podcast. Join me every Monday to dive deeper into the latest political headlines.

and chat with remarkable guests. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts. Listen to the all-new Brett Bear podcast featuring Common Ground, in-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Bear favorites like his All-Star panel and much more. Available now at Fox Newspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Dr. Peterson, as you look last night, to the extent that you pay attention to American politics,

At the results of the Iowa caucus, one of the things that stood out to me was that 36% of Republican caucus goers in Iowa wanted, they said, a total upheaval in American government. Something like over 50% wanted substantial change. Now, set aside what that means about Donald Trump versus Nikki Haley. What it says is something, although in a slice of America, Republican Party, Iowa, but it's something that. There's an undercurrent clearly that is dissatisfied with the American governance and maybe the American society at large. And it made me think of you and something you've talked about when it comes to young men that if you can't win at the game of life, marriage, career, success, young men have a tendency to flip over the game board. I'm not sure that's an exact quote of yours, but it's of essence. And I think about the American people flipping over the game board and they want upheaval.

What do you think about this result from Iowa? Well, we do build a certain degree of upheaval, necessary upheaval into the political system with elections. Now, election is a tamed revolution. And then you could imagine that there are elections of different depths. You know, you were just speaking about the monoculture, and there's a hierarchy of cultures. You were talking about the fact that you wanted sports kept in its proper place. Right. So it allows people to be tribal under control.

and to have the excitement of group identification and the excitement of groups driving towards a goal without that being associated with too much destruction and mayhem. Capitalism, by the way, does the same thing very, very effectively. And this is one of the things that the leftists don't give it credit for. Capitalism allows warlike men to establish domains of competence and influence that are of general productive utility to the rest of. of society instead of tyrannies that dominate and hurt.

Now, you know, one can shade into the other, and it's useful to keep that in mind, but it's necessary to have those sorts of impulses, it's necessary to find a place where they can be allowed proper expression, and sports certainly does that. Now, with regards to the revolutionary requirement, that's part and parcel of this current election, and also, I think, part of what brought Trump to prominence to begin, with is there's a sense that's deeply rooted in America and in the West more broadly, that something fundamental has gone wrong. And I think the culture war is a closer approximation of that which has gone wrong. And I think that in turn is associated with this insistence that our

future is going to be a, let's say, an environmental catastrophe, that it's a kind of hell that we need to avoid, and that the way we need to avoid that clear and present danger is by essentially ceasing our forward striving, quelling our ambition, eradicating the patriarchy, returning to a simpler way of life, et cetera, et cetera. It's a vision that's predicated on a false apocalypse, and it's very much antithetical to the American spirit in particular, because it's an entrepreneurial and outward moving spirit, and it's certainly something antithetical to the spirit that made the West great as well. And I believe that people can feel that in their bones. We're replacing the primacy of the human spirit with something like a terrified worship of the natural order. It's something

like that. And this is a very, very, very bad idea. And the working class people in particular who support Trump, the so-called maga deplorable. So they feel this in their bones, just like the farmers do in Germany and in the Netherlands. And with all these popular uprisings that you see in Europe, it's a desire of the populace to shrug off this appalling apocalyptic narrative that's allied with a tyrannical demand that's, you know, nipping more than nipping at our heels. I was just talking to a Dutch commentator, Ava Vladingerbrook and a German farmer yesterday on my podcast, that'll be released soon. And, you know, there were, well, literally hundreds of thousands of working class people essentially revolting in Germany. They've been doing it for a number

of years, but this all culminated in these massive demonstrations that engulfed Germany and virtually brought it to a halt in the last two weeks. Well, you're seeing a reflection of that the United States. So that's where we're at, man. And Trump signifies, Trump's the proverbial bull in the China shop, you know, although interestingly enough, his presidency wasn't characterized by that kind of, you know, rampaging destruction that his most fervent and paranoid opponents feared might typify his leadership. I'm glad you brought up the Netherlands in Germany, because I wanted to ask you how you how you analyze what's happening and i don't think it's simply as you point

out um something that's happening in america it's happening perhaps across western civilization and it's not it's not easily analyzed through the framework or not accurately analyzed through the framework of left right i mean that's the that's the polar dichotomy we've been taught for decades in the united states of america that it's left versus right it's clearly not left versus right i meaning i don't think you can put many of our modern day issues into that, at least historical or traditional definitional spectrum. Since when has the left been so antithetical to free speech, for example? But I don't know. Does it fit into Marxist versus Western civilization viewpoint of the world? Does it fit into an elitist versus populist framework view of the world? What is it that you can,

the framework you look at to say, yes, this is why this is happening in Germany, in the Netherlands in the United States of America? Well, I would say that the Marxist versus capitalist dichotomy and struggle was a reflection of an even deeper struggle that's playing itself out right now. So, for example, the fundamental narrative of the Marxist ideologues was victim-victimizer

analyzed along the economic dimension, right? There were proletariat and bourgeoisie. The essential Marxist insistence was that you could categorize all human social interactions as fundamentally economic, and then you could cast people into two classes, the oppressed and the oppressor, and that was all economic. What's happened with the postmodernists, and that's the place of the new radical left, is that that victim-victimizer narrative, which is the core element of Marxism, but deeper than Marxism itself, it's a very, very old story. It goes all the way back to Kane and Abel

that's being transformed sort of multi-dimensionally. So now we have victim and victimizer along virtually every dimension that you can possibly conceptualize, sex, gender, ethnicity, ability, while the postmodernist just keep multiplying the dimensions of oppression. And so the basic idea there is that the fundamental human story is one whereby those who, use power to clamber to the top on the corpses of those they are dominating, have stolen everything of value from the oppressed class, and that a revolution has to occur to redistribute those purloined resources. Now, you can see a parallel there with the Marxist revolutionary rhetoric,

and that's fighting against another story, which really typifies the United States, which is something like hard work, honesty, merit, and productive, generosity can produce more than enough wealth for everyone. The best way to have that occur is to allow the free market to operate according to its dictates of distributed decision-making and let the cream rise to the top. And maybe as well doing that to produce a multitude of different games

so that people can find their place. Now, I don't think there's ever been a society on the face of the planet that's actually put that into practice more successfully and continues to do so than the United States. You know, there are contenders and competitors on that front, particularly in Europe and, you know, arguably in Canada, although increasingly less so. But that's the basic war. And so, you know, the Marxists and the postmodernists, they stumbled onto the realization that human beings are motivated by a story, that we see the world through a story, that we live in a story.

But the story they provided was essentially one of power and exploitation. Now, that's a powerful story because when our institutions become corrupt, they do become corrupt in the direction of power. But that doesn't mean that the fundamental human story, and certainly not the story of the United States, you know, as imperialist, colonizing, prejudiced oppressor. There, of course, the America, like every country, has deviated in that direction from time to time, but deviance and central attribute are not the same thing.

I think you have to be a damn fool to look at the United States, especially the United States, that eradicated slavery, right? One of the scourges of humanity since the dawn of time and to describe the country itself as nothing but a cesspool of historical oppression and, you know, a nightmare of tyranny. I mean, compared to what here exactly? And so these are the forces, that are moving underneath the surface right now.

And I think the reason they've got everyone in their grip is in part because our technological progress now is so rapid that these more archetypal processes are becoming more and more tangible. And everyone can feel that, that the tectonic plates are moving and shifting. And Trump is a manifestation of that, as are the protests throughout Europe and the trucker convoy in Canada.

so so here we are yeah what did you you got to hear a part of what i said at the outset and i look i don't want to over-psychologize everything in our culture sometimes people just like something and and that's okay but but i also think everything is worthy of some analysis as to why we like something you know and i have this and i don't even know i've rationalized it to myself i have this natural aversion to the idea of the monoculture i like regionalism i like distinct flavors. And so I think that's part of what I don't like about, you know, the force feeding of Taylor Swift. Now, from what, look, Taylor Swift may disagree with me to the extent that she understands our disagreements on politics, but that's not important to me. I'm used to

celebrities who disagree with me. It's sort of this sense that I'm being force-fed part of the monoculture. And I'm curious what your thoughts are. And, you know, Canada is not different, I imagine. You talk about the United States. We're not just in a successful experiment in governance. We're a successful experiment in a culture that is risk-tolerant, distinct, trial and error and entrepreneurialism and Protestant work ethic. And all of these things come together in many other complicating factors that have made this a successful experiment. And I just, I don't know, Dr. Peterson, I just have this aversion, not specifically to Taylor Swift, but to the idea that everything has to be the same, the monoculture. Yeah, well, you're, okay,

you're pointing to a very important realization there, which is that tyrant and slave is a bad model for governance, and that's what happens when everything collapses into a monoculture. The monoculture that you're afraid of is essentially the tyranny of the homogenous state. And part of the reason that your country works is because it was set up with a series of bulwarks against that. So the division of powers, for example, is a bulwark against that overly unified tyranny, as is the federal system itself. The states, you have your domain of autonomy as a citizen.

You and your wife have your domain of autonomy and responsibility as a family or as a couple. The same applies to your family and then to your local community and then to your state and then to the federal government. And the principle is, too, that those at the... top, at the federal top, let's say, they only have the power and the responsibility that's being granted to them because it couldn't be delivered at any of those lower levels. And so the impetus for you opposing the tyranny of the monoculture is your implicit understanding of the necessity of a system of distributed responsibility. That's everything in its proper place, right? And so that's a crucially, that's a crucially, that's a crucially important realization.

And it's also the kind of thing that is making people en masse leery about our descent into a kind of gigantism, right? You see this, I suppose that's best exemplified by what's happening in China. And it's part of our fear of fascism. And so that would be for us right now, that would be a. coalition between, let's say, gigantic media sources, artificial intelligence production companies, the big social media corporations and government. We saw plenty of that during the COVID era, for example. And so I would say that that concern you have is the rebellion of your spirit as an independent American against this looming homogeneous gigantism. That's probably become more

of a threat in the last 20 years because we're now so tied together, you know, and we even have models of brain function that reflect this. Every neuron in your brain is not communicating with every other neuron. It communicates in a hierarchy of dependency. Every aggregation of neurons has its independent responsibility, and then that aggregate communicates with other aggregates all the way up to the top. It's the system, a system like that technically is described as subsidiary. And this is a very ancient idea, too. So this goes all the way back to the book of Exodus,

when Moses is trying to figure out what structure of government is antithetical to tyranny and slavery, his father-in-law teaches him about a subsidiary system. And what Moses does is divide the Israel. Israelites into groups. Groups of 10, they elect a leader. The 10 leaders get together. They elect a leader. The leaders of the leaders get together. They elect a leader. All the way up to groups of 10,000. At the top of that is Moses, who now judges only those cases that get up to him. And on top of Moses is God. And that's a model for a structure of governance that's neither tyranny at the top. It's not tyranny at the top, nor slaves at the bottom. a system of distributed responsibility with every level taking on its appropriate burden and opportunity. Right. And America is set up exactly like that. It's also what makes it so incredibly robust. And you can see this even playing out now, you know, like I would say, and this is a bit political, that California is wrapping itself up in foolish gigantism. And all that's happening is that people move. And they go to a state where the,

The proclivity for top-down tyranny isn't raging as madly. And, you know, maybe, you know, there are people who think the California model is appropriate. But America is big enough so that people can sort themselves out in a variety of ways. And we can see sort of experimentally what the best pathway is forward. That hierarchy of responsibility allows for structure and stability, but also continued innovation at every level. you can't replace that with top-down state centralized governance because then you get well you get the Soviet Union or or Maoist China or present-day China for that matter and no one in their right

mind wants that no I love I love that that analysis of my aversion to the monoculture it's true I should care more about what happens down the street or to my neighbor than I should care about what happens in Ukraine and that's not a lack of empathy for something across the world it's an acknowledgement of the zero-sum capability or the finite resource of help and empathy I have to offer that I should distribute it to my family, to my friends, to my neighbors before I distribute it half a world away. Right. Well, it might not be finite, but I would say you should practice your empathy and your

responsibility on those who are local to you first. You know, it's like, and this is the sort of thing I've been lecturing about as I go around the world. It's like, get your own house in order. That means you first, then you and your wife, then your family. Then maybe if you could manage that with some degree of grace and effectiveness, you might want to pour a foray out into the local community. Now, that doesn't mean you ignore the world at large.

It just means that you have some, look, man, like, do you really have the wherewithal and the ability to care about Ukraine? Like, what the hell do you know about Ukraine? And the same applies to virtually everyone else. It's hard enough to understand your local bloody environment without casting your prideful and arrogant psyche three quarters away around the world and pronouncing on something that you could do nothing

but cause trouble with if you got involved. You know, you brought up Exodus, and you've got this tour, which is, I think, very provocatively titled, We Who Russell with God. A friend of mine, big fan of yours, is very fascinated in your Exodus series as well. I can't say that I'm well-versed in every chapter of your career to say this is something new, but it does seem of interest to you over the last several years, and that is God, that is Christianity, that is faith. What is your, what is your

relationship with faith? Well, I did a series of lectures on Genesis in 2017, and they proved very popular. Certainly the initial lecture in that series, which is two hours on the first sentence of Genesis, is that's the most viewed lecture offering I ever produced on YouTube. And I've been analyzing religious themes as a psychologist for, well, my whole career, partly because I've always been concerned with the issue of evil. And so, you know, I have faith in the reality of evil. And the reason for that is I spent a lot of time studying the disintegration into absolute hell of totalitarian states. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dr. Jordan Peterson. If you want to see more of the Will Kane Show, go hit subscribe right now at

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