WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Healing Hour: Do Not Bother Children When They are Skateboarding

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Today, Adriana and Erika discuss Rule Eleven of Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life: Do Not Bother Children When They are Skateboarding. They discuss the importance of confronting danger in a controlled capacity, pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, and allowing children to take risks.

Hello and welcome to the Healing Hour on Radio Free Hillsdale, where we bring you your weekly dose of healing. I'm your host, Adriana Azarian. And I'm your co-host, Erica Kaiva. And we are here to help you become your happiest, healthiest, fullest self. And today we're talking about, can you believe it, chapter 11 of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, which is, do not bother children when they are skateboarding. Erica, it has been such a long time since we've been in the studio. It has. I think we owe it to the fans, to the listeners to explain why we haven't been with you for so,

so long. Ladies and gentlemen, I contracted walking pneumonia two weeks ago. She was on her deathbed. I was not well. I will not give you the details, but let's just say there were lots of sleepless nights and lots of pain. In fact, I coughed so hard, I pulled a muscle in my back. Oh, I didn't know about that.

Yeah, it hurts to, like, move this way. Oh, man. It's okay. away eventually. But anyhow, that's been my cross. Yeah, Adriana has had to do some healing of her own. And thank goodness we had Thanksgiving last week so we could

go home and do just that. Exactly. Eric, what was the best thing you did for Thanksgiving? I think my best memories from this Thanksgiving were playing board games with my family. Yeah, there's this one game we really like to play called Skyjo, which is this really random Norwegian card game

and almost nobody here has heard of it. But it's a lot of fun. Our cousins introduced us to it. And now it's like the game that our family plays. That's so cool. Yeah. So it was really great to hang out with them and it was a great time. Next time I come over to your house, or if you come to my house, we should play it. Yes. Yes. I think that this should happen. Yes. Over the next break, perhaps. We both live in the same state, so there you go. Yes. How about you, Adriana? Yes. I think our fans will appreciate this one because it has to do with health. So ever since

R of K Jr. was appointed, Trump's, what was it, health secretary of whatever? Yeah. Sorry, I should know that. My dad has been on a health kick, because I've been trying to like rid seed oils from our house for a very long time, and no one listens to me. But ever since RFK Jr. became a thing. My dad's

like, we have to stop eating seed oils. They're literally poison. So we made a... Exactly. I mean, he's right. But we made an apple pie for dessert, for Thanksgiving. And my dad said, we are not using Crisco this year. We are using lard.

So we went to the health market and got some good pork fat and we made our pie the crunchy way. So that was my favorite memory from Thanksgiving. I bet it was so good. It was good. My mom was kind of freaked out by it. She was like, eh, it tastes like pig

fat, but I don't know. Okay, if you let it sit for a few days, it doesn't really. Gotcha. Would you say that the pig flavor enhances? You know? Yeah, I can see this sweet and salty moment. Think about it.

Like bacon. Right. We eat bacon with sweet things. Pancakes. So why wouldn't it work in pie? Just don't think too hard about it. Yeah. Just eat it, guys.

Just eat it. With all natural vanilla ice cream. Yes. And organic apples, of course. Of course. Of course. Okay. Now that we've talked about how we've physically nourished ourselves,

we're going to intellectually nourish ourselves by talking about our man, Jordan B. Peterson. That was a great segue. Thank you so much. So, Adriano, what did you think of this chapter? What were your overall impressions, thoughts, comments, concerns? You know, risk-taking is something that I've tried to incorporate into my life in the most, in the recent years.

And I think one thing that you learn with risk-taking, okay, I think when you think of risks, we tend to think a lot of, like, oh, you could hurt yourself, you could die. But really the great thing about risks is that if you are smart about them and you overcome them, that's like the best feeling ever. Yes. Case in point when we went to D.C. We did a kind of stupid. But it was great. But it was great because the sun was set and we were two females walking home alone and we were both wearing sunglasses at night and we decided to play.

I wear my sunglasses at night. And sing it and frolic through the sidewalks of Washington, D.C. Yes. So there goes our political careers, but it was probably one of the best memories we made together. It was so much fun. Yeah. It was very silly and very spontaneous. And we still talk about it to this day.

Yeah. And you know what the thing is that I don't think we even looked that out of place. No. You know D.C. weed is legal. Yeah. You see all kinds of stuff. It's true. So.

We were not on weed. I should probably clarify it. that we were acting likely we were, but we were not. Can confirm. Don't do weed, kids. Do not do weed. But, you know, I think if we had spent all of our time just, you know, locked in our houses or, you know, just doing, you know, regular, boring, non-risky things, what kind of

stories would we have to tell? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Something to be said for spontaneity, risk-taking, pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. Yes. And I think that that really gets at the heart of this. chapter. Just to kick us off, when we get into the chapter, there's this anecdote that Jordan

Peterson loves to talk about, one of his many famous ones, which is when he was observing these kids when he worked at the University of Toronto, skateboarding off of this construction ramp, and not wearing any protective gear and doing like these really dangerous tricks. And the way that he reacts to these kids is he says that some people might call that stupid. Maybe it was. But it was brave, too. I thought those kids were amazing. I thought they deserved a pat on the back and some honest admiration. Of course it was dangerous. Danger was the point. They wanted to triumph over danger. They would have been safer in protective equipment, but that would have ruined it. They weren't trying to be safe. They were trying to become competent, and it's competence that makes people

as safe as they can truly be. And I think that's the crux of what he's getting at through the entire chapter. So as a brief roadmap, we're going to unpack more of Jordan Peterson's observations about this impulse for danger that's in all of us and what that means and maybe share some more fun personal anecdotes. And then we can get into how Jordan Peterson observes the culture now, kind of trying to impose a lot of restrictions on what people, especially children, do to push themselves into dangerous situations because it places an over-emphasis on safety. So, that's our roadmap for the episode. But first, danger. Danger. What did you make of Jordan Peterson's reaction to the skateboarding kids? Like, do you think that that's like a normal reaction to have

when you see people like skateboarding and doing crazy stuff? You know, I never really put Jordan Peterson and skateboarding together in the same mental image until this. But I agree because I think as humans, pain and death are just something that we hold so close to ourselves because it's something that we always face. But when you see someone like, in a sense, like defeat it, defeat pain and defeat, like avoid it altogether, that's just amazing to me. And I think that's kind of his point is, you know, people who are able to like push themselves to the point. And I'm sure those scapeors had to have gotten hurt, you know, along the way to get to where they did. But just to have kind of the superhuman ability to escape death is just,

it's like, I don't even know how to describe it. That's just so cool. Yeah, we just, I think it's our instinct to admire that. You know, when you see someone doing something risky, but then they pull it off and it's amazing. Or like stunts and stuff like that. There's a reason people are like running to watch the 007 movies, you know, with James Bond,

and that we're attracted to danger. We're attracted, because that is what allows for heroism. You know, like you don't get to be Beowulf, By playing it safe. No, you're right. That's right. That's what I was going to say. It's about, I think, heroism in part.

And I think that's why men are more drawn to taking risks than women are. I think for young boys, the way that we do education nowadays, I think that we have very much feminized it. I don't know if that makes sense. No, no, I think you're right. Where we don't really let children take risks. And I think that affects boys more than it affects girls. Absolutely.

Because I think that boys want to get into dangerous situations, and I think they want to, you know, be the ones to overcome pain, and show that they can take care of themselves and take care of others one day. And I think that, yeah, I mean, I agree that definitely both should be taking, both are inclined to take risks, but I think especially men are the ones who suffer when we try to stifle that. Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that. And if you're just tuning in, you're listening to The Healing Hour on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM with your host, Adriana Azarian, and your co-host, Erica Kaiba. And we are just talking about Rule 11 of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, which is do not bother children while they are skateboarding. And it's really a chapter about risk-taking and the love of danger that's kind of in all of us, and which society is sometimes trying to squash. And that's the point that you were just making about schools and how, It's become heavily feminized. And I've actually seen various different people comment on this,

from Prager You to like articles for different publications that talk about the quote unquote male crisis and how men aren't doing well in schools as well as women, especially in this modern day and age. And they're trying to figure out, well, why is this happening? And it's because exactly what you said. That's what a lot of people posit is that we have a school system that kind of is quash,

that rebellious instinct or dangerous-seeking instinct, like you see in the playgrounds they're becoming more and more safety-coded. So it's like there's less opportunities to play and do kind of dangerous stuff within limits. Like that's the point of a playground is to provide a framework where you can, I don't know, jump on the monkey bars and you could fall, but, I mean, it's not that bad of a fall. So you get scratched up a bit, but you know, you can just bounce back and keep going. And so that's what playgrounds are really useful for. And if you take that away, it's bad for every kid, but it's worse for boys.

they're more antsy and they want to get into stuff and do dangerous stuff. I want to stop for a second. Yes. I like what you said about, you know, you get scratched up a bit, but you get up. Yes. That is exactly why kids need to take risks. Because they need to know that you can suffer, you can be hurt. You can, you know, get physically, mentally scratched up in this life, but you can also get back up.

Yeah. And that's why playgrounds are so amazingly designed because they're dangerous, but, you know, not to the point where you're fully going to die, you know. So I never thought of playgrounds as teaching that kind of life lesson, but you're so right. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, I think that it can be very hard for the adults in the room, so to speak, whether it's like coming from the perspective of a parent or a teacher that's watching these kids do random stuff on the playground to just hold back and let the kids get hurt because I think that if you have kids in your care,

like you want to protect them, you want to nurture them, you want to keep them from harm. But you kind of need to tangle with the harm if you're, kid and actually no matter what stage of life you're at you know you need to encounter painful situations painful situations so that a you know how to avoid them in the future but be to show yourself that you're actually capable of dealing with that and that getting scratched up a bit isn't going to end you and you can just get back up again it's really really valuable yes so the second part that I was thinking with schools and I wanted to throw this over to you and ask if you've observed this or if you think it's true of the school system nowadays but that that

when the class is just teaching material, it kind of favors women because in a lot of situations, being rebellious or pushing back against the teacher being argumentative is not something that's valued. In a lot of situations, and of course this isn't true of every school, but in a lot of situations it's kind of expected, you sit down, you take notes, you learn what the teacher's telling you, and you're not having like a Socratic dialogue or you're not really supposed to debate what's being told to you. And so the idea is that that's often a hard. for guys because guys are more likely to debate and argue. Not that women aren't. And, you know, I know a lot of women that are more debate-oriented. And so it's not uniquely a male thing,

but it hurts men more. Yeah. This is something, actually, I was thinking about the other day. Don't ask me how I came across this, but basically it was like this Twitter post about how like education is just too like womanly now and we don't let men, like, because women are, just very, I think women are just naturally more sensitive, which is not a bad thing. And that's not a critique against women. In fact, I think it's a necessary trait of women to, like, tend to be more sensitive. But I think because of that and because education is so female dominated, and I, looking back at my own childhood, I think most of us, Gen Z can say, like, we remember always being taught, like, be kind, you know, things, don't hurt other people, don't argue, don't fight.

And, like, those are not intrinsically bad things. But I do think that, that kind of does carry over to a lot of our generation into adulthood where we're not comfortable being uncomfortable if that makes sense. We really kind of hold on to that like kindergarten morality and don't, thank you. And we don't really move past that at all. Like it's a good framework to share your things when you're a little kid, but like does that mean that we should be communists, you know? Right. Yeah. And it also, I guess it doesn't teach you how to set boundaries necessarily. Right. And I, I kind of wonder, and this is something that Eric and I have talked about actually a lot recently is like, should we, like those, like should we

have, you know, um, should we have co-ed education like in elementary schools? Um, and I'm not arguing for it or against it necessarily, but I am saying like, I think that, you know, girls can benefit a lot from being taught those things. Um, but I'm not. Um, but I'm not arguing for it or against it, I think that guys, it kind of does stifle their national masculine tendencies that are not bad. Yeah. No, and I think that, well, my perspective is that I think that the sexes are very complimentary. And so there's a lot to be said for co-ed education. And I think that actually there is really something to be said about the, you know, the be kind.

I mean, it is kindergarten morality. But the push against bullying, I think, has been so important. Because you have seen in the past, kids can be really mean. Like we're human beings, we're fallen, we're mean to each other a lot of the time. Yeah. So, you know, pushing back against it and saying like, okay, you actually can't verbally abuse your classmate, you know, that's not okay. I think that that's important that we have that guardrail.

Yeah. But I think it can go too far. So, for example, if somebody says, oh, I want you to call me this preferred pronoun, and you're like, well, actually, I disagree with that. And the person can be very hurt by that, but it's not just for you to not speak the truth, you know, about what your beliefs are just because this person is having an emotional reaction now, hiding the truth from them about whatever their situation is,

but biological reality is going to hurt more down the line, or at least not having the conversation culturally is going to hurt everyone more down the line. So I think that we have to be really, really careful with the nurturing instinct to, you know, not to want to see people get hurt because sometimes people do have to get hurt a little bit in the moment to avoid getting hurt a lot in the future.

Yes. Who was I talking to? I was talking to one of our friends, and they were saying, no, it was communism. Communism would not exist if it were not for Christianity. And I thought that was a really interesting take, and I asked her to expound on it more. And she was talking about, well, you know, the principles of sharing and caring about your neighbor. And, you know, like being, like we have this idea of like being one body in the body of Christ. And like, you know, communism kind of has that idea. idea of like, you know, we are all one, we're all in this together sort of thing. And I thought that was really interesting. I think that applies to this a little bit too. And I'm not saying that Christianity is the cause of this. I just think kind of a perverted Christianity is, like, the cause of the social problems we're seeing where it's like, be kind. Yeah, Teddy Bear Jesus. Like, be kind. Don't offend anyone. Like, we're all friends kind of thing. Right. And I've been thinking, wrestling with us slightly. Like, is it really for Christians to be,

like push over teddy bears or should we actually like no because Jesus was out here overturning tables in the temple when people were creating putting their commerce in God's house he stood up to

hypocrisy and evil when he saw it and he minces no words when he rebukes people so I'm not saying we should go flip tables and yell at people I think that there's like a lot of prudence that's called for when you're standing up to something.

But I do think that, you know, as Christians, like we really can't be, let ourselves be seduced by the teddy bear image of Jesus. Where, oh, it's all okay, and everyone's okay the way they are, and you've just got to accept everything that everyone is doing and not hurt their feelings, because that's not Christianity. But I think there's something absolutely right about that. Like, that's a perversion of Christianity,

and that's going to, like, lead to weird collectivist ideas. Well, I want to go back to the question, of education and co-ed education because I really do not know where I land on this, although I have been more and more compelled lately by separating the genders in elementary school at least, but I am curious, Erica, because I know that you are for co-ed education. How do you think that we could kind of promote the more masculine virtues for both boys and girls? Because like you said, it's not like they're necessarily for just men, like the more traditionally masculine virtues. when education seems to be so effeminate.

I think that, okay, this is just something that I've been toying with, personally, just thinking about a lot. I'm not an expert in pedagogy, but, I mean, I have been a student for a while. So true. And I've observed students for a while. And I think that the Socratic method, for one thing, allowing students to freely engage with the material, and also encouraging debate about issues,

especially if you want to get into polemical political territory. I think that that should mostly stay out of the classroom, but if you as a teacher are going to bring it in, you have to leave room for disagreement. And I think that there's a really great balance that can come into play where you're encouraging students to speak their mind and share what they think and welcoming it when they disagree with you.

And I've had really great, the best teachers that I've ever had have been ones that I disagreed with, but that were really generous about letting me voice my opinion and charitable about letting other people push back and providing kind of a forum. And I think that where the compassion part comes in is that you don't let it get out of hand. You don't let people insult each other. You don't let the fight get ugly or let everybody stonewall one person. And so that can provide some guardrails for the

quote unquote danger of, you know, letting everybody loose to debate each other. Now, even though you went to an all-girls high school, you still had male teachers, right? Yes. Do you think that having, like, boys, like having more male teachers would be helpful to them to have someone to look up to as a model of masculinity who can kind of give more example of what masculine virtue can look like. Yeah, I think that teachers of having teachers of both sexes is really important. I think that having a teacher of your own sex is really important because you kind of see a model for yourself. And so women, we tend to have that because education tends to be pretty female dominated. But I think that, yeah, like what you said, it's crucial for guys.

to have a role model and someone to look up to. This has been a really interesting conversation. I'm really particularly interested in your ideas on education because you went to an all-girls school. There's a lot more we could say on this, probably. We've had some really interesting conversations about this lately, and I'm absolutely fascinated by the concept. But I think we'll leave it at that because we are almost at time.

Thank you for listening to us. Again, this is The Healing Hour on Radio Free Hillsdale, 11.7 FM with your host, Adriana Azarian. And your co-host, Erica Kaiva. And it's been a pleasure flying with you today on Healing Hour Airlines. Fasten your seatbelts because next week we will be covering Rule 12, pet a cat when you see one on the street. Oh, I don't know if I agree with that one.

Well, we will find out if we agree with him, if you guys agree with him, next week on Radio Free Hillsdale.