Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Jordan Peterson has become hugely successful.

  • What do you make of the phenomena?

  • Why do you think he's become so successful now?

  • There is a drought of authenticity and courage, and Peterson has found that hunger and he's tapped into tonight.

  • I admire his ability to detect it and to speak to it plainly in a way that it resonates with.

  • I did.

  • We were on a panel together in Vancouver, and I watched his talk, and he described his own surprise at how effective his message had been.

  • And he basically said that if he had outlined his message as the core of a business model, that it would have looked laughable to him and that he was a shocked as anybody that people were resonating with it.

  • But when when you live in a world that is as full of crap of the world we live in, where people are advertising bullshit to you from the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep and then somebody finally tells you some truth that you need to hear.

  • It's a relief.

  • It's a relief just to know that there's some channel, it isn't compromised by nonsense.

  • and he I don't think he's the only one speaking truthfully, but I think he is speaking from the heart and people know it.

  • I think that he grasps directly the fact that human beings can only actually make sense of the world by virtue of communication with other human beings.

  • And this is all about the notion of admixture that one must have a mixture of of what women He uses the myth of poetic to make sense that the order, order and chaos, uh, the way at the Taoist way is the alchemical admixture of order and chaos on That's it, like that's how you do it.

  • And so if you buy us towards orderliness, you find yourself in a rigid, non adaptive, non creative, non exploratory framework, um, which will die because the world changes.

  • If you buy us towards chaos, Um, you you eat your young and evaporate um, which also dies for obvious reasons on the key is actually enabled these things to be in relationship with each other and vital, healthy relationship with each other.

  • And I think that's it, in some sense, the essence of what he's focusing on, and it's sort of the core of what he's actually about very easy to work with.

  • His voice is an instrument because he speaks very deliberately and Sana grisly on rhythmically anyway, he actually speaks in a kind of formal rhythmic charity.

  • Sometimes he is actually Rapid Peterson's words, plus lo fi hip hop he calls J B.

  • P Way.

  • First, It's like, Oh, it's a novelty thing and then I kind of listen to him.

  • I know it's not an old anything.

  • This is actually really good.

  • Yeah, that's been that's been the reaction all over.

  • I think that was Peterson's reaction.

  • He was instantly like thought this was gonna be silly and was amused and was like, Oh, this is actually artful on And now it's actually proving useful.

  • That's generally direction from people.

  • And if you don't have a no blame, that's not good.

  • That's not good.

  • That that's no good.

  • You have nothing but shallow interesting that you say as well that Peterson has a very musical or a very performative aspect to his speech because he talks about performance that performance or aligning yourself with the truth.

  • And if you are aligning yourself with the logos of the creative principle, you would expect to be for that to have an effect on your actual performance.

  • He feels like a very embodied speaker when he's on stage, like he's fully inhabiting the stories that he's that he's telling on that.

  • That performative aspect of it is, it seems to me, at least also related to what he's talking about, the logos and incarnated ATM or in your life and incarnated ATM or in your in your being.

  • Yes, and watching him become that over the years because he was not always is as confident Onda able to just not, you know, you're free cells right here is his whole theory.

  • Yeah, his whole career is really reminded me of.

  • It's Very 50 Cent, for example, got big off the back of drama.

  • There was created drama beefs with other rappers and being shot 13 times and all this stuff which draws people into this story.

  • But then he had this huge body of work on that kept people there.

  • Peterson did this.

  • Peterson had these public dramas, and that brought people to him with them.

  • When they got to him there, there was this huge body of work for them to get sort of lost in immersed in it.

  • Peterson has some kind of drama, like every week At this point, he's like the ultimate sort of contemporary battle rap Aries war with all sorts of people at all times, and it is brilliant, very interesting.

  • And if you're into, you know, if your rap fan or if you're what would you call if your intellectual duck or whatever the hell it is fat?

  • It's like this guy's getting incredible beefs every week, right?

  • There's a new sort of super villain to root against every week, three guards to him or if you're on his side or not, you know it's the whole thing's very entertaining, but then it pulls you in.

  • And then there's all this meaning of this huge body of work.

  • Meaning is what you have to trust yourself against drugs, but he's quite nude on this.

  • Like if you watch him like 15 years ago, who's be awkward, sort of.

  • He was very charming, and he knew what he was talking about, but the absolutely fucking beast that he has become a za performance creature who could now just rock up in an amphitheater and just like Freestyle, the new two hour lecture off the top of his head.

  • And he's very Inter not repeating himself too much.

  • And it's like you go see a stand up comedian.

  • You'll see pretty much the same set every week for, like, a year or something, right?

  • He won't do that.

  • Uh, he's more like a very good D.

  • J.

  • You know, he has all these years like a fistful of things that, you know, is works together and they're linked and taking on these different journeys.

  • But depending on who's in the room on where he is, he will create a new and transformative always experience.

  • I remember discovering Jordan Peterson last June and just immediately thinking this is the thing that is needed Right now.

  • This is about the re enchantment of the world, the assimilation of spirituality, the assimilation religion.

  • This is This is the thing that I was obsessed like digesting listening to all of this stuff and then pitched on an interview to him and was lucky enough to get an interview with him in October.

  • That we then put out is the truth in the Time of Chaos Documentary in January at exactly the time that, ironically, he then kind of shot to fame with an interview with my ex colleague Cathy Newman on Channel four News.

  • When a lot of what I had gone to talk to Jordan Peterson about was synchronicity on DDE, it was just uncanny.

  • That's when the synchronicity stop.

  • That's right.

  • That's right.

  • That's when things start to line up.

  • Yeah, and the more you're in that space, the more they line up.

  • And so the question is, if you're like, really in that space, how much do things line up?

  • All of this is happening, and I I wonder what I was gonna make, What to make of this?

  • And while I was thinking, Well, I have this kind of linked to tea Cathy and I have some kind of link to Jordan, so what I need to do is liaise between them and get them to go and do the second interview that I thought was necessary.

  • And so for a while I was doing that kind of trying to do stuff behind the scenes.

  • And then it was clear that Kathy wasn't interested.

  • Channel four weren't interested.

  • So gentle new story weren't interested.

  • So in the end.

  • I thought, why came?

  • And then it came to me, Okay, I should make a documentary glitch in the Matrix, which then was a way of, like, just downloading all the stuff that I've been thinking about for quite a while.

  • Include, especially since the election of Trump back under the shadow side of liberalism and all of the blind spots of liberalism.

  • A glitch in The Matrix was kind of the title of it, and it all it was.

  • It came from a very from a real flow state off, like being really a line of feeling like This is what I meant to be doing, which is the essence of kind of synchronicity and the essence of Jordan.

  • Peterson's deeper meaning is, you know, when you're aligned the right place and then your sense of meaning tells you what to do.

  • And I think he's often misconstrued by people who can't get past the politics or have a reactivity to him.

  • But to me, he is doing nothing less than channeling and fully articulating the deep story of Western culture for the first time.

  • And well, certainly, for the first time in the Internet age, you could argue that Young was doing the same thing back in the fifties and that there are people who come along and do this at times in the past, but effectively saying We already know a lot of the answers We already know the way to live.

  • It embodied interaction.

  • It's embodied in mythologies embodied in our religions.

  • It's embodied in all of these things.

  • Look at this piece of art.

  • What is it saying?

  • We represented it in art.

  • We represented it in all these ways, and now we can fully articulated tight into neuro science.

  • Tie it into on that it's a It's an epic epic project on DDE.

  • So I get accused and it's very easy to say, Well, you're obsessed with Jordan Peterson, your fan boy and all that stuff.

  • But for me, the message that he's bringing forward is that deep.

  • It's that deep.

  • And therefore I want to continue to use his thought as a lens to link into other great thinkers like we just put out on interview with Rupert Sheldrake, who I think is an amazing rebellious thinking.

  • He's been doing this stuff for a long time on DDE.

  • I want to also continue to kind of expand that into other into other thinkers.

  • Make the conscious linked to this sort of deeper worldview on help.

  • You just bring out great, bring out great content.

  • Really?

  • Where?

  • Where is his insight coming from?

  • And so we talked to you when you were describing how you almost sound a little bit like Jordan piece.

  • I mean, in the sense off.

  • Yeah.

  • I mean, if I had to describe my world view in a nutshell, it would be sort of a neo platonic.

  • So there was a near platonic Stoick Mystic Chris Diagnostic.

  • So the idea near platonic, I believe I have always just sort of felt like there is a realm of ideal forms.

  • Stoic, do the suck it up, fat kid, and do the hard thing 100%.

  • Um nah, stick.

  • There is a sudden, ineffable experience of being.

  • And then the mystic kristic is some some reflection on the Judeo Christian Western tradition, but nothing to do with 2000 years of bureaucratic administration and everything to do with what is nominally the metaphor of Kairos and Kronos, the intersection of kind of sacred and profane time in human form.

  • So in that respect, Yeah, I would track with Peterson my senses for me.

  • Um, my, you know, no sis or understanding has come from ex Tarsus has come from peak experiences on and my sense for him, at least as he shares what he does of his life has come from catharsis has come from the suffering that's come from battling depressions come from staring at the abyss in the face versus the view from the summit, and theirs are ideally come full circle and reinforce each other.

  • But if I had to sort of delineate, maybe wears his transmission anchoring from it's maybe a little bit more the staring the abyss and surviving it, then then calling out coordinates from the mountaintop.

  • The most important thing for me, quite apart from his work with these stories of modern myths, was, as you say, his investigation to the Bible.

  • I've always been fascinated.

  • Although I'm an atheist, I'm always been fascinated by the power of the biblical stories, often found myself looking at these huge cathedrals and churches that sprouted up all over Europe.

  • You know, Andi asked myself.

  • Well, what's that about?

  • You know, why was this story so powerful.

  • I mean, yeah, it's a defense against death if you want to be cynical.

  • But, hey, you know, it could be lots of other stories.

  • You know what?

  • Why is this one so unbelievably powerful?

  • And what does it mean for it to be so powerful and peace?

  • And I think brilliantly answers that question in the biblical lectures he's done.

  • And he really changed me those lectures.

  • You generally did, I think, change the way I lived my life because he came to this very, very important conclusion, which I'm pretty commits by.

  • I don't think I'm ever 100% commits by anything.

  • But I'm very convinced by his idea, as I've someone who's suffered depression and depression is like a crisis of meaning.

  • And you're it's the worst thing about depression is not about being miserable.

  • It's being having a life that seems utterly meaningless on.

  • That's why it's such torment.

  • Andi Pizza, in a way, tries to answer the question.

  • How do we as an individual?

  • That's a bit of a paradox.

  • How do I, as an individual acquire meaning because meaning is the most important thing any of us could have?

  • You know, there's meaning is it?

  • You know, if you don't know that yet, no one can quite say what meaning is which I think is interesting in itself.

  • You know what?

  • This is?

  • What I want to sense a meaning.

  • What is the sense of what is meaning on DDE?

  • Peterson, I think, acknowledges that mystery but also says, Well, you know, if you want a sense of meaning, it's not about just doing what you want.

  • It's not about just following your bliss is Joseph Camp would be or or having a much fun as possible, or or even necessarily being happy?

  • No, absolutely no, not necessarily Big happy.

  • It's There were more important things than being happy on Dive also found that to be true in my life, I hadn't heard someone making a compelling case like this that was actually getting traction with people and was clear Peterson was getting traction.

  • And so then I said, I've gotta listen to this guy.