The Rise of Jordan Peterson

- Jordan Peterson. - Jordan Peterson.

- Jordan Peterson. -Jordan B. Peterson.

-Jordan Peterson. - Welcome back, Mr. Peterson.

The Canadian psychology professor is somebody

people love or love to hate.

Despite what you think about him,

there is no denying the professor's impact.

He's undeniably one of the greatest

intellectual phenomenons on the planet right now.

People were coming up to me and saying, "This book

-saved my life." - He's the ultimate father figure.

I've spent so much time in the dark. It's not easy to find,

not so much heroes, but people that can be so helpful.

-Shame, shame, shame. - So, you're anti-justice.

Are you a Batman villain? I watched the professor against political correctness video

and I was just so disappointed, I guess.

His thoughts aren't quick.

They're long and drawn out and they're a story,

everything he says is a story, so you have to be there for the whole story

to find out what is there at the end.

"A man does not live by bread alone."

Right, and the spiritual bread that's the story.

If you're going to have millions of people who are listening to everything you say,

I think that you have take some responsibility to help them understand what you mean.

So, this is what I actually look like

and then this is what people who don't like me think I look like.

- -

- Which one is real? - Yeah, that's a good question.

Well, I would say they're both real.

Peterson! Peterson! Peterson!

Yeah, and he sang at my mom's funeral.

That's when he started to play the piano

as opposed to playing the guitar.

And he did it and sent it before he left.

- Answer. - One to five?

Yes. Strongly agree is five,

-strongly disagree is one. Okay. - Okay.

- Seldom feel blue? -That's the kind of question I don't know how to answer--

Just guess. Guess and then mom and I will tell you if you're off...

-Five is strongly agree? -Yeah.

-Four. -Avoid philosophical discussions?

- -One.

Change my mood a lot?

-He is Gemini. -I don't know. That's another one that's tough for me.

-What would you say? -I'd say one, but that's wrong.

He changes his mood often. I'd say yes.

-Yeah, probably four. -You know, he can be...

-Not a five? ...deeply immersed on the telephone, then he can say,

-"Where's my wallet?" And-- -Okay, okay. Five.

And then get out on the street and complain about the car and--

Keep my emotions under control?

- Three. -Okay.

-No way. Come on, really? -Is that what you think?

You have no idea how irritated I actually am.

-That isn't-- that's not the question. -One, apparently.

Weren't you yelling at a computer?

-Yeah. -Rarely feel depressed?

When I'm not depressed, I don't feel depressed at all,

but when I'm depressed, I feel depressed. That's another one I don't know how to answer.

- Love a good fight? - You mean an argument?

Yeah, a conflict.

- -You love them more than me.

They agitate the hell out of me, but I won't back away

from one. Three.

Hard to get to know?

-Three. -You went on TV talking about depression.

- What was the question? -Well, that's different.

Not really. Hard to get to know.

- Show business. - Hard to get to know.

-Know how to captivate people? -Five.

-Get deeply immersed in music? -Five.

-Think quickly? -Five.

Not easily annoyed?

- One. Thanks, Mom. -

Seek conflict?

Seek it.

When you're speaking about existential personality theory,

it's important to place the individual in a broader context.

Jung famously claimed that people didn't have ideas,

that ideas had people.

Politics was really something that had always been at the base

of what he was worried about.

Why do people fight wars

and why are people willing to sacrifice themselves?

I've been studying authoritarianism for a very long time.

It's been my life's work to inoculate people against ideological possession.

It's the lesson that I try to teach people in my Maps of Meaning course.

And then I've been keeping an eye on what's been going on with political correctness

since, well since the 1990s when I was down in--

I taught at Harvard for seven years.

And there was a big resurgence of political correctness

in the 1990s, but it sort of died off.

But then something changed about five or six years ago.

I noticed it, in the speech codes, and the sexual harassment codes,

and the idea of rape culture. My graduate student's comments that they're nervous

about teaching anything that has to do with gender or biology of gender

because they're afraid of the potential kickback from students

or afraid of speaking out in public about their research

on political psychology and personality.

It's just an endless array of details

indicating that the requirement to speak

in the politically correct manner

is becoming overwhelming.

It just so happened that it was the trans pronoun issue

that brought in this restrictive legislation

that had forced speech content,

which I think is very bad idea in principle,

very, very dangerous idea.

And I've entitled this talk,

"Professor Against Political Correctness."

There are continually things happening in the universities

and in the broader political world that make me very nervous.

It's becoming increasingly difficult for professors

and students to even say what they think.

And I think that some of the things that I say in my lectures

now might be sufficient for me to be brought before

the Ontario Human Rights Commission under their amended hate speech laws.

And that scares me as well.

And it scares me that I think that because it sounds paranoid

and there is a first reading of legislation

in the Federal House in Canada about a bill called C-16.

I'm very proud that on May the 17th

we introduced bill C-16,

an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act

and the criminal code.

The bill addresses a fundamental issue

of equality and human rights,

the discrimination and hate crimes experienced

by trans and gender diverse Canadians.

Definition of discrimination and harassment.

Now, these are truly terrifying.

Discrimination happens when a person experiences

negative treatment or impact intentional or not.

Intent matters, this is a painful thing that human beings have learned.

It's at the base of our modern legal systems.

If I accidentally run into you,

that's way different than if I run into you on purpose.

And so, this policy is designed to reverse that.

So, this is the scenario I've been running through my head.

I can envision a student or a colleague

insisting that I call them using gender neutral pronouns.

I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that.

I don't recognize another person's right to determine

what pronouns I use to address them. I won't do it.

Now, my decision might be illegal and maybe it's even a decision of hate,

but I'm not doing it.

But I'm not doing it.

I watched the video and then was in danger

of vomiting all over my keyboard.

I started tweeting about it and I made a number of comments

basically calling out Peterson for being transphobic.

But I just sort of felt that I could speak perhaps to having

a little bit of lived experience as a non-binary and a trans person on campus.

I wanted to try to stick up for students

who felt under fire from Peterson's remarks.

I wrote to someone in the administration and asking,

"Gosh, what are we going to do about this?"

And it, sort of, snowballed from there.

Why are you against the use of alternate pronouns?

I'm against the use of-- of legislation to determine

what words are that myself and other people are required to utter.

Bill C-16 is actually not about cisgender people.

It's about protections for transgender people.

Peterson frames this as a free speech issue

just because you can't speak exactly what you want to say it,

when you want to say it, where you want to say it,

doesn't mean you get to throw a big tantrum.

You've accused him of abusing students

by not using the pronouns they want to be addressed by.

That's how I see it, absolutely.

That is tantamount to abuse in your view?

Absolutely. Many global documents, many organiza--

How about violence? Is it tantamount to violence?

-Yes, absolutely. -How about hate speech?

-Is it tantamount hate speech? -Yes. It's hate speech--

Fine, that's--

One of the things that I studied, for example,

with regards to the way events went during the Holocaust is that

we went this far. It was like, "Okay, no problem."

But then we went this far. That was okay, no problem.

It's like, "Oh, it's okay. It's okay. We can do that.

We can go that one step further." It's like--

The funny thing too is, is if you draw a line in the sand,

which is what I did, all hell breaks loose because,

"Well, why did you draw it there? That's arbitrary."

It's like, "Yeah, there's an element of arbitrariness to it."

That's why people won't draw the line, they don't want

to take the heat for the arbitrary element,

the arbitrary nature of the act because

whatever people happen to be directly affected by that arbitrary line,

they come out and say, "Well, you're a horrible person."

"Yeah. Oh, well. No, but I get your point."

There's a demonstration plan for tomorrow.

They call it a rally and teach-in,

so I'm going to have to make this very straightforward and simple.

I don't disbelieve in the existence of non-binary people.

Okay? Do you want me to say that again?

Obviously, people who don't fit into

standard binary categories of sexual identity,

however you decide to construe that