Part One: Robert and Cody Watch Jordan B. Peterson's New TV Show

Robert is joined by Cody Johnston to discuss Jordan Peterson's new TV series, 'Dragons, Monsters & Men.'

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Uh, what's abusive? My friendship with Cody. I'm Robert Evans,
host of Behind the Bastards, podcast about terrible People, with
my good friend Tody Johnston. Cody, how are you doing?
Hello there. I'm spectacular. I couldn't be better and a
fantastic won't be judging from No, you're a little I

(00:24):
know about what we're gonna talk about. You're gonna have
a terrible day to day, Cody. Cody, you are the
host of some More News and the co host of
the podcast with a similar but not exactly the same name,
um YouTube Sensation, it would be fair to say, and
my absolutely and my friend of many years and Cody Deep.

(00:47):
Are you familiar with the concept of love languages? I am. Yeah.
It's it's this idea that that people there's different people
express love in different ways, and in a major part
of having a healthy relations it is understanding the way
that the people in your life express love and communicating
to them the way that you do so that you

(01:07):
don't misunderstand each other and you appreciate, you know, when
the other person tries to share with you the way
they feel. And I've I've come to recognize over the
years Cody, that you and I have a particular love language.
It started a couple of years ago when you began
telling me about Dr Jordan B. Peterson. Um. That all
culminated in me putting together like a three hour podcast

(01:29):
series about the life of Dr Jordan B. Peterson. And
then a couple of years later you put together a
three hour video about everything Jordan Peterson has ever said
and done and and and I just watched that, Cody,
and now I am about to sit down with you,
and I am about to share, as part of my
love language, some more about Jordan B. Peterson. This is

(01:52):
what we call romance and romance there's nothing pure. Um.
So thank you. I I received. I believe I started
this by saying, Cody, I love you. I'm sorry, instantly
apologetic as soon as I popped off. Cody. You know

(02:12):
Mr Peterson, doctor Mr Peterson, Um. And you know I'm
sure that he has recently started a new television show,
a hit new TV show. Everybody's talking about it on
the Daily Wire TV show. It's it's like a show.
It's like a show. It is it has the it's

(02:34):
a show is a great description the show for sure,
like like it contains the totemic sigils that associated as
being like a television show. So like if you were
like the things that, like the the the representative artifacts
that signify that something is a TV show are present

(02:56):
in this thing, which is not a TV show. It's
on the Daily Wire's website. Um, not even Daily Wire
Plus on their website now or so, Yeah, you have
to get whatever they're streaming account. I don't know, Cody.
I'm not going to tell you how I got this show.
You don't need to, Okay. I understand it's called Dragons,
Monsters and Men um boring. That's classic. I think there's

(03:23):
any chance at all that like the name was picked
in part because they're like, well, the new Game of Thrones,
And then I think so because the introna like, so
you watched the new Lord of the Ring show, Cody,
I haven't seen it yet. Um, it's pretty good. I
like it, But the intro of it is very clearly

(03:43):
doing a Game of Thrones like that that that kind
of like where it's sort of a kind of abstract representation, um,
using like symbols and stuff and whatever. Um, it's fine,
but they're doing the same thing in Dragons monsters and
men to open the series. Yeah, well so for listeners. Uh,

(04:05):
a screen is being shared with me, and the first
frame of this show is on screen, and I instantly
believe you and agree with you, and like, it's not
even it's not even a letter I'm looking at. I'm
looking at the shape of a part of a letter
from the intro, Like, yeah, they're doing thrones. Yeah, there's
all smoky and dusty, and like, yeah, let's just let's

(04:27):
play the start of this and you at home will
hear it, and then we'll kind of describe what we're
seeing after you've heard it. But I think both are valuable. Cody,
I'm sorry, I love you, and starting yet, Sophie, what hey,

(04:55):
they can't do this? Come on alright, alright, alright, let's
let's pause it and talking them. Is it just him
at a chair? It's just him in a chair. But so, so,
what we see that intro is like a bunch of
they kind of look like stone age glyphs, a mix
of like stuff that might be runic shapes. I'm not

(05:16):
a Runes expert. Maybe their actual runs um, but runs
in like a video games, you know, there's like animal glyphs,
there's like an arrow that's going up like progress and
then turns down, probably because the liberals started doing a
gender wokeness. Yeah, the woke run um. And then when

(05:40):
you heard that watching and then that a bunch of
fire blue on the screen, followed by the logo Dragons,
Monsters and men, Dragons earlier challenges, Monsters and the Demons.
You have to Slane, it's like you've spent dozens of
hours watching Dr Jordan Peterson talking about his ideas. It's
just like it was basic symbolism and ship. All right,

(06:04):
yeah it is, it is, Cody. It is kind of
I think Jordan Peterson would have been a really inspirational,
like sixth grade creative writing teacher. I've always thought, like, hey, man,
go out write a book, not your weird books, a
fiction book, and like use all your ideas and your

(06:26):
archetypes and your symbolism and and say a story that
you think should be told with all those ideas, and
then maybe people will finally see the uh what you believe?
I think something different is going to happen, Cody. So
the episode one is titled What Makes a Man? And

(06:47):
once the title crawl finishes, were presented with Jordan Peterson
wearing a nice fitted blue suit and sitting in a
leather armchair in a library. There's a large, like hour
glass style clock that's about four ft behind him. And
what's interesting to me is how all the production value
and intensity they've tried to build up at the start
of the s episode dissipates the instant Jordan starts talking

(07:07):
and I'm gonna have Sophie quickplay to display that I can't.
I'm sorry, I love you. There are multiple let's say,
competence and authority, multiple especially in a sophisticated society, and
so you're fortunate if you're good at one or two things.

(07:28):
Most of the ways you could be competent and generous,
you're just not that good at So first of all,
I would say, don't be too disheartened, especially if you're
so listeners. What's just happened on screen is that obviously
you can hear him talking, it's just him sitting in
the chair, and after like twenty seconds, the screen splits

(07:51):
and we watch a close up of his face next
to a slightly further outshot of his face, both at
the same time really off putting and disconcerting. It's because
they know, they know what they've done. It's really threw
They threw god knows how much money at this guy,
like millions of dollars. I probably millions of a lot

(08:12):
of Like they're just that's why he literally said this
out loud and one of his videos like, yeah, they
gave me a lot of money. Uh, and more power
to him go for it. But so they know they've done.
But ultimately and the Daily Wire Plus wants to be
the programming like they wanted anti woke, like the TV
that you don't get on HBO, which we secretly love
that kind of thing. Um, And so they've throw this

(08:35):
money at it. But ultimately what they bought was Jordan
Peterson doing his lectures, which is just a guy on stage.
That's it. So they have to make it seem somewhat
like cinematic or exciting or visually interesting at all. And
so they have two campus follow him and do a
splitz Cody, Cody, I'm gonna give you a spoiler. At

(08:56):
a certain point, there's going to be three. Yeah, It's
like I was like waiting at a certain point. They
do like re enactments are like they feel like third
It is never anything but Jordan Peterson on screen. Okay,
here's here's here's okay, here's my slight feedback here. So
he's worked very hard, Like the hair is perfectly slicked back,

(09:17):
he's chosen you know, the coat. Why is his tie crooked?
And why is his shirt wrinkled? Two notes those were
my clearly tried super hard to have this like put
together image. But yet your shirt is wrinkled and your
tie is crooked. What is happening? Also, what is that tie?
They didn't say, I don't want to shakes and possibly

(09:40):
the Benzo. I just gotta say it's the Benz s
I wear a very crumpled suit and tie on my show.
I do not own a suit or tie on purpose.
But fabulous. Well, like he seems seems like the kind
of guy who would be like, well, no, iron, my

(10:03):
shirt's before my my my big show. My nicest outfit
is an open hoodie with a Bart Simpson Gulf War
commemorative T shirt. I mean it's spells Saddam huss saying Huskin,
He's like put a lot of effort into it. Like
he's gone through the trouble of calling up Gavin Nusup
and being like what Harold jail do you use and

(10:24):
using all the hair gel and but yet crooked tie,
wrinkled shirt. Just very interesting to note. Shall we continue?
Roberts also, Sophie, real quick, get used to the hands.
He stop doing the little magic fingers. He loves the
little magic fingers. Money as I'm sure they're spending on this,
and for all the production value that existed in the

(10:45):
first twenty eight seconds, which is going to be the
most exciting thing we see today. Uh, it's I think
the episodes. I don't even think there's scripts to these,
Like you said, it's just like they filmed a lecture.
This isn't I've seen his lectures and they are normally
like he's wrong about things, but he knows how to
give a competent lecture right where he like builds to

(11:06):
a point and yeah, there's a journeys an impact on
the audience. That's why he's been successful. That's not what
we're having here. There's no nothing he's building to. He
is just sitting in a chair and kind of talking
almost aimlessly. Um yeah, I want just listen, listen to this.
I will so my prediction. So this seems like what

(11:28):
you're describing is uh, like you know, you've you've written
a lot about him. I recently released a three hour
video about him. Uh. In doing so, you have to
watch a lot of YouTube videos of him. Uh. And
in doing that, your algorithm gets completely fucked um. And
so if you're like scrolling like YouTube shorts or something,
here's like, oh, here's this fifty second clip of Jordan

(11:48):
Peterson on a podcast, rambling about whatever. And it seems
like that's what this experience will be, just like scrolling
through these like fifty second clips of him like random
thought about this, I can say this about monsters and
then just sort of like yeah, yeah, they just kind
of sat down and let him go. And you can
kind of see in the editing and then gradually how

(12:08):
the off screen questions are kind of directing him that
I think they recognized that made a mistake about ten
minutes into this. But I want to play you the
next set of clips here. Sorry. What should I do?
And part of the problem is the question what should
I do with my life is not a very good
question because it's sort of like tell me about everything.

(12:30):
It's just too much what do you do in your life?
Will you say you do many things. Okay, what are
those things? Because I don't know what to do? What
other people that appear to give their lives significance and meaning?
And this is bears on the issue of responsibility. Well,
most people want to have or do have an intimate partner.

(12:53):
So if you don't have split see his hands, we
don't work on that by going to find the person
that's right for you. It's like, who the hell are you?
And what makes you think that even if you found
the person that was right for you, they wouldn't take
one look at you and runaway screaming I'm gonna talk
like this. I can't he just because he's he's like

(13:17):
circling really banal advice, like he can't get in the
In the roughly a minute that we played fifty seconds,
the actual point he has made is that like, life
includes a lot of things, and it's you shouldn't try
to find someone to fall in love with, right, Like
life is complicated, you gotta narrow it down your goals

(13:38):
and like but like the point he's the broader point
he's making is that like young men shouldn't seek to
find someone to complete them, they should become the person
that like is you know, which is fine advice. That's
good advice on yourself, right of at the same time,
because also he talks like really contradictory too, because he's
saying it as if like, well, why do wanna like

(14:01):
get find so an intimate intimate partner? Uh, who's like
right for you? Well, what makes you think that they're
gonna like you? So, like he's talking about it in
this dismissive way where it's like, don't even try. And
then he's coming back to you need to work on
yourself before you do that in order to what Because
ultimately what he's saying is work on yourself in order

(14:21):
to be of value to a partner. So he's still
encouraging this end goal. He's just saying like, yeah, takes
some time, and do work on yourself. It's just such
a weird way to to say these things. It's it's
it's pointlessly long and and after meandering for a little
while longer, Peterson announces that the primary thing that young

(14:42):
men have going for them is youth and possibility, which
is what sets them apart from the olds who have
money and the ability to wear nice suits. While seated
in a library funded by oil and gas billionaire investments,
but don't have as much energy or as much time.
Peterson makes the claim that if you're young and poor,
you still have an unbelievable source of wealth because you're young,

(15:04):
and obviously no one would change being young for being
decrepit and rich. Now, this seems to ignore that an
awful lot of rich people are in excellent shape and
stay that way for a long time because it's very
easy to eat well and seek medical care. Money. I
see good, good stuff, Jordan. He's done this before about
like wealth and stuff, where it's like, oh, you know,

(15:26):
everybody has problems. You know, it's not richer, you're richer,
your poor. You know you're richer poor. You know everybody
gets sick. It's like, yeah, but but how do you
what do you do if you get sick? And what
you do if you get sick and you're and you're rich.
Like it's so it's like people looking at Kanu, who
is like pushing sixty and being like, wow, he looks incredible,
and I'm sure Kanu reeves. The first thing he would

(15:47):
say is yeah, because I have tens of millions of dollars. Yeah, exactly.
It's like a video of h Rob Mac describing his
how he got in shape. It's like, yeah, it's impossible.
If you have unlimited money, then it's very you don't
spend time with anybody and you have to do Yeah. Silly, um,

(16:07):
very silly. Now, most of what Peterson is trying to
get out here is like his normal twelve Rules for
life ship just not at all very well organized. Um.
And it's certainly not yet offensive advice, although he's ignoring
things in a way that is kind of offensive. But
it's true that if you're young and healthy, that is
worth a lot. Right, Youth and health are are very
valuable things. Time is valuable, of course. Like again, yeah,

(16:32):
it's like this thing he does where it's like what
you're saying, like if you shave everything away. Yeah, it's
a fine point that a lot of people make on
everywhere and art exactly. But he's houses it and it's
like monsters and dragons and men. It's like, well, you're
just sitting in it. He said nothing. Nothing that he
said that's right, is something you couldn't find on the

(16:53):
wall of an Airbnb in Glndale, California. Exactly. Um, yeah, exactly.
And it's it's funny. But as he starts at this
like very basic point that like yes, health, youth and
and health are are are valuable. But like a lot
of his platitudes in this episode, it starts to spin
out like tires losing traction and muney and it's very
funny to listen to. So I'm gonna have you play

(17:14):
this next clip. Are you good at anything? And if
fancier that is, no, Well how about you start practicing
being good at something? Pick one thing? Well? What well,
not nothing? Pick something? Maybe it's a video game? Surely
sage advice. Dr Peterson talk like a guy who's ever

(17:38):
talked to a person before. This is also and I
have to say this is and I'll probably have to
point this out every thirty seconds. This is something he
says all the time in every interview he's ever been
in being asked about advice for people. Uh this like
pick something and do it. I've heard it different times

(18:00):
in ninety different interviews in ninety different like Alpha Brain
Academy clip on YouTube. Why did they give this guy
so much money for this show? Yes, acquiring skills is
useful in life. It's just like yeah. So he goes
on to say that getting good at anything helps you

(18:20):
learn how to get good at other things, which is true,
but not in a way that really means anything, Like
if you get good at a video game, which he
actually suggests here, that probably won't actually help you get
good at endurance running, even though you could like boil
it down and be like, we'll both require you to
do something over and over again until you get better
at it. But like playing video games is pleasurable and
physically not difficult on your body, whereas distance running is

(18:44):
really difficult on your body and makes you uncomfortable for
extended periods of time. And so the fact that you
got good at a video game probably won't help you
with your endurance running. Not that there aren't people who
are good at both, but the fact that like skills
are not universally applicant, right one doesn't necessarily lead to
the other. And like running, you know, running might make
you better at a video game because like exercise, like

(19:06):
is good for your brain and like your focus and
attention and things, and that's what you need when you
play a video game. If you play a video game,
it might help you with like pattern recognition and certain
things like that. Um, But like you can't just like
pick two things and say do this and you'll get
better at the other. It's yeah, it's also like I
think there's actually a fundamental flaw in the logic that

(19:29):
like learning how to get good at one thing means
you'll get good at other things. Because it's a general
rule the things that people get best at first do
the things that they're like inclined towards because of basic interest,
and an awful lot of actual success is getting good
at things that you're not inclined to. But you need
to build up some level of competence and because like
a lot of life is just kind of unpleasant, um,

(19:49):
and got to do things you don't like and get
good at them so you can do them well and
get them over with Exactly, Like if if you love basketball, um,
and you hate numbers, the fact that the skills that
made you good at basketball might not make you good
at paying your taxes, which is why people who become
professional sports players generally higher professional accountants. Right yea, um,

(20:12):
but whatever, anyway, continue Jordan Peterson. So the next thing
he goes into is he talks about how he when
he was a young man, the thing that he became
good at first was washing dishes um, which I don't
know that he actually did this, but he's claiming this
because it makes him seem like a man of the
people he has. I am not certain he ever did
this job, but a lot of people do. So let's

(20:33):
just hear him out. And so what else do you
have to do to be a good dishwasher? Learn the techniques,
stay on stay on your toes, Volunteer to work when
other people don't show up, um, show an interest in
learning to cook, get along with the waitresses, maybe, get
along with the customers, act like an adult, and all

(20:54):
of that's excellent practice for all sorts of things you're
gonna do later. Now, this is Cody. Do you know why, however?
Why I have you known a lot of people who
did dishwashing specifically, not just like their job included dishwashing,
but like people who's who's like I've worked in restaurants
and like I've I've done dishwashing, and I've known many

(21:17):
dishwashers at the jobs going back, Is it not? Would
you say generally accepted as good advice that you keep
the dishwashers the funk away from the customers. Oh, yeah,
I mean we don't need that. But also you keep
the dishwashers happy and like you like, it's just it's
like chefs. You don't want the chef. You can talk
to the you go in the room, you get sweaty,

(21:38):
you turn on your music. Whatever. It is a lot
of cocaine in the bathroom, like it's fine. Um, I
don't know. It's also like it's like not like it
depends on the restaurant too, you know. Yeah, there there's
like like very friendly like customer relations between like workers
and customers. That's fine. Um, it's a weird thing to

(21:59):
PLoP in there. I think he's just trying to he's
trying to give He's trying to give general life advice
which he always does that everybody could give, and make
it specific to this one example, which is what he
does all the time. Right, He's like, yeah, it's good
to like get to know this person and this type
of person and go out in the world and do this.
And he's just using dish washing and as an example. Yeah,

(22:22):
he's generally using it as an example and I mean
as agit like yeah, whatever, I don't think want to
talk to the customers like part A big part of
managing any successful enterprise where there are customers is limiting
who has to deal with customers, because that's the thing
that sucks the most, right because they're the worst people
in the world. Um, like the the last person like you.

(22:44):
You you want as many people as possible to not
have to talk to the customers directly because those yeah, exactly,
um and I just well, so quick note, if we're
if listeners, If if we're listening to a clip and
suddenly you hear like a snicker or a laugh faw
a little shortle uh, it might be because of what
he's saying. If you think what he's saying is funny,

(23:06):
it's probably because they just did the split screen thing again,
and it's so jarring and off putting, and it surprises
me every time because why are they doing it. It's
so weird. It seems like they're doing it at random.
There's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just like, well,
we need to do the split screen thing again, and
I can't wait for it to be three Peterson's on
screen at once now, Cody. A lot of evidence shows

(23:29):
that of all of the jobs in the United States,
the highest level of substance abuse is pretty much working
in a restaurant, particularly like working in the back of
a restaurant, like those are as as uh, Anthony Bourdain
very very eloquently wrote about, Like that's just a pretty
durable fact. And yeah, I think front of the restaurant

(23:51):
is cocaine. Back of the restaurant is all drugs. Yeah.
And I'm gonna be honest with you. The only reason
I might believe that Jordan Peterson did what he said
and he claims he went from being a dishwasher to
a short order cook, is that I can't imagine him
sitting in the back of a restaurant doing lines of
a variety of benzos and stimulants and you know whatever,

(24:12):
whatever he could get his hands on. Look at the man,
Look at that Look at that shirt. Tell me tell
me that man hasn't tried to straighten the lines in
a rain naked painting. I can't tell you that. Uh,
good guy, Dr Jordan Peterson. Um. Anyway, he's on the
verge of sounding like a normal person here until we

(24:32):
get to this line. You know it's not intellectual work
and that you're not dealing with abstractions, although it can
still be complex. That's why we don't have dishwashing robots.
By the way, now, quick quiz good sir, Do we
in fact have dishwashing robots? Yeah? I feel like maybe

(24:53):
if you just cut off the word robot. Yeah, we stopped.
We didn't use the word robot for it. But we
have washing machines, and I feel like everyone listening has
a machine that washes dishes. Um, you know, not all
places have dishwashers, but everybody knows they exist. Yeah. Again,
obviously the point he's making is that like, yeah, if

(25:14):
you're even with all that machines can do, if you're
like running a professional restaurant, you're going to have someone
whose job is keeping the dishes clean because machines can't
do everything right. And like sometimes you run the dishwasher
and you're like, oh, the dishwasher didn't work. I got
to use my human hands that have certain ways they
can move and they can get in there and clean that.
It's so funny because like the most famous labor saving

(25:35):
device on the planet is dishwashers. Like it's it's it
says if if you know, if we didn't know that
clearly Game of Thrones fan, if it was like the
only TV show this man has seen as the Jetsons
and keeps facing everything off of Rosie the Robot. I
mean it's like there's there's flint Stones and then there's Jetsons,

(25:56):
and there's like nothing in between. Yeah, there's nothing in between.
But even like dishwashing, like what birds and stuff? Right,
they should have called this show flint Stone Jetson's and
Scooby Doo and Scooby Doos or I guess to dragon tails.

(26:18):
If we ever get that big x on sponsorship to
fund this podcast and I've become a millionaire, I'm going
to pay Jordan Peterson of Fortune to watch old episodes
of the of Scooby Doo where they have the Harlem
Globe Trotters on and like weep over the union profundity
of of Sweet Sweet Kyle sweet Lyle whatever his name was. Oh,

(26:40):
that's a waste of money. He'll do that for free.
He'll do that for free. Peterson, what do you think
about the time the Harlem Globe Trotters solved the mystery
of old Man McGregor's haunted air B and B. I
don't know, whatever does nothing right. He's this sort of
this dragon inside you, and you have to you unmask
getting it turns out it's yourself, because we are all

(27:02):
our own dragons. This font is diet much better on
do Le. What an awful fun they chose. It's a
step above um, it's a step above Paprius, but not much,
not really. I'm sorry, what did you just call that?
Thank you? Thank you? Sorry, it's sorry. What what did

(27:26):
you referring to the Papyrus fun? I don't even think
this is a step above that, though. It's we got
these weird like cuts in it. It's like it's trying
to seem like very like royal, but also has like
a weird slime thing going to it, right, and the
slime is for the curves of only season and it's

(27:54):
like a little slug. Yeah, I don't there's some slime
to it, but it's not like that exciting to listen
to people describe. But yeah, this is the one. The
e is too cleasy, easy to mistake for an f
at distance. Anyway, whatever, fuck this font is time for

(28:14):
you to do an ad break. You know who will
fuck a faont oh, for sure, they'll get their dick
right in there. In fact, every time you buy one
of the products sponsored on this show. Our sponsors purchase
irreplaceable ancient Egyptian papyrus and then have sex with it.
That's a guarantee. So glad you learned how to pronounce

(28:35):
that word. With every purchase you make, irreplaceable human knowledge
is lost forever. We promise that and nothing else. I
hope it's another gold ad me too. Ah, we're back boy.
I sure feel like the Library of Alexandria was just

(28:57):
burned for my my own sexual gratify occasion. How about you, Cody?
I was going to describe it exactly like that. Wow, Wow,
we're We're It's like we're united by epigenetic collective unconsciousness.
That's where this all ends anyway. Whatever. Um oh, yeah,
we believe everything Jordan believe. After Peterson goes on another

(29:20):
vamps for a little while, uh, he says very little
of substance and mostly just asks rhetorical questions about self improvement,
stuff like can you improve your relationship with your father?
Can you educate yourself? And then we get this very
odd moment. Yeah, the draw of temptation drug and alcohol use,
in particular sexual temptation as well. Do you do anything

(29:42):
that's remote Oh, Cody, how would you describe that little
play that again? So you describe that that that little
moment when he says, oh, he does this like it's
almost like a computer buffering like his his. The thing
that he said just sort of like caused a a
fucking hard drive skip in his little bread all right,

(30:03):
one more time. The draw of temptation, drug and alcohol use,
in particular sexual temptation as well. Do you do anything
that's like he liked? He says? He says sexual patient
and then casts his eyes down. There's almost a little
shiver across his body as he goes, Oh, it's very weird,
he says an odd speaker. I mean, I'm sure it's

(30:28):
made him millions of dollars because there is something that
like you just I spent too long watching this and
just go the fuck is what are you doing? What
are you trying to get across here? It's cryptic um anyway,
So how he does it? So what does he land on?
Can you resist temptation or not? He never really finishes.
He just glitches, and then from this point he starts

(30:50):
to get angrier and almost abusive. Yes, oh he's doing it.
Remember melitical party do you go to church. You know,
I don't go to church because you know, uh, there,
believes don't match. It's like, who the hell cares about
your beliefs. You're like sixty, you don't even have beliefs.
And if you think it's like, you're right in that
and the Catholic church is wrong, well good luck without attitude.

(31:15):
And church example, or political party doesn't need repair because
all institutions are always falling apart, in corrupt. That's that's
a story as old as time. That's the evil uncle.
But good time to fix it up. Wait a second, wait,

(31:35):
did you say fix it up? Go fix it up?
I thought you were not allowed to do that. Yeah,
well this is exactly. None of this makes any sense
because number one, are you saying that like people should
just like you, you have to join a church, which
he's clearly saying, but also you shouldn't criticize it. But
also instead of leaving it, if it doesn't match with

(31:55):
your beliefs, you should change it. But also you don't
have beliefs, so and it's like, okay, if you disagree,
don't what are you going to change it to because
you don't believe anything? And what are you saying people
should do. Are you saying that like they should all
become Catholics or or that you should just join whatever
church's closest and not question it, but fix it if
it doesn't align with your beliefs. But you can't have
beliefs yet because you're just a kid. It's um, it's nonsense.

(32:20):
It's not like it's it's it's just like, there's nothing
useful in that mess of what a contradicts of all
of all of the things to pick as an organization
that you shouldn't criticize the Catholic It's not incredible. Thanks
Jordan's um I I. I also love his It's one

(32:41):
of his ticks where he he like says a thing
and sometimes it's like some ridiculous statements. Sometimes it's a
completely reasonable thing, and he's like, well, you know, good
luck with that. He just sort of like dismisses it
as though like that's the argument. For example, it seems
like after the Catholic Church system eickily sexually trafficked and
abused children and pushed for theocratic laws in Ireland that

(33:06):
got huge numbers of women killed and maimed as a
result of things like a topic pregnancies. Irish people in
very large numbers left the church and things are better. Well,
you know that's the evil uncle, right right, The evil
uncle is the uncle the Catholic priest. Yeah, I mean
not far off, but like, so when do you because

(33:29):
his whole thing is like don't are you? So you're like,
you're sixteen, you have no beliefs, and so go to
any church and if it disagrees with you, then you
should change it. But also you're not allowed to want
to change anything unless you're like life is perfect and
like in perfect order, so you're it's not yet because
you're sixteen, So like, don't do if anything, don't leave

(33:55):
your house, I guess, but to go to church you
don't believe in consistently frustrating to me about Peterson is
he does it like dropped, like the evil uncle, and
he does it in such a way as he's like
he's trying to impress you with by naming these archetypes
and like referencing the exactly and it's there's for an
example of kind of like how to do this and

(34:17):
not be a complete I don't know, some people will
disagree with this, but like what he's doing is not
fundamentally all that different if you sit down and listen
to Dan Harmon talk about like the story circle, which
is basically him taking the fucking hero's journey and putting
it into a way that you can pretty easily turn
into scripts. Right, that's all it is. It's not distills
it down to six steps, eight steps. Dan Harmon plenty

(34:39):
of things to criticize about the man, but all he's
actually he's not trying to say there's any sort of
like psychic resonance with that. He's being like, this is
a very simple, replicable way to tell a story in
a way that that people can can grasp onto. Right,
there's a reason and people like stories that have this.
You know, you do the thing, you change and then yeah,
Peterson is that rather than the evil uncle just like

(34:59):
being a thing that's in some movies and TV shows
because it's easy, I don't know, it's something that people
tend to like grasp onto. Um, it's just kind of
an easy way to to to tell a story, right,
Like it's scar in the in the Lion King. It's
not a complex story. There's not a ton going on there,
but it works. And like, but Peterson is taking it

(35:21):
as if and because this is like a trope that
is broadly functional in storytelling, that is meant for a
popular audience, it is indicative of something fundamental to human nature,
right as opposed to like, you know, first of all,
if you see a pattern, were we humans love to
see patterns, and we put undo emphasis and importance on

(35:44):
patterns even if they're it's not like a significant pattern.
But like what he's talking about most of the time
in this respect is like just stereotypes. Like if you
take like you said, like the lion king or Hamlet
or whatever. So Scar the evil uncle, if Scar had
a kid, Mufasa the kind uncle archetype, Like it's literally

(36:07):
like it's just these interchangeable things the qualities described in
like he's like the crone making a man and you
change the name and it's like, I don't know, ye,
all all of this can work, and it's like helpful
for people in situation. Like certainly, like like all of
these archetypes that he treats as if they're like something

(36:29):
sacred written into the back of the human soul are
just shortcuts to like very easily putting together a fucking
script for like a popular like specifically for a popular
fucking movie that's like most of the modern adaptations of
this ship like it's not none of this is like,
none of this is particularly resonant. And you can tell
that for a fact that the stories that are like

(36:51):
most popular are often the ones that that break some
of these rules. Like they're not actually fundamental to good storytelling.
They're just simple. Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not necessarily
going to be the most compelling or interesting story if
you use all these archetypes or this like pattern, because
it's most stories their training wheels, their training wheels. If

(37:13):
you're starting out reading writing stories, or if you're getting
lost in the weeds, it can be an easy way
to like get something put together and then you can
do a better thing next time. Um, but I don't
know whatever. I get frustrated when people talk about fucking
archetypes like this. Well, so when you're talking about like
this and like applying it to like like fundamental like
institutions and elements of society, where it's like, these are

(37:37):
different conversations because like fucking the evil uncle is a
bad guy in a script because the script needs a
bad guy, because conflict is fun. The Catholic Church is
bad because they raped a bunch of kids and covered
it up. And that's a reason why maybe you would
not believe anything else they have to say, right, Like,
maybe it stems from certain aspects of their like core beliefs.

(37:57):
I don't know exactly. Yeah, maybe there's fundamental things about
the structure of an organization like the Catholic Church that
are abusive. But Jordan Peterson fucking loves hierarchy, right and
just like in the inevitability of everything, right Like, Anyway,
if an institution is corrupt, it's because all institutions become corrupt.
Like ultimately, Um, it's not a problem with anything about

(38:20):
the institution. It is. Yes, it's corruption that that happens,
except for in my institutions that I like. So the
next session of the video asked Peterson to define what
makes a man? And this is the first point at
which I think someone like put together, Like maybe after
the first ten minutes of this were recorded, which probably
took three days, somebody like jotted down some fucking notes

(38:43):
into something resembling a script to try to put a
scaffolding on this motherfucker. Here we go. Yeah, definition, man, Ah,
why don't I a biologist, but as it happens, I
am a biologist. So no you're not. No, no you
no you're not. I felt like you reaction to that
he is absolutely not a fucking biologist. Oh my god,

(39:06):
you can say that you like I like, oh my god.
A scientists strong a physicist wouldn't say I'm a biologist
because you like know a lot about biology. Yeah, it's
it's very frustrating because like, yes, theoretically, like he has
a PhD in clinical psychology, there are clinical psychologists who

(39:27):
do biology right, because some of them are do neuroscience right,
elements of it exactly biology. But that's not what he does.
That's not what he does, and that's not that's just
not how people in the scientific community talk. Like he
says this about everything like it's if you it's funny

(39:48):
he would say, Like he would say, if he's describing, like, um,
what the Parado principle as, like it relates to black
holes or whatever, he would literally say, I'm an astrophysicist.
No no, no, no, no. You maybe you know about
astrophysics and you have like knowledge in that field, but no,
like actual like reasonable like respectable scientists would just make

(40:11):
a claim like that. There's you go on in in
your three hour video of about Dr Jordan Peterson about
how he's fundamentally wrong about lobsters and the ship he
says about like narrow transmitters and lobsters. He's wrong about
a lot of important things, including that time he went
cold turkey off of benzos by going to some weird

(40:31):
clinic in Russia and nearly got himself killed. Um, but
I want to stick to stuff that he claims that
he makes in the video to prove that he's If
he is a biologist, he's a realist. Let's see, let's life.
You are so yeah, I I want to sorry. I
just have to like give him a little like in
good faith, you know, reasonable doubt. Some people's talk in

(40:54):
this way, like what you're saying, you're not saying. I'm
a biologist, just like I believe in biology. I have
knowledge of it, and I approach things from a biologist perspective,
is what he's trying to say. But that, but he
wasn't precise. He's at all precise in his speech, and
he's also about to be really wrong because after this

(41:15):
he goes on a little rant about how some people
are charitable, but they're not hard working or practical, so
they just wind up giving away other people's money and
that's bad. Um. What he's he says that the ideal
thing to be the essence of masculinity. In fact, this
is what he because he's again the section is where
he's trying to define a man. He says that the
essence of masculinity is productive generosity, which seems to he

(41:40):
seems to define as actually being a dick um because
he doesn't think that like generosity means being good to people.
He thinks it's like it's this weirder concept about how
well sometimes generosity is like being mean and withholding resources
from people who are going to to squander them, right. Um.
And as he's doing this, he attacks the concept of agreeableness.

(42:00):
And I want to play you this this part of
the episode, Cody, because this is we can nail it
to some science here. Yeah, we get into it. Basically,
an empathy dimension has no correlation whatsoever with success in
enterprise business creative domains. In fact, among managers, agreeableness looks
like it's slightly negatively correlated with success because hyper agreeable

(42:22):
managers can't say no. They can't discipline their employees, they
can't send limits, and they're susceptible to manipulation. So well, Cody,
that sounds like something that's falsifiable, right, That is a
that is a true or or false statement that he
just made. We can actually dig into research, it seems
like yeah, and it turns out we're really lucky here.

(42:44):
There was a massive meta analysis of studies published on
quote agreeable nous on it and its consequences just this year.
Researchers Michael Wilmot and Dennis Ones analyzed studies in folving
one point nine million participants, So pretty big meta analysis, right.
They concluded quote overall, the the trait has effects in

(43:07):
a desirable direction for ninety to variables. Professor Wilmot seemed
adamant that not only is Peterson wrong about the value
of agreeableness, he's specifically wrong about its impact on leaders.
Quote Michael Wilmot, assistant professor of Management at the University
of Arkansas, in a university release said, quote agreeableness is
the personality trait primarily concerned with helping people and building

(43:29):
positive relationships, which is not lost on organizational leaders. Taken altogether,
the interaction among things became clear. Professor Wilmot concludes agreeableness
was marked by work investment, but this energy was best
acted at helping or cooperating with others, in other words, teamwork.
So just he's exactly wrong and it took thirty seconds. Yeah,

(43:52):
they looked at these, like thousands of studies involving nearly
two million people, and it turns out being agreeable really
works well into teams. And I don't know, Cody, you
and I have both worked on teams. You know what's
great is not working with assholes? Oh yeah, we don't
like that. It's not fun. Uh, it makes it unpleasant,
and you don't like the One of the most important

(44:13):
things in in particularly like uh comedy, like sketch comedy,
whatever is like yes, and which is fundamentally being agreeable.
It's not like trying to shut down a joke. It's
trying to expand it. You know. It's a plus, right, Yeah,
because that that works pretty well people people. It tends

(44:35):
to make for things that are funny. Well, it's fascinating
that people like working like people who aren't easy to
work with. Yeah, I love this and I really appreciate
that you instantly looked this up because he does this
all the time. He'll say like, I've read the literature
in this way, and then you look it up and
it's not that way. Or he'll make these broad claims

(44:55):
about these sort of things, and it's also stuff where
it's like, you are are a psychologist, that is your field,
and you're making these claims and I just looked it
up and you're wrong. Um, it's alarming that this man
is in this fine leather chair. It is, it is,
and it is a nice looking leather chair. Library. Whoever
they have directing putting the set decorations together, they made

(45:18):
a They made a very welcoming looking library boy one
million for the library for millions. I don't believe he's
read any of those books, but it's a nice looking library.
He skimmed them for a few words that he could
say to reinforce his point. Yeah. So Jordan's view of
masculinity doesn't leave much room for teamwork. It becomes quickly
clear that he doesn't see management as a thing people

(45:41):
do in specific instances to help groups accomplished tasks, and
instead he sees management as how a healthy man looks
at every relationship in his life. And I mean management
the way that like a leader in an organization manages,
and Sophie, let's play that next clip. And then you
should be responsible for and productive for as many people

(46:02):
as you can manage. And so that might be first
your intimate partner, your wife, second year, your parents, your siblings,
your your children, maybe your children primarily, although you know
there's a tradeoff there with your wife, So the split screen,
it's just every time. Next, he says that you should

(46:28):
seek to manage your community and local government if it's
possible at all, and it's become it's pretty clear. I
think at this point that his version of masculinity is
nothing but control, and it's a specific sort of control
that's motivated by self hatred. And you get glimpses. I
don't think Peterson is even really super aware of it,
but you get glimpses of the centrality of self hatred
to his concept of masculinity, and these little gaps and

(46:51):
cracks like this one here go on all that responsibility
if you can in a sense that's both productive and generous,
that gives you something to do justify your miserable life
to yourself and everyone else, and you need to do
that um it. It orients you solidly in the world
if you do that, and it gives you a dragon
to fight, a real wood. And that's where the gold is.

(47:13):
So as everyone has known forever. Oh my god, oh
my god, oh my god, Robert, can we do an
ad break right now, just so that there's a gold please?
If you want to know where else the gold is,
check out the sponsors to this podcast, which apparently include
these this random gold scam company. Buy the gold and

(47:36):
give it to a dragon so you can fight it,
and then take the gold back and then it's yours again. Yeah, ah,
we're back. So I think all of that's really fucking silly. Um. Yeah,
it is a vice about being a person, yeah, he all.

(48:00):
He always sort of comes back to like and like,
you know, there are ways to say this and discuss this,
Like life is suffering and life is miserable and you
you suck and everything's bad. Um, but you're you need
to find you need to create a purpose is what
he's talking about. Oftentimes we're talking about what masculinity is,
right right, man, And like manages productive generosity, which means

(48:22):
managing every single being a being, a a hierarchical centralized
leader of every aspect of your life and every relationship
that you're involved with. And then once you're in control,
you should go seek out dragons to fight, using presumably
other people to do a lot of the fighting. Oh yeah,
you send him off to get the dragon so you
can get the cold. Um. It's yeah, he's always it

(48:44):
always circles. It's weird because he also, like he dismisses
this idea that certain things in society are about like power, Like, oh,
they say it's about powers, Like, no, it's not. It's
about this, it's about biology or like how men have
these fucking like you know, genes or whatever. Um. But
ultimately he's just but then he comes back to this like, yeah,
you need like discontrol to do this. How do you

(49:06):
do that? Well, you need to have the power to
do that. Um. He he just always comes back to
just like, ultimately I be a strong man. We need
Being a man is being like a dictator in your life. Yeah.
And it's interesting because like, obviously Jordan's the kind of
guy who like worships these quote unquote traditional like kind

(49:29):
of militarist values um and and hierarchy in that sense.
But if you actually look at like what makes the
best the most functional military hierarchies on the planet. Um,
they all are based around the idea that you should
have a really strong non commissioned officer core. And this
is certainly a kind of strict hierarchy, but it's a
hierarchy that is in a lot of ways less centralized

(49:52):
than the kind of pyramidal hierarchy the peters. It's it's
based around the idea that you should actually have a
lot of little leaders that are invest did in a
great degree of autonomy and whose expertise is respected. And oftentimes,
like if you have a unit, like a platoon, you
have an officer who's technically in charge, and then you
have an inn c O who is technically under him,

(50:12):
but who was generally recognized as actually being more expert
in a lot of ways, and both of them like
take on different tasks. And that's necessary for actually effectively
leading a unit through combat because you're talking about working together. Yeah,
I'm talking about like working together. Um. Yeah, it's it's

(50:32):
all these these ideas, and it requires a great deal
an effective functioning effectively as a unit in any kind
of like strenuous or dangerous situation. Does at times require
there being a person who is saying, like, do this
and do that, because sometimes that's necessary when you're trying
to accomplish goals under stress. But the thing that requires

(50:53):
most of all is like mutual respect um, and an
understanding of people's talents and an ability to of subordinates autonomy,
because organizations that don't do those things can survive if
there's not a danger being put on them, if there's
not like a threat, But if you're actually being threatened,
you want as much intelligence to be available from the

(51:15):
organization as possible, and you only get that by giving
people the ability to act with a degree of autonomy.
That doesn't sound very productively generous of you, though. Yeah,
we can talk a lot about like the Ukrainian military
versus the Russian one, but let's move on. Um. So
his next question is, oh, actually this kind of ties
into that, how should you arm yourself? Um? And the

(51:38):
answer that Peterson gives is a humanities education, um, which
is interesting to me. That is interesting. Yeah, and he
thinks that he kind of defines a good education the
humanities is reading great men into his credit. He says,
great women too. Um. He's actually pretty careful about that
in that so I'll give you, I'll give you a
thumbs up. Dr only took eight years. Yeah, So after

(52:00):
this we get an extended rant about how if you
either lie or you just say things you don't fully
believe in, Like if you alter your own beliefs to
like write an essay to get a good grade for
a teacher, to impress someone, then you're letting someone else
control and speak for you, which is kind of like
basically letting a demonic spirit run your body. Um. This
is interesting for two reasons. Actually, one is that he

(52:23):
says this all the time. This is another one of
another one like thing, where's like why does this show exist?
This is just everything you've ever said in your like
your books and stuff. Um, but also, uh, Ben Shapiro
has literally said the opposite, Like he his advice to
his advice to people at school is to do what

(52:45):
he did, which is just regurgitate everything is law, professor said,
pretend that he believes it so that he can like
pass the grade. And I'm never gonna say this about
Ben Shapiro, but like that's a valuable life skill. Like
sometimes you're gonna get pulled over by a cop, and
you're gonna need the light of that police officer so
that you don't suffer consequences that will fuck your life up. Right. Sometimes,

(53:09):
perhaps you're trying to get on an airplane and you
have a bag that's over the limit, and being able
to like lie about it and convince someone not to
weigh it is a useful life skill because then you
don't you're not out fifty dollars. Sometimes you sit down
with someone who's maybe kind of a crazy asshole, and
it's just the easiest thing and the safest thing to
not engage with them over some of the things that

(53:30):
they're saying. If it's not you know, I'm not saying
don't engage with racists, but a lot of people are
just assholes in ways that it's like, I don't need
to you don't need to argue with you. Sometimes you
just be like, okay, okay, let's in the interaction and
smile at them. That's a useful life skill. People who
are able to do those things, who are able to
understand how to I don't need to be totally honest

(53:50):
right now. I also I can just in the interaction,
and I want to do that in a pleasant way.
So I'm just going to pretend like I don't think
this person is dumb as ship right, Like that's fine, Yeah,
but his his sort of assumption, I think, And maybe
he's changed his mind since is that like if you
if you do that, and you do it like more
than a few times, you'll start believing the things that
you're that you're allowing to be said. I've lied to

(54:14):
a lot of cops about having weed in the car,
and I've never thought that my car back in the
day didn't have weed in it and didn't deserve to
have weed in it, didn't deserve to have We met exactly. Um. Anyway, whatever,
the good thing about this rant is that it gives
us another little moment of accidental honesty from Dr Peterson.
I think, well, God, that was a miserable life. I

(54:37):
manipulated everybody. They were so damn stupid. They were sucked
in by it. They're all contemptible everyone doesn't you know,
which they don't by the way, And so that's a
pathway to bitterness. Pathway to bitterness, huh, pathway to bitterness. Um.
He kind of I feel like he's talking about himself there.
I'm just gonna say it. I feel like that Peterson

(54:58):
often comes off as a bitter old man. Yeah. I
think he's a bitter old man. And I think he's
bitter because the only thing he's done with his life
is manipulate people. Um. And it's he says again. He
talks a lot about how there's no difference between the
spirit of manipulation taking you over in demonic possession, and
he's the only thing that stopped him from being canceled
is that he's a fundamentally honest person. Which is fun

(55:20):
because Jordan got famous for claiming that Canadian Bill C
sixteen was going to force people to use ginger neutral
pronouns for non binary and transgender identities and legally punish
them if they didn't, that people were going to be
literally thrown into prison. Um. He gave a lot of
interviews saying like, I think some of the things that
I say in my lectures now might be illegal. I
think they might even be sufficient for me to be
brought before the Ontario Human Rights Commission under their amended

(55:41):
hate speech laws. This has never happened, Nothing like this
has ever happened in Canada to Dr Peterson or to
anyone else. He was completely full of shit. Um. You know, yeah,
the first video, I mean, the first video he shared
about that topic was like professor against political correctness. You
know exactly what is doing, and it's it's like if

(56:02):
you actually look at the and if you actually talk
to any of the Canadian legal experts about what this
law meant and what the actual because there is a
threshold at which hate speech is criminal in Canada, and
the threshold is pretty high. You would have to be
literally advocating for genocide. You would you would be having
to try to incite a genocide, which number one, None

(56:22):
of whatever you want to say. His comments back then
did not cross that line. And apparently no one's has
because no one has. No one's been prosecuted for this.
There's been no criminal cases as a result of this. Um.
I might argue that perhaps there should have been, but whatever. Um.
So Peterson veers from this into an unhinged dissection of
sleeping beauty. He really he's he's got an old school

(56:45):
Disney fixation and I'm just gonna have well because they're
the old stories, right, their fairy tales, the evil You're
not ones that are exactly anyway. Here's Jordan Peterson, So
what can you arm yourself with? You know? In Sleeping Beauty,
when the Prince he's entrapped in the in that castle

(57:08):
by uh Maleficent, who's the ultimate edible mother, she transforms
herself into a dragon, which everyone seems to just take
as a matter of course, because of course the evil
which transforms herself into a dragon, Like, why we think
that's logical is a deep question, an oar contemptic question.
But anyways, he's armed with the sword of truth, and

(57:31):
I believe it's the shield of virtue, but the sword
of truth. And that's it's a corny trope in some sense,
but it's not corny at all, because how could falsehood
prevail against truth? How could that possibly be the case?
If if what is true reflects what is real, how
can what is unreal prevail against what is real? And so,

(57:56):
you know, I love when he does stuff like that.
And then he's like and so and he's like, wait,
what were they talking about? Yeah? At all, First off,
Jordan's we accept it when the witch turns into a
dragon because it is a fantasy cartoon and she's a witch.
So even though witches don't always turn into dragons, and

(58:17):
movies in fact, usually don't. In movies with witches, we're
all like, yeah, whatever, Like she she just did a
bunch of fucking gobbledegoot magic. It's fine, Like there's there's
fucking like even just like okay, yeah, she's doing magic
and stuff. She turned to a dragon. She's deceiving whether
it's like her true form or she's turning to a
dragon deceiving him. I've got the sort of truth like

(58:39):
he was right the first time. It's a little corny trope,
it's little on the nose. It's it's like he's just
he's taking this like visual metaphor or like his imagery
and being like, wow, yeah, truth is important, Like it's
just like what Yeah, it's like if it's like if
Jordan Peters And watched Happy Gilmore and was talking about

(59:02):
the scene where he does a subway ad and he's like,
we accept the subway ad because somehow fundamentally there's something
about human beings that make them want to sell five
dollar sandwiches. No, we accept the subway ad because there
was a lot of advertising and movies at the time,
and it was clearly a joke about that as well,
Like it's anyway, whatever, Dr Peterson, I watched Happy Gilmore

(59:22):
recently holds up, um find uh quite good film, you know.
Weirdly enough, Shooter McGavin is the same as the fed
from the Iron Giant. Oh oh I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway,
so it's all, it's all good. Um, it's all. His

(59:44):
entire argument here just rests on like this very ridiculous tautology.
If what is true reflects what is real, how can
what is unreal prevail over what is real? Well, I
don't know. If you lie and you get a crowd
of people to believe man committed a crime that he
didn't commit, and then you get them to lynch that
man so you can take his stuff, it seems like
what is unreal can prevail over what is real, and

(01:00:04):
does so regularly, like look at like his any like
historical record, Like yeah, it happens all the time. It works,
what he talstantly works, what of the most successful strategies
in all of history? Because also because he'll and he'll
because he talks about these things too. He talks about
like oh like different regimes and their propaganda and how

(01:00:27):
effective it is, and like it's talked about Nazi. Well,
he talked about Nazi Germany being this weird collect example,
but like there's whole families of people who exist because
at some point someone was asked, are you hiding a
Jewish family in your house? And they said no, Like
it turns out but how But did they not have
the sort of truth like no, they were good at

(01:00:49):
lying and that's an important life skill. Um, anyway, one
like not yeah, it's it's it's very on because a
lot of like, not only is this stupid, this is
advice that is almost tailor made to create failures of people.
Listen to this portion where he complains that people who

(01:01:11):
do the writing they're assigned by their teachers just to
get a grade, are like inherently breaking some sort of
moral law. Wait, okay, check this out. Why right, Well,
maybe you're writing about something important and if you're not,
then it's just a lie the whole enterprise. So write
about something important. Why do you want to? Right, Well,

(01:01:32):
so that you can think that's what you're doing when
you're writing revelation. Here's some ideas I have. You do
your research. Here's some ideas I have. I'll get them down,
then i'll edit the idea, so only keep the best ideas. Well,
now I know how to think about that. Now I
know how to perceive that. Now I know how to
act on that. Well, now you know how to perceive
an act in relationship to something difficult. Well that's why

(01:01:55):
you learn to write, so you can think. And you
know everyone says to their children and think before you act. Well,
why so you can not do stupid things? So why
st so you don't do stupid things? Why not the
stupid things? Stupid things perhaps like getting addicted to benzos
while leading nothing but red meat for months, and then

(01:02:17):
letting your daughter take you to a weird Russian clinic
where you do a cold turkey detox so dangerous it
nearly kills you, leaves you in a coma, and results
in you becoming a broken shell of a man who
cries at random during podcast interviews and can't sleep for
thirty days after drinking a supersider. Like it's another like
a lot of people just do essays because they need

(01:02:39):
to get the grade, because they're paying like even dollars
to take this fucking class. Also, like, there are a
lot of ways that like to learn how to think
and like different processes and again like pattern recognition and
all these sort of like logic and reasoning and whatnot. Oftentimes,
learning to write is to it's not to think, it's

(01:03:01):
to communicate your thoughts. Um, it is what he's really
trying to say. Oh so this is like a thing
he said again is another one of those like heard
this ninety times from this guy. Uh. But it's just
like Jordan's. If being a good writer meant you were
a good thinker, then writers would be famous for being

(01:03:21):
well adjusted people with healthy habits rather than like the
most comprehensively broken career field in in in the entirety
of the arts and sciences. Like name a famous writer, uh,
and and then name what they're famous for outside of
their books, And it's probably the fact that their life
is a disaster, right, And like it's not that, Which

(01:03:46):
is not to say that you need to have a
disaster of a life to be a writer. It's just
to say that writing well does not mean you know
how to think well. Right, You can communicate. Again, you
can communicate your thoughts that you're having. You have these
orson Scott Card be beautiful writer, dogshit opinions about the world. Also,
I love this idea that like, if you watch the video,

(01:04:08):
he's using his hands a lot and talking about you
write it and then it's this big, long thing and
then you edit it down to just the best ideas.
I don't know if anyone listening has seen maps of meaning.
I don't think it had an editor code. It's like
thousand page uh diagram of a dragon. It's um So,
I don't know. Maybe you should write more to learn

(01:04:29):
how to think better. But it's like you're learning how
to put forth an argument, not necessarily how to no.
And that's that's the thing that he says, right, Like
that he's actually saying here, which is that like the
goal of writing is to like make an argument, to
convince somebody about the way you think, rather than just

(01:04:51):
trying to like explain a thing or describe a thing.
It's about like everything else. For Jordan's it's about domination.
So if he played that, played this next clip right?
So why right? How about so you can take your
place in the world, Not so you can please the
teacher and be some obedient like lap dog. You need

(01:05:12):
to know how to think and speak so you can
lead and think and and conceptualize and and in trance.
He does the thing again where you can see his
like he just kind of goes away for a second
name when he says hind in trance, and it's I
would say, pretty unsettling. Yeah, well, like because again it's

(01:05:35):
like in trance, entrancing implies deception. Yeah, um, which seems
contradictory to what he's trying to say, but yeah, it's
it's the he what he What he makes clear in
this next clip is that, yeah, writing is just a
tool for domination, because that's the actual only task worth achieving.

(01:05:58):
To Jordan's pen is mightier than sword. It's there's no
comparison the sword, you know, Yeah, fair enough, and you
want to be careful of someone who wields the sword,
but you wield the pen in a mighty manner. Nothing
stops you. Ever. H that's assuming too, that you're oriented,
you know, in some noble manner. He does use the

(01:06:20):
word oriented like a lot. Yeah, it's it sounds smarter
to him than like facing or directed or whatever, like, Yeah,
I don't know, it's just like, why do we need
so many words to say the phrase that he already said.
He said, he said the common phrase the pen is

(01:06:42):
mightier than the sword, and then he like started to
talk about it for a long time. It's like I
don't need that I have the phrase yeah, And it's
also again it's it's one of I love. The pen
is mightier than the sword is like a fucking because
it's useless, right, It's a completely useless statement, because no,
the pen is not mightier than the sword. Um, the

(01:07:02):
argument is, like, the actual thing that is true is that, like, well,
ideas can cause like Titanic shifts and can get lots
of people killed and can be sort of the beginning
point the well spring of a tremendous amount of power, right,
and ideas can be written down and often are, And
that's true. But like the fact that like the Nazis

(01:07:24):
wrote a lot of books and propaganda that was instrumental
in them gaining power, didn't mean that, like their ability
to beat the ship out of and shoot people wasn't
also instrumental in game. And a lot of people who
did that weren't convinced because of like writing or propaganda,
but because they wanted power and wealth and saw this
is the best way to get it. And like we're
acting out of grave and self interest and kind of
an in tandem thing again, saying that just saying the

(01:07:47):
pen is mightier than the sword is a meaningless statement.
So he's not because he's not talking about that right
because he's he had to he had to qualify with
like well as long as it's oriented towards like moral
good or wherever we phrased it. Uh. Oh, he's not
even talking about like in his view like bad guys
with a pen. No, So what's it? Saw? This qualification

(01:08:09):
seems like this. It's fucking trash, Cody, and it's trash
that we're gonna let's sit for today and finish this
episode up when we come back in part two of this,
he talks so much about things and nothing at all
everything and he looks, I don't know, Kermit, the frog,

(01:08:32):
I do like that where we've got it, where we've
got it paused right now, there's like a little you
can see a little wattle starting to form on the
side of his neck like I'm seeing for Peterson's just
just like a frog's pouch. So I don't know. Maybe
Dr Jordan Peterson is a lizard man. Let's go see
if David Ike has an opinion on that. Cody any

(01:08:53):
thing to pluck all the time, every day. Um, you know,
my name is Cody john Been. Uh like you said
the top some more news, even more news, go google it.
We got three hours on this guy we're talking about character.
Your name is Cody Johnson. Has anyone n sorry, has

(01:09:14):
it guy ever called you see Gisel? No? Well technically yes,
because you just did. There. We got episodes over. Oh good.
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
zone media dot com, or check us out on the

(01:09:35):
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.