Podcast Summary
Jordan Peterson and Josh Hawley Discuss the Significance of Biblical Traditions and the Importance of Self-Mastery for Liberty: Peterson and Hawley discuss how biblical traditions provide a framework for order and transcendence, and how self-mastery is crucial for personal and societal freedom. They also highlight the importance of positive visions and the state of education and masculinity.
Jordan Peterson speaks with Missouri Senator and author, Josh Hawley, about the significance of biblical traditions in people's lives, and how they elevate us above human defaults such as slavery and tyranny. They discuss the importance of self-mastery for ordered liberty and the state of education, industry, and reproduction amongst young men. They explore the parallel nature of their upcoming books, both of which delve into the structural significance of biblical stories and masculinity. They also discuss the anthropological and metaphysical implications of tribal groups characterizing central patterns of adaptation with the attributes of a transcendent deity. The conversation highlights the need for positive visions amidst increasing polarization and the motivation behind Hawley's book, which centers on his sons and their significance to his life and ideas.
Senator and Jordan Peterson Discuss Fathers' Role in Raising Children: Fathers have a responsibility in helping their children grow by instilling purpose and a vision for their lives. Jordan Peterson offers guidance for life vision and access to content on Daily Wire.
Senator Josh Hawley talks about his obligation as a father to help his children grow and develop into the best versions of themselves. He notes that many young men today feel alienated, lacking purpose and a vision for their lives, and offers a positive vision for what it means to be a man. Jordan Peterson invites viewers to access his content on Daily Wire, which includes a new in-depth series on marriage, guidance for creating a life vision, and the complete library of all his podcasts and lectures. They discuss the importance of fathers in encouraging and calling forth the potential in their children, particularly as mothers bear the primary responsibility for caregiving in early infancy.
The Importance of Pursuing Passions and Taking on Responsibility: Pursuing our passions can lead to a deeper meaning in life, and adopting responsibility and mentorship can further enhance this meaning. As conservatives, we can learn the value of taking on responsibilities and supporting others to find fulfillment and purpose.
The pursuit of something that captures our interest with sufficient intensity can lead to the manifestation of deep meaning in our lives. This deep meaning can sustain us through suffering, and it is often found in responsibility and mentorship. Moses becomes a leader when he takes the initiative to investigate what captures his interest, and this is a lesson for us to pursue our passions. We are obligated to help call forth the potential in others when we see it, whether as a coach, a mentor, or a father. Adopting responsibility and mentorship can give our lives deep meaning, and this is something conservatives can learn from. The core issue is that in the adoption of responsibility and mentorship, we find the deepest meaning.
Sacrificing Immediate Gratification for Long-Term Growth and Community Transformation: Personal growth and transforming lives require sacrifice and responsibility. Following rules in games and sports teaches self-discipline and mastery, leading to true liberty and self-governance.
Taking on responsibility and sacrificing immediate gratification for long-term goals is necessary for personal growth and transforming the lives of others. Sacrificing the whims of the moment is a definition of maturity and true liberty. The sense of meaning and purpose that comes with serving the community and your future self is a deeper and more comprehensive mode of experience and worth sacrificing for. Games and sports provide ordered liberty because they have rules, and if you want to be good at them, you have to follow the rules. Taking on responsibility, self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-sacrifice are necessary for experiencing true liberty and becoming capable of self-governance.
The Importance of Recovering the Foundational Narratives from the Biblical Tradition in Western Culture: Understanding the foundational stories and narratives from the Bible is critical to restoring order, purpose, and meaning in western culture. Men need narratives like expanding the garden to bring order from chaos. A central unifying narrative should not be the narrative of power.
The biblical tradition is the foundational story and narrative of the entire western tradition, particularly the American tradition. Recovering these foundational stories about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, and what we're here to do is critical to recovering in our culture some sense of order and purpose and meaning. Men need narratives like expanding the garden, and what it means to be a man, to bring order from chaos and make beauty where there's chaos. The cost of fragmented tribalism is anxiety, hopelessness, and social conflict. The central unifying narrative should not be the narrative of power which the left often implicitly and often explicitly follows.
The Bible as a Transformative Text for American History: The Bible's unifying narrative can offer an alternative to toxic social relationships and a fragmented conception of masculinity, providing positive experiences with good men.
The Bible is deeply ingrained in Western culture and the foundational text for American history, shaping its system of government and moral intuitions. As a practicing Christian, the speaker argues that the Bible is fundamentally true and transformative. The idea that America was founded on slavery is antithetical to truth, as slavery has been a default mode of human cultures throughout history. Rather than focusing on domination and victimization in social relationships, a unifying narrative like the Bible offers a powerful alternative. The speaker challenges the leftist narrative of toxic masculinity and argues that genuine experiences of exploitation and hurt can result in a fragmented conception of masculinity. The cycle perpetuates with a lack of positive experiences with good men.
The Biblical Tradition's Impact on Equality and Freedom: The biblical tradition champions the ideas of equality and freedom, promoting literacy and fighting against slavery. It challenges systems that prioritize the elite and aims to create societies that are free, productive, and generous.
The biblical tradition played a crucial role in opposing slavery and promoting the ideas of equality and freedom. The societies that are free, productive, and generous are offshoots of the biblical tradition. Literacy was also brought to the world due to the biblical tradition and the invention of the printing press. The Old Testament and the Christian tradition both promote ideas of equality, and Wilberforce applied these ideas to fight against slavery. The biblical tradition is a revolutionary tradition that cuts against the natural human tendency to organize culture around the elite who have the power and defines everyone else as slaves.
The Contrast Between the Biblical and French Revolutionaries' Approach: The Bible emphasizes equality, sovereignty, and individual responsibility while French Revolutionaries rely on human reason which leads to the rule of powerful, resulting in atheistic ideology and lack of religious influence.
The Bible stresses on the fundamental equality between men and women and the principle of sovereignty, which is something transcendent and eternal. It is the essence of the Christian stance against slavery. The French Revolutionaries' approach is fundamentally atheistic, rooting out any religious influence and setting up human reason which leads to the rule of the powerful. The biblical tradition tends to produce concepts such as equality, self-government, and liberty as opposed to the other mythologies. It is the fundamental difference in how they picture the universe that results in this. The biblical message that every person is called to work with God, advance God's purposes, and have God's spirit within them is what sets it apart from the other mythologies.
The Importance of Moral and Spiritual Values in Rationality: Without moral and spiritual values, rationality can lead to destructive hedonism or presumption. True scientists recognize an order in reality and operate on religious presuppositions to avoid the pitfalls of separation from moral content.
The pursuit of rationality without grounding in moral and spiritual values can lead to degeneration into mindless hedonism or Luciferian presumption. The French Revolution tried to separate the moral content of the Biblical tradition from the Biblical God and obligation, leading to a power play. True scientists operate on religious presuppositions that there is an order in reality that is comprehensible to the human spirit. The alternative to the degeneration of rationality is grounded in moral and spiritual values, as laid out in the Biblical corpus.
The Importance of Ethos in Scientific Endeavor: Ethos, encompassed in a narrative, is critical in scientific endeavors. Rejecting objective truth leads to nihilism, and a Cartesian idea of knowledge control. Japan's wealth undeniably shows how ethos contributes. The tools are significant, but the ethos utilizing them matters just as much.
The ethos of the biblical tradition is necessary for scientific endeavor to be conducted ethically and for the understanding of logos to be universally beneficial. The rejection of objective truth in postmodernist and critical theory thought is a nihilistic claim that leads to a power game. The enlightenment attempt to define truth apart from religious grounding leads to a Cartesian idea of controlling knowledge. However, an ethos underlies objective science that is encapsulated in a narrative, not in science itself. The ethos of discipline and honesty contributes to Japan's wealth, showing that an ethos is a critical resource. Technological mastery is admirable, but the ethos that utilizes the tools is what matters.
The Importance of Trust and Ethos in Productive Cooperation and Competition: Trust and an ethos that facilitates cooperation and competition are essential for society's richness. Power and dominance are not the only means to success, and altruism can exist even in seemingly simple bottom-up instances.
Trust is the only natural resource that enables people to cooperate and compete productively and generously in a manner that makes abundance not only possible, but inevitable. This trust has to be embedded in an ethos that facilitates it. Society's richness depends not merely on natural resources or technological prowess, but rather on an ethos that enables people to work together and compete in a productive and generous manner. Power and dominance are not the only means to biological success and reproductive success in many biological communities, and social Darwinism is a crude argument. The rudiments of morality and altruism can be seen even in bottom-up instances, like rats. It is praiseworthy when someone puts themselves in danger to protect others.
Reciprocal Play among Social Animals and Its Implications for Moral Enterprises: Science alone cannot provide the basis for morality as moral codes are not solely derived from observations. Scientists should approach their work with humility and refrain from claiming to dictate appropriate morality. The communist catastrophe highlights flaws in Enlightenment tradition's focus on science alone.
Repeated interactions among social animals like rats lead to the emergence of an ethos of reciprocal play, where animals treat each other with fundamental worth. This has implications for moral enterprises, which cannot be grounded solely on observations of biology or science. The Enlightenment tradition's focus on science alone as a basis for morality is flawed and has been refuted by the failures of 20th-century science and technology. Science must be conducted with humility, and scientists should refrain from claiming to know enough to dictate appropriate morality. The communist catastrophe was not an aberration but a manifestation of the implicit nature of its ideal. Moral codes of the kind that we live by cannot be derived from observations alone.
The Intersection of Science, Postmodernism, Woke Culture, Pornography, and Technology.: The world is orderly and discoverable, but our actions are governed by interpretive narratives. Beware of hyper-Marxism and the tyranny of power narratives. Pornography can harm self-image and confidence, and technology has disinhibited feminine sexuality. Online, psychopathic narcissists pose an existential threat.
Science as we know it emerged from the biblical tradition with the fundamental presuppositions that the world is orderly and we can discover it for our own good. The postmodernist got it right that interpretive enterprise governs our actions embedded in a narrative tradition but got it wrong that the right narrative is either fragmented or one of power. The woke side has hyper-Marxism where every human relationship becomes a manifestation of power and it's a tyrannical meta-narrative. Pornography consumption tends to inhibit dating, self-image, and confidence; hence, it is just the reverse of what the porn industry says. Technology has disinhibited feminine sexuality and pathologized it, and online, psychopathic narcissist types pose a permanent existential threat that needs restraint.
The Demoralization of Men in the Age of Technology and Left-Wing Ideology: Excessive consumption and leftist messages leave men emasculated and lacking confidence, while conservatism offers a more moralistic and fulfilling alternative.
The consumption of porn, screen time and video games deprives men of their fundamental sexual impulse and emasculates them, making them more timid, weak and ultimately impotent. This is further compounded by the demoralization of young men on the left who tell them that their ambition is toxic and their assertiveness makes the world a worse place. The leftist message to men is to be passive and consume. This model of behaviour is debilitating and leads to a generation of men who lack genuine status, confidence and access to women. Conservatives should take the accusation of being moralistic and puritanical as a compliment in comparison to the whim ridden, narrow, self-centered, self-satisfied, hedonistic, moralizing apocalypse offered by the left.
The Disorienting Ideology of Making the Self God: Balancing personal freedom with responsibility, discipline, and consideration for others is key, as moral and social values play a significant role in decision-making. Don't let momentary whims dominate your long-term goals and values.
The ideology of making the self God is disorienting to young people, as it emphasizes momentary whims and desires over long term goals and values. This ethos is celebrated in pride season and may lead to a mindless consumerism that feeds a narcissistic self-aggrandizing ethos. While classical economics assumes people will maximize their rational self-interest, studies show that people tend to offer their partner approximately 50% in a trading game, rather than offering them less and maximizing their own gain. A flaw in classical economics is that it does not account for moral and social values, which play a significant role in decision-making. It is important to balance personal freedom with responsibility, discipline, and consideration for others.
Developing an Ethos for Long-term Trade: In life, it's important to conduct oneself in a manner that builds positive relationships for future trade opportunities. The classical free market approach ignores the importance of human relationships and personal ethics that are crucial for successful long-term trade.
The key takeaway is that life is a sequence of iterating trades, and it's important to develop an ethos of conducting oneself in a manner that makes others want to play another game with you. The classical economists on the free market side who believe in global markets without any regard to human relationships, the family, and our sense of right and wrong are wrong. There's something about that that isn't kosher. The ability to subordinate the short-term game to the long-term game is essential. Properly associated with sophisticated long-term trade is not the maximization of rational self-interest. The ethos that emerges from iterative interactions is what constitutes the ethic that's properly associated with sophisticated long-term trade.
The Importance of Virtues, Meaning, and Responsibility in Nation-Building: A nation thrives on shared values and virtues that are instilled in men through male initiation and roles like husband, father, builder, priest, and king. Conservatives should prioritize advocating for meaning, responsibility, restraint and sacrifice, rather than just pursuing more rights and consumerist options. Men should seek a sustaining vision for hard times, and avoid careless impregnation and exploitative relationships that compromise real freedom.
A nation is not a corporation solely focused on profit but held together by shared bonds of belonging, purpose, and moral vision. To survive, a nation must inculcate virtues in its men through male initiation and roles like husband, father, builder, priest, and king. This sustains meaning and purpose even in hard times of depression, anxiety, and suicide. Conservatives must advocate for meaning, responsibility, restraint, and sacrifice instead of more rights and consumerist options. Men must seek a sustaining vision for hard times. Failed random and careless impregnation is pathetic and terrible for men and children alike, and the worst psychopathic manipulators prefer exploitative sexual relationships over real freedom.
The Importance of Virtue and Individual Responsibility in Preventing Chaos and Tyranny: Cultivating virtues, having a sense of purpose, and taking individual responsibility are essential in preventing chaos and tyranny. Swallowing toxic masculinity and adopting nihilistic beliefs can have destructive consequences, leading to self-abdication and societal failure.
The absence of virtue can lead to chaos, tyranny, and even hellish consequences. Men who abandon themselves to chaos or become hyper-orderly tyrants face a reality that transcends the merely historical. A sense of purpose and vision for life, as well as cultivating virtues such as being husbands, fathers, warriors, builders, priests, and kings, can prevent individuals from falling into a death spiral. Swallowing toxic masculinity and adopting nihilistic Buddhism can have destructive consequences and lead to self-abdication. It is essential to take individual responsibility and tell the truth to prevent the generation of hell. The absence of these virtues can even lead to society's failure to reproduce itself.
Finding Purpose Through Hardship: Lessons from Biblical Traditions: Embracing hardship and finding purpose in it is key to enduring and overcoming catastrophes. Developing character through fulfilling responsibilities prepares one to prevail during difficult times, and following a higher purpose provides meaning that transcends worldly troubles.
The purpose of life is not to avoid hardship or evil, but to find meaning and purpose in it. To live through catastrophes, one needs to invite the right spirit in oneself, which allows them to endure and overcome the storms. Biblical traditions, when stripped of their religious pretensions, offer a millennial-long meditation on inviting the right spirit to help people maintain themselves and survive through difficult times. In taking up responsibilities such as father, husband, warrior, builder, priest, and king, one develops the character that enables them to prevail during catastrophes. Following God or Christ does not mean one is spared from hardships but gives them a purpose to live for that transcends the worldly troubles.
The Christian Response to Confronting Evil in the World: Christians believe in transforming the world through action, choosing meaningful burdens, and overcoming evil. Finding purpose in life through large burdens is important and politicians must balance ethics and metaphysics in their decisions.
The Christian answer to confronting evil in the world is to do something about it. Followers of Christ, animated by His spirit, go out and proclaim that message, transform lives, transform the world. Picking a big enough burden, overcoming evil, and malevolence in the world gives profound purpose and meaning to one's life. It is the closest to truth. It is important to find meaning in life and take on big burdens to be engaged in life. Politicians who attempt to conduct themselves by ethical standards have to mediate between the political and the metaphysical, which is a very tricky question technically and practically.
