Jordan Peterson on Academia, the New Right, & Saving the West | Shane Has Questions
Jun 12, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 21
Episode description
In this wide-ranging conversation, Shane Smith presses Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on everything from academia’s groupthink and campus protests to benzo withdrawal, love in the face of terminal illness, and the geopolitical shadow of China. Peterson fires back—sometimes reflective, sometimes raw—laying out why he believes voluntary self-sacrifice, not power or pleasure, is the only antidote to cultural decay.
Along the way you’ll hear:
Inside the Coma: Peterson relives the three-year ordeal that nearly killed him—and the family support that didn’t let him quit.
Campus Cage Match: Why he rarely sets foot in universities anymore, and the moment Oxford’s Union tried (and failed) to sandbag him.
Carbon, China & Cataclysms: A blunt debate on climate policy, cheap energy, and whether the West can out-compete Beijing without losing its soul.
RFK Jr., Trump, and the New “Not-So-Conservative” Right: Peterson’s take on the strange coalition reshaping U.S. politics.
Meaning vs. Hedonism: From punk-rock rage to religious myth, how sacrifice—rather than desire—can stitch our fractured lives back together.
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