I spoke with Harvard's Dr. Steven Pinker about the immense improvements in human living conditions that are now happening with amazing speed almost everywhere in the world -- as detailed in his new book, Enlightenment Now! (https://amzn.to/2jDwv7D) -- a careful, clear-headed and data-driven defense of the rational/scientific worldview that helped make such improvement possible). Dr. Pinker grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard.
May 28, 2018•1 hr 7 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast See www.jordanbpeterson.com/events Shapiro discussion starts at about 4:20 if you want to skip the tour information. This is an alternate posting of Ben Shapiro's May 6 premiere Sunday Special discussion with me (https://bit.ly/2I4czoU). Ben and I had a very intense discussion about the nesting of human perception and cognition in the mythic world - a better discussion, I think, than I've had with anyone.
May 14, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast I came across Dr. Warren Farrell's work a few years ago, when I read Why Men Earn More(https://amzn.to/2HX3Epj), a careful study of the many reasons for the existence of the "gender pay gap," attributed by ideologues of the identity-politics persuasion to systemic patriarchal prejudice and oppression. Farrell has recently published another book, The Boy Crisis (https://amzn.to/2wnApuy) with Dr. John Gray. We spent an intense 90 minutes discussing the crucial role played by fathers in child devel...
May 13, 2018•2 hr 36 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast Every month, I answer questions from the generous people who support me on Patreon. This is the Patreon Q & A from April 2018. 1. 2:52 : Free will; Sam Harris's opinions on free will 2. 16:37 : Chaos vs. order 3. 31:24 : Gay couples raising children 4. 35:56 : Distinguishing reality from unconscious projection 5. 41:28 : How to combat foggy thinking while working/writing 6. 47:24 : How past experiences shape our free will (see q. 1) 7. 48:12 : The proper role of a therapist...
May 08, 2018•3 hr 49 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast I was in Australia in mid-March of 2018, speaking in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. While I was there, I had the privilege of speaking to former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson.
Apr 26, 2018•1 hr 24 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast A lecture and Q & A from my appearance at Lafayette College on March 29th, 2018, hosted and sponsored by The Mill Series.
Apr 20, 2018•4 hr 18 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast From Dr. Peterson's appearance on Conversations with Richard Fidler from March 14th, 2018. Richard Fidler is an Australian ABC radio presenter, and writer, best known for his hour-long interview program, Conversations with Richard Fidler. The program is ABC Radio's most popular podcast, downloaded more than 3 million times per month. It features local and international guests from all walks of life, engaging in in-depth interviews. Original Program: http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conver...
Apr 02, 2018•51 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast I wrote in some detail and with some depth about motivation for the mass slaughter of innocents in my new book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Because of what happened all-too-recently and brutally in Parkland -- because of what keeps happening -- I thought I would read the relevant chapter (Rule 6: Put your house in perfect order before you criticize the world) and release it on YouTube and as a Podcast.
Mar 12, 2018•37 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast While in the UK, recently, I had a chance to sit down for an all-too-short half-hour with Dr. Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary (description below). Our conversation was taped by Perspectiva (http://bit.ly/2EOCiU0), who described it as follows: "An extraordinary half-hour conversation about the brain, chaos, order, freedom, evil, mythology, being, and becoming between two of the leading thinkers of our time."
Feb 20, 2018•31 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast On January 16th, 2018 Channel 4 aired the now infamous interview between Cathy Newman and Dr. Jordan Peterson. This podcast will first air the original interview and then the interview of Dr. Peterson by Geenstijl that was an analysis of the interview followed with an elaboration on what they think are the five strongest points of Dr. Peterson's philosophy on "how to be in the world". The centrality of the archetypical hero's myth The central role of the Logos during the hero's narrative....
Jan 29, 2018•2 hr 23 min•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast In November 2017, Wilfred Laurier University teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd was called to a disciplinary meeting by two professors (Nathan Rambukkana and Herbert Pimlott) and one administrator (Adria Joel) to discuss her screening of a video clip from TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin during a class she was conducting. Shepherd taped the proceedings (http://bit.ly/2mMPvok) and released them, causing a national and international firestorm of outrage over the manner in which she was treated....
Jan 04, 2018•2 hr 6 min•Ep 37•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 14 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series. This lecture closes 2017, and the book of Genesis. In it, I present the story of Joseph who, as the wearer of the coat of many colors, is profoundly adaptable, courageous, adaptable, merciful and just. Even in slavery -- even in prison -- he comes out triumphant, because of the strength of his character and his wisdom.
Dec 21, 2017•4 hr 9 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 13 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series. In this lecture, I present the second half of the story of Jacob, later Israel (he who struggles with God). After serving his time with his uncle Laban, and being deceived by him in the most karmic of manners, Jacob returns to his home country. On the way, he encounters an angel, or God Himself, wrestles through the night with Him.
Nov 30, 2017•4 hr 20 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast I recently traveled to New York University to talk with Dr. Jonathan Haidt about, among other things, disgust, purity, fear and belief; the perilous state of the modern university; and his work with Heterodox Academy (https://heterodoxacademy.org/) an organization designed to draw attention to the lack of diversity of political belief in the humanities and the social sciences. Dr. Haidt is Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business and a social psychologist...
Nov 21, 2017•2 hr 36 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 13 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series. The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories starts up after a two month hiatus with the first half of the story of Jacob, the founder of Israel ("those who wrestle with God"), the man who robs his brother of his birthright, is deceived into marrying the wrong woman, and dreams of a stairway to heaven, in the ancient Shamanic tradition. Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/jordanbpeterson...
Nov 13, 2017•3 hr 35 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast Part 1 of this podcast is the video "A Call to Rebellion for Ontario Legal Professionals": (http://bit.ly/2yo4Jpe). Part 2 is the video: "Update: Law Society of Ontario Compelled Speech": (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPpPnGA8rkQ) On October 10, Professor Bruce Pardy, Lawyer Jared Brown and I uploaded the video A Call to Rebellion for Ontario Legal Professionals: (http://bit.ly/2yo4Jpe) in the wake of the Law Society's new requirement for a mandatory "statement of principles"
Nov 03, 2017•2 hr 50 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Camille Paglia is a well-known American intellectual and social critic. She has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (where this discussion took place) since 1984. She is the author of seven books focusing on literature, visual art, music, and film history, among other topics. The most well-known of these is Sexual Personae (http://amzn.to/2xVGEEV), an expansion of her highly original doctoral thesis at Yale.
Oct 19, 2017•2 hr 43 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 12 in the Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series In this, the final lecture of the Summer 2017 12-part series The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories, we encounter, first, Hagar's banishment to the desert with Ishmael and then the demand made by God to Abraham for the sacrifice of Isaac. To sacrifice now is to gain later: perhaps the greatest of human discoveries. What, then, should best be sacrificed? And what might be the greatest gain?...
Sep 07, 2017•3 hr 34 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 11 in the Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series. Often interpreted as an injunction against homosexuality (particularly by those simultaneously claiming identity as Christians and opposed to that orientation), the stories of the angels who visit Abraham, bless him, and then rain destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah are more truly a warning against mistreatment of the stranger and impulsive, dysregulated, sybaritic conduct.
Sep 04, 2017•3 hr 32 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 10 in the Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series. The Abrahamic adventures continue with this, the tenth lecture in my 12-part initial Biblical lecture series. Abraham's life is presented as a series of encapsulated narratives, punctuated by sacrifice, and the rekindling of his covenant with God.
Aug 31, 2017•2 hr 29 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 9 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series. In this lecture, I tell the story of Abraham, who heeds the call of God to leave what was familiar behind and to journey into unknown lands. The man portrayed in the Bible as the father of nations moves forward into the world. He encounters the worst of nature (famine), society (the tyranny of Egypt) and the envy of the powerful, who desire his wife.
Aug 25, 2017•3 hr 36 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 8 in the Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series. In the next series of stories, the Biblical patriarch Abram (later: Abraham) enters into a covenant with God. The history of Israel proper begins with these stories. Abram heeds the call to adventure, journeys courageously away from his country and family into the foreign and unknown, encounters the disasters of nature and the tyranny of mankind and maintains his relationship with the God who has sent him forth....
Aug 22, 2017•3 hr 5 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 7 in the Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories Lecture Series. Life at the individual and the societal level is punctuated by crisis and catastrophe. This stark truth finds its narrative representation in the widely-distributed universal motif of the flood.
Aug 19, 2017•3 hr 32 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 6 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series The story of Noah and the Ark is next in the Genesis sequence. This is a more elaborated tale than the initial creation account, or the story of Adam and Eve or Cain and Abel. However, it cannot be understood in its true depth without some investigation into what the motif of the flood means, psychologically, and an analysis of how that motif is informed by the order/chaos dichotomy.
Jul 19, 2017•3 hr 37 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 5 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series The account of Cain and Abel is remarkable for its unique combination of brevity and depth. In a few short sentences, it outlines two diametrically opposed modes of being -- both responses to the emergence of self-consciousness and the knowledge of good and evil detailed in story of Adam and Eve. Cain's mode of being -- resentful, arrogant and murderous -- arises because his sacrifices are rejected by God....
Jul 04, 2017•3 hr 33 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 4 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories lecture series I turned my attention in this lecture to the older of the two creation accounts in Genesis: the story of Adam and Eve. In its few short paragraphs, it covers: the emergence of human self-consciousness; mankind's attendant realization of vulnerability, mortality, and death; the origin of the capacity for willful evil, as the ability to exploit that newly-realized vulnerability.
Jul 01, 2017•3 hr 34 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 3 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series at the Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto. Although I thought I might get to Genesis II in this third lecture, and begin talking about Adam & Eve, it didn't turn out that way. There was more to be said about the idea of God as creator (with the Word as the process underlying the act of creation). I didn't mind, because it is very important to get God and the Creation of the Universe right before moving on :) .
Jun 11, 2017•3 hr 42 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Two-part interview with Transliminal Media's Jordan Levine, April 2017, in Vancouver, Canada. Sequel to the hit 2015 interview 'Religion, Myth, Science, Truth': https://youtu.be/07Ys4tQPRis Please support Transliminal Media on Patreon** | https://www.patreon.com/transliminal Links Transliminal Media Patreon Transliminal Media YouTube Channel Self Authoring Programs Dr Peterson's Patreon Support Page
Jun 07, 2017•3 hr 47 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 2 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories. In this lecture, I present Genesis 1, which presents the idea that a pre-existent cognitive structure (God the Father) uses the Logos, the Christian Word, the second Person of the Trinity, to generate habitable order out of precosmogonic chaos at the beginning of time.
May 29, 2017•3 hr 34 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Lecture 1 in my Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories series from May 16th at Isabel Bader Theatre in Toronto. In this lecture, I describe what I consider to be the idea of God, which is at least partly the notion of sovereignty and power, divorced from any concrete sovereign or particular, individual person of power. I also suggest that God, as Father, is something akin to the spirit or pattern inherent in the human hierarchy of authority, which is based in turn on the dominance hi...
May 23, 2017•3 hr 39 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 
