The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast

His most recent book The Boy Crisis, Co-authored with John Gray was a finalist for the Indy Book Publishing Award.

and what I saw but I did the research for The Boy Crisis is that the children that didn't have dads in their lives even the girls did worse in 50 different areas

I opened my email and I saw a letter from somebody who was Hispanic young man in Texas actually and he and he said to me um you know thank you for The Boy Crisis book

it was being seen that you saw it was like you were a spy in my life time me what I was feeling the hurt that I had the the lack of structure the lack of purpose uh the the loss of self the feeling that I didn't have that and boundary enforcement therefore I didn't have that discipline

and so I'd love to see that passed out to everyone in schools so that no one feels singled out for being told that you should take this inventory

What's his name? You wrote The Boy Crisis Warren Farrell has documented Farrell as documented a number of ways that people who get divorced can ensure that their children do about as well as they would in an intact family and some of that involves approximately 50% contact with each parent.

Warren Farrell is a well-established author who was chosen as one of the world's top 100 thought leaders at the Financial Times. His books have been published in more than 50 countries and 19 different languages. Farrell is the author of New York Times Bestsellers "The Boy Crisis" and "Why Men Are The Way They Are".

The Boy Crisis we mentioned why men earn more as well which is a very good book his most recent is The Boy Crisis as I said 2018 co authored with John Gray.

The Boy Crisis was chosen as a finalist for the forward indies award, which is the independent publishers award.

I've been reviewing The Boy Crisis in in quite a bit of detail over the last few days it's it's something I haven't thought about for a while certainly I've thought about it since our last conversation

So why in the world should we assume that the topic of your book the title of your book refers to something that is real and if it's real why aren't we attending to it and why is it important?

I'm an admirer of Stephen Pinker for example and he falls into the enlightenment rationalist camp and in his book The Language Instinct he talks a little bit at the end about culture philosophy music art and all of that religion even for that matter to some degree but it's like a throwaway chapter at the end whereas by my way of looking that's the whole book.

I'm an admirer of Stephen Panker for example and he falls into the enlightenment rationalist camp and in his book The Language Instinct he talks a little bit at the end about culture philosophy music art and all of that religion even for that matter to some degree but it's like a throwaway chapter at the end whereas by my way of looking that's the whole book all of that that artistic endeavor and that shades into the religious endeavor and that that's the scent that's not some side effect of human cognitive development quite the contrary it's the central feature

I read this book by Frank McCourt called Angela's Ashes and in that book he talks about his father back in Ireland they were very poor Irish family and his father was a absolutely unrepentant alcoholic who drank up every cent the family ever made and had many many children number of whom develop very serious illnesses as a consequence of the poverty induced by the father's drinking and some of whom died and Frank had the wisdom even as a young man to sort of divide his father into two parts there was sober useful productive encouraging morning father and then there was nighttime in binge father and he did everything he could to extract out the encouraging patriarchal spirit from the best that his father had to offer.

I read this book by Frank McCourt called 'Angela's Ashes'.

And 'Angela's Ashes' is a tremendous book and Frank McCourt is a brilliant writer.

I remember reading Angela's Ashes great book by Frank McCourt and his dad was a recalcitrant alcoholic who drank the family's livelihood in health away it was awful.

You'll also find there the complete library of all my podcast and lectures. I have a plethora of new content in development that will be coming soon exclusively on Daily Wire Plus.

and my series exploring the book of Exodus.

I've been recently completed a seminar on the biblical book of Exodus with a group of scholars in Miami and that's available on the Daily Wire Plus platform the first eight of those in the last nine will be released very soon and one of the things we talked about given that we were just discussing the book of Exodus were was the nature and the meaning of the ten commandments

I read a book Hitler's Table Talk and it was transcripts of his spontaneous discussions over mealtimes, over about a three year period. I was very interested in the psychology of contempt and derision and Hitler never used language that was associated with fear in relationship to the Jews.

and I also I read Hitler's Table Talk and that's a collection of his spontaneous speeches at mealtimes aggregated by his secretarial staff over about four years and I was looking at descriptive term usage trying to understand his thought processes and it's pretty damn obvious that Hitler wasn't afraid of the Jews or the other people that he conducted genocide against his fundamental emotional attitude towards such people was derisive contempt and discussed there's something particularly toxic about discussed and contempt and there's something about online commentary in particular that really brings that forward

it's the smell they smell bad

The best book on that I think is *The Great Mother* by Eric Neumann which is an absolutely terrific book.

The devouring mother interestingly isn't the woman who pushes the baby away or the infant away, let's say, and says, go out and play.

The devouring mother is the one that holds the child far too tightly in her loving embrace and will never let go.

there's a great book about that called The Great Mother by Eric Neumann best book ever written on that in the 1950s an absolute classic and it outlines the entire domain of symbolism of the positive feminine and so you do see this religious struggle between those who are now advocates of the positive feminine and detractors of the negative masculine but it's very unbalanced you know because there's a negative feminine and there's a positive masculine as well so we're all tangled up in that we don't understand it

His books include False Alarm, How Climate Change Panic Costs As Trillions Hurts the Poor and Fails to Fix the Planet.

Thinking about climate, read my free, peer-reviewed article... , or my new book, False Alarm... .

He's also a best-selling author whose books include False Alarm, How Climate Change Panic, Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor and Fails to Fix the Planet.

Bjrn has discussed that book at some length on my podcast, among many other places.

And you also accept the claim that much of that is man made.

For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers such as changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation, governance and many other aspects of socioeconomic development.

I'm simply accepting what the UN climate panel of the IPC is telling us about global warming, what I'm arguing is how much will a potential solution cost?

Actually as you just mentioned climate change is a problem but it's a fairly small one compared to most of the other things that we talk about.

That's why one of the big points that I try to make in the book is to say that is not what the UN climate panel is telling us.

I've just written a book that I'm going to publish next year that's called An ABC of Childhood Tragedy and it's a combination of dark humor and beauty it's the same we're trying to we're experimenting with exactly the same thing those paradoxical juxtaposition of dark and light emotions there is something sublime about that that's and something awe inspiring about that

for everything I know about perceptual psychology there's a great book called Vision as a oh god now I can't remember the name of books that's a memory trouble I'll remember it no worries

for everything I know about perceptual psychology there's a great book called Vision as a oh god now I can't remember the name of the books that's a memory trouble I'll remember it

I remember when I was a kid, 17 or so, I read this book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

just as an exercise a kind of bracketing for a second and try to try to think about things of a mentor of mine and a friend of mine Dr. Thomas Cleary wrote a book called Zen Coons he also translated the Quran he's one of the brilliant translators of the of of our lifetime but he wrote a book called Zen Coons and in the introduction of that book he actually says that the purpose of a colon is to snap people out of of of of sloking

One of the books that I read as a youngster was Victor Frankl's famous book from death camp to oxy existentialism now I didn't know too much still don't know too much about the existentialism but I do know that he survived that by virtue of focusing on the lovey had for his wife the lovey had for his family because if you have a why as he kept saying you can bear any how the tragedy is that the modern world while having less and less in the way of objective difficulties has less and less of the why that will enable us to endure the how

In a time where work is being heralded as the cause of societal pain, depression and anxiety, Full Time is screaming the exact opposite, that we're created to work and that our work provides unique meaning and purpose in our lives.

We are living in a crisis of apathy and ignorance regarding work's existential nature.

There's no shortage of books telling people to work less, to find balance, to think less of career and more of things that bring them happiness.

In Full Time, Bonson makes the case that our understanding of work and its role in our lives is deeply flawed.

He argues that the time has come to stop tiptoeing around the issues that matter, that separating one's identity from what they do is demonstrably false and that a low view of work is leading to disastrous policy proposals and cultural attitudes. It is in work of every kind that we discover our meaning and purpose.

I'd like to talk to you about a new book Full-Time work in the meaning of life by David Bonson. In a time where work is being heralded as the cause of societal pain, depression, and anxiety, Full-Time is screaming the exact opposite that we're created to work and that our work provides unique meaning and purpose in our lives.

We are living in a crisis of apathy and ignorance regarding works existential nature. There's no shortage of books telling people to work less, to find balance, to think less of career and more of things that bring them happiness.

In Full-Time Bonson makes the case that our understanding of work and its role in our lives is deeply flawed. He argues that the time has come to stop tiptoeing around the issues that matter that separating one's identity from what they do is demonstrably false.

And that a low view of work is leading to disastrous policy proposals and cultural attitudes.

It is in work of every kind that we discover our meaning and purpose.

And I have a friend named Steve Pressfield is an incredible writer wrote a book called The War of Art which you'd be very interested in I think.

A friend named Steve Pressfield is an incredible writer wrote a book called The War of Art which you'd be very interested in I think um the Steve Pressfield was um investigating his own faith he had decided to to look into spiritual matters and he asked me to go along with him to rabbi Finley's lectures at the University of Judaism and a rabbi Finley is very practical guides got a son in the Marine Corps it's got a daughter and Israeli intelligence and he's a tough guy

Jonathan Haidt has written his book on The Anxious Generation. I think it's absolutely brilliant. He's talking about the damage that tech has been doing to children and smartphones in particular, and how this has made their mental health skyrocket. It's completely destroying children. It's just awful. It's a fantastic book.

But one of the things that he argues for, Abigail Schreier, and in her excellent book, Bad Therapy, also mentions this sort of thing where they want children to have the freedom that they had when they were growing up.

Jonathan Haidt will then criticize families for being a little bit too protective of their kids, not wanting them to go places on their own and so on.

Jonathan Haidt doesn't realize this.

He says in head he pulled down a copy of Jonathan Hade off the bookshelf and was like, I love to teach this and my client went, oh, I really want to make this happen. I want to teach you know more than I was sort of maybe just modeling it or humoring me or something. But he had the book. He had the book that's right. And he knew the book and he knew where it was on his shelf.

I loved Ernest Becker's book. I love Ernest Becker too. But he's also deeply wrong. The hero myth that Becker lays out is not an illusion. It's actually the fundamental principle by which adaptation takes place.

But there was a whole literature that Becker didn't know of, that he didn't pay any attention to. And so he went, he went astray in his fundamental presumptions.

all of Campbell's thinking was was Jungian thinking all of it and The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a great book especially as an introduction to that kind of literature

But one of the things that he argues for, Abigail Schreier, and in her excellent book, Bad Therapy, also mentions this sort of thing where they want children to have the freedom that they had when they were growing up.

Her upcoming publication, Bad Therapy: Why The Kids Aren't Growing Up is slated for release in early 2024.

And she told me with my last book, I was doing the Lord's work.

She's in her sixties and she really wanted to be of help with my new book, Bad Therapies.

In some sense, one of the things I really realized that the museum brought home for me was that all books grew out of the in some profound sense, particularly in the West. All books grew out of the Bible.

And maybe that's maybe that's a claim that you could make about wanting to understand any book because if you mapped out the relationships between all the books that there are you'd find that the most fundamental book is the biblical library.

And so it seems to me that you I think you can make a pretty damn strong case maybe on scientific grounds that you can't see the world except through the lens of the Bible, like literally you actually can't see it.

you probably should have read the Bible.

to be people of the book means that we're all inhabited by the same book or but it's probably more complicated than that like it's not just the Bible because there's lots of books it's the biblical corpus which is a library and it's the relationship between all the texts in that book to one another and then it's the whole structure of the relationship between all the texts that grew out of that and you could imagine a map of that.

it isn't easy to read a book like the Bible literally because it's full of of literal contradictions and it whatever it is especially the really archaic stories in in Genesis whatever it is it's not. It's not it's not history the way we think of history and so that's hard for people. It's hard for people to see how that might still be true.

If it's not literal how can it be true and this is a discussion that I tried to have with Sam Harris a lot because the atheist types the rationalist types there's something they miss and what they miss is that. Fiction isn't false it's not a lie right it's not literal but it's not a lie and great fiction is true but it never happened so how can it be true.

They look for scientific knowledge in the Bible, not paying attention to how it cultivates wisdom.

and because one book a year isn't enough he's coming out with a new one called Woke Racism, how a new religion is betraying black America

Woke Racism well well Woke Racism and how a new religion is betraying black america so okay so that's that's quite the title I mean it I'm sure it was very carefully chosen

my book is about people it's actually I'm known for saying things black people don't like black a lot of black people aren't gonna like Woke Racism but Woke Racism is gonna be hated by a lot of white people too

I hope you have the success that you deserve with your new book Woke Racism how a new religion is betraying black america

I think that you and I are best known if we're talked about in the same sentences based on that exchange at aspen and I would venture to say that although that's really gotten around it meant more to the audience of people who've been watching it than it meant to either one of us and so I'm happy to have actually had a one-on-one with you

if people are trying to get an understanding of this john mcworder who's at I think he's Columbia he's just written a book is anybody know that is it Woke Racism is that what he calls it i think it is Woke Racism yeah and really what he does is he says why anti racism exactly what's happening with this bill why it is racist and he takes a lot of time to explain it so that's a read that some people might want to take a look at yeah it's Woke Racism john mcworder yeah so yes that would definitely be worth taking a look at

which was the most vilified book of the 90s if you like and hernstein and marie were both at Harvard although hernstein had just passed away and we had been the neuropsych guys had been speculating on

One of the things Hernstein and Murray said in that book that really stuck in my mind is that academic types like you and me, we virtually never encounter anyone in the lower 50th percentile of the cognitive distribution.