#1139 - Jordan Peterson

Joe Rogan (0:03)

Five, four, three, two, one. Hello, Jordan Peterson.

Jordan Peterson (0:09)

Hello, Mr. Rogan.

Joe Rogan (0:10)

You look very spiffy today.

Jordan Peterson (0:11)

Thank you, sir.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

This is a new look for you. You've been rocking these a lot, these big gigantic, what do you call those things, these concerts that you guys are doing? What do you, speeches?

Jordan Peterson (0:21)

Well, lectures, discussions is really what I think of them as. Yeah, because I'm discussing, I mean, you might think it's kind of perverse to be discussing with a 3,000 person audience, but it's not, because if you pay attention to the audience, they're constantly, and the individuals in the audience, they're constantly providing feedback.

So it's a discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Joe Rogan (0:42)

Feedback in applause, laughter, sometimes they shout things out too, right?

Jordan Peterson (0:48)

Shuffling.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

Shuffling.

Jordan Peterson (0:49)

Yeah, well, really what you want, if you're on track, if you're where you should be, then it's dead silent and everyone's focused and listening. And so if that's not happening, I mean, you know, there can be laughter and that kind of thing, but generally speaking, you don't want to hear noise from the audience.

So if you're pursuing a complicated topic and you're paying attention, and I'm always looking at individual people in the audience, you know, in the first few rows, because that's all I can see because of the lights, I'm trying to make sure that everyone's on track with the talk. And you know, there's people gesture with their face and they gesture with their eyes and they shake their head and they nod and there's lots of things to pick up. And if you're not speaking with notes, you can really pay attention to the audience and then you know if you're in the dialogue and that's where everyone wants to be.

Joe Rogan (1:38)

Yeah, it's an interesting thing you're doing because you have experience in doing that with lectures and colleges and universities, but now it's the general public and people just pay to see it and you fill up these huge gigantic theaters. I mean, I've seen some of the places that you guys are doing it. You and Sam just got done doing one in Vancouver. And it's a huge place.

Two, that's right.

Jordan Peterson (2:02)

Yeah, yeah, back to back. And yeah, so it was about five hours of intense discussion over two days. And we were supposed to talk for an hour each night and then go to Q&A, but we asked the audience, Brett Weinstein, who was moderating, asked the audience if they wanted to go to Q&A or continue the discussion. And the response from the crowd was, definitely continue the discussion. And so we ended up talking for about two and a half hours each night.

And again, it was the audience is along for the ride. You know, and they were good discussions as far as I'm concerned. You know, it was kind of marketed as a takedown in some sense, Harris versus Peterson.

But the discussion itself was an attempt on Sam's part and my part to further our thinking about the topic and to bring everyone along for the ride, you know, for the journey.

So to speak.

Joe Rogan (2:55)

Yeah, well, you guys had two podcasts that you did over the phone. So these were the first meetings that you guys had in person.

Jordan Peterson (3:02)

Yeah, it was the first time I'd met Sam.

Joe Rogan (3:05)

The first one that you two had was marred by this discussion about what is truth.

Jordan Peterson (3:11)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

And it was like a strange sort of a...

You got stuck. You guys got kind of stuck in that first conversation. But I felt like the second one was much better. Yes. Maybe both of you kind of recognized there were some errors made in the first podcast.

Jordan Peterson (3:26)

Yeah, we augured in on a definition and couldn't let it go. And so that wasn't so good. Yeah, and I wasn't in tip-top shape for that first discussion. Well, or for the second one for that matter.

But they've been getting... Each discussion I've had with Sam has been getting better.

So as far as I'm concerned, I think he feels the same way. And I mean, we're trying to sort something out that's really, really difficult. And it's the relationship between facts and values, which is parallel to the relationship between, say, objective truth and narrative, or parallel to the distinction between scientific fact and religious truth. All of those things sort of are layered on top of each other, and it's an extraordinarily difficult topic. And so it's not surprising that it's taking all of this discussion to even vaguely get it straight. It's been a central bone of contention among philosophers for, well, probably forever, but certainly since the time of David Hume, several hundred years.