March 2019 Q and A - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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Hi, everyone.
A little more light on the situation here.
Welcome to the March Q and a Glad to see you all here.
Thanks for tuning in.
So, uh, let's see if we can get somewhere reasonable today.
I guess I could update you a little bit if you'd be interested.
Tell you what has been going on.
Um, my wife, Tammy and I came back from Australia, New Zealand at the end of February.
We had a really good tour there.
I would say about a dozen places, maybe 15.
Hard to keep track because we went to a number of places more than once large crowds.
Some of the bigger venues Melbourne for examples.
5500 people.
So I think that was the biggest audience that I had spoken to independently of the, um, discussions with Sam Harris.
So that was very interesting to see that crowds of that magnitude would show up, Got to speak at the Sydney Opera House, which was extremely exciting, you know, it's such an iconic building, so that was a real honor.
It's been like that for lots of the theaters that I've seen in, You know, these old iconic buildings that so many people have performed in.
It's quite a privilege to be able to get backstage and take a look.
Um, we enjoyed Australia, New Zealand lot wth the company Take Dainty that hosted it, posted the tour, did an outstanding job, and, uh, the press even was reasonably welcoming, I would say, at least in Australia and New Zealand, it was a bit of a different story.
They seemed to be more polarized there, Uh, as recent events have clearly indicated so since I've been back, well, I haven't Bean particularly productive five mostly being sleeping, as it turns out.
So I guess a worn out after a year of touring.
But I'm hard at work on my next book, tentatively entitled Beyond Order or Beyond Mere Order.
12 More Rules for Life.
I'm up to Chapter nine, and I would say I'm pretty stuck on it at the moment time.
I'm having a hard time slogging through it.
Brain isn't as sharp as it could be and have to be sharp to at it.
So anyway, some set up some new offices.
This'd is this week to get my team together for the online education project, so that's exciting.
Boats.
Five of us that will be working together.
Um, it's, um, offices with a company called Post Media, who I'm also working with writing a journal newspaper articles.
So, uh, that's exciting.
And we're hoping for good things from the online education program, Um, no timelines or anything like that.
Still, it's a complicated system being working as well on the Patriot on replacement.
That's looking really good.
I would say I met with the developer this week.
Um, we're hoping, Well, we're hoping to have some of it functional by April 1st, and they'll be a little bit more information about that available act on April 1st.
Um, I have a talk in New York on April 17th at the Beacon Theater.
I think it's sold out.
I have a talk on April 19th at the Sony Center in Toronto with Slava Jack, who's probably the world's most famous Marxist philosopher, and so that should be interesting and challenging and hopefully productive.
And then, for those of you who might be watching from the UK or from somewhere reasonably accessible to the UK, I'm doing a 12 Rules for Life Lecture to her show May 8th in London, which is the same time that the paperback version of 12 Rules for Life is coming up.
So that's basically that for updates.
I guess maybe there's a bit more.
I've, um, videotaped a number of mine lectures in Australia, which is the first time I've done that professionally videotaped them.
I think I taped six, and so we'll be releasing them in some form yet to be determined, maybe on the new platform in the relatively new future.
And I have about 50 of, um, 55 of them, audiotaped and transcribed.
And so I've put together the transcriptions spot a 1,000,000 words, and I'm hoping that there's possibly books I can derive from that.
But if there's not folks, there's certainly podcasts and not sort of think so.
And I have a lot of, um, interviews coming up as well.
So that's what's happening on this end of the universe.
So let's take some questions to see how that goes, So I don't know why this question is so popular, but and it's completely ridiculous.
But, um, that's okay.
Steven Shutters, who obviously hasn't got anything better to do, wants to know what is my favorite soup.
And apparently 333 people are also interested in that particular topic.
And I would say it's actually irrelevant.
Unfortunately, because I don't eat soup, I'm on this crazy all meat diet that some of you know about and that doesn't go along very well with soup.
But if I had to pick a soup that I ate at one point, my favorite soup was a clam chowder that I used to make with corn.
And, uh, I was a dish I was particularly proud of.
I was actually not a bad cook.
I spent a lot of time cooking in restaurants and really enjoyed it and miss it a lot.
The diversity, you know, off cuisine.
And so it would have to be clam chowder.
So now you know what the most important thing about me that you could possibly know?
When will you be starting back up your Bible, Siris?
Well, that's a good question.
Um, and it looks like it'll be the fall now.
What's happening in October is that I'm going to Cambridge University in the UK for two months, and I'm going to be a visiting fellow there at the Divinity school, and that should give me an opportunity to talk to religious experts of all types for a couple of months as well as students.
And the plan at the moment is to do that at the same time that I start recording the lectures on Exodus.
So, um, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.
That way I could start the biblical lectures again, which I'm really looking forward to on also update my biblical knowledge substantially as well as having the opportunity to spend some time in Cambridge, which I think would be really exciting.
I was there a little bit this summer, and it's known absolutely beautiful university.
And it's quite a thrill for someone who's academically minded to be to be their period, but also to be invited there, too, to sit in and participate for a couple of months.
And so anyways, maybe I could get 10 or so lectures out in that period of time.
Let's say if I did one a week, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do it.
If I'm gonna rent a public theater like I did in Toronto, I think that's probably the plan but anyways assume October November.
That's the That's the plan At the moment.
What I'm trying to concentrate on right now is finishing my new book, which has a relatively sudden or, you know, relatively.
It has a due date that's in the relatively recent future.
And so I like to stay on top of those things.
It's easy to get behind when you're writing a book and to rush it and to do it badly.
And so I'm trying to make sure that I've got my priorities straight.
So anyways, that's the situation with the biblical Siri's.
I'm really looking forward to it.
I think one of the most worthwhile things I've done in my academic career was that Siris on Genesis and I learned a tremendous amount.
And so I'm assuming the same thing will happen with the exodus stories, which I know better.
Uh, so that should be slightly easier on me from a rate of learning perspective and hopefully I'll be able to go deeper because they are really remarkable stories.
So I've also been struck by the, you know, the reception to those biblical stories.
I've received a subsistence surprising number, for example, off a surprising number, for example, of letters from Islamic viewers who've been watching them, and the letters have been very positive.
And so that's That's made me think very hard about the overall potential effect of delineating the meaning of all these old stories that I think that to the degree that we want to preserve Thea under structure of our culture, and I regard that as grounded in Judeo Christian tradition very, very firmly as well as other traditions.
Obviously, huh?
Think Greco Roman tradition, probably foremost among them.
The stories have to be brought alive again, and I don't think there's any more effective way of demonstrating their utility than to make them come alive.
Mirror what?
Your profession off belief and value isn't sufficient.
One thing you might guys might be interested in to it.
This is, ah, video or, ah, an audio.
I think I don't know if I videotaped this one or just audio recorded it.
I did a lecture in Australia on this question about belief in God and why I'm not very happy about the question and unwilling in some sense to answer it.
So I did a two hour snow 70 minute lecture on how that question why that question is problematic for me and what could be done about it.
What what the proper answer is to it?
I think so.
Hopefully you'll find something interesting in that when it's finally released.
I do not attend church.
How can I teach my Children the biblical stories in a productive way without the dogma or little and literal interpretation of organized religion?
Well, that's an unbelievably complicated problem, and I actually don't know the answer to it.
I'm not sure that I did a particularly good job of teaching my Children the biblical stories in a productive way, without the dogma or literal interpretation of organized religion.
And I think that you could start by just reading them the stories.
You know, there are decent, plain English translations of the biblical stories, and you might find that just reading the stories to them.
At least they're familiar with them that way.
And you'd have to pick and choose, obviously, because they're not going to be too thrilled by sitting through endless genealogies.
But there are also biblical translations available that put the story's out in prose form and do a pretty good job of editing out the geological material and the other things that might not be so what might not capture the imagination of Children particularly?
Well, I can't think of any better way of doing it than just reading the stories to them, and perhaps to the degree that it's possible to discuss them and see if that works.
Maybe it'll work.
Maybe it won't mean I didn't take my kids to church, you know, um, having stopped attending, really when I was 13 and I have my reasons for not attending.
Maybe they're good and maybe they're not.
I very back and forth with that.
Um, one of the downsides of that was that they didn't develop the same familiarity with the stories that I have developed when I was a kid, because I didn't go to church fairly regularly until I was 13.
And it's it's definitely a loss.
Um, my cynicism about church organization since cynicism, I don't know what it is exactly.
Well, I didn't do my Children's education on the biblical front any good.
So, um, I'm still at sixes and sevens.
Let's say about that and about exactly what to do about it.
But you could try reading them, reading the stories to them and see how that goes.
And there are Children's versions available as well.
You know what I suspect?
If you look carefully on Amazon, you could find ones that were well reviewed.
And so that might be another way of approaching it.
What question are you asked way to sell them.
Oh, well, that's pretty easy.
At least if if the question is, what question am I asked by journalists?
Way to sell them.
And the answer to that would be, um, Dr Peterson, what the hell is going on?
And what I mean by that is, Why are so many people coming to your lectures?
Let's say and why did your book strike such a court?
I think the 1st 1 is the most important one.
You know, generally, what happens with with journalists is that they're very cynical about what is happening at my lectures and also who's attending.
And it's really very pejorative, demeaning, um, thoughtless, prejudiced, and I would say cruel all at once, because the first assumption is that you know, I'm talking primarily to angry white young man, and there certainly isn't a lot of evidence for that, I would say the average age of the people in my audiences thirties, and that's not exactly young.
And then I would say, Well, it's a least 30% women and that's being increasing as the book has sold more.
And you know, the reason it was men primarily to begin with, I think, is because, well, there are many men starving for encouraging voice and also the fact that YouTube, which is where I picked up my primary audience to begin with, skews about 80 20 male to female in terms of its viewership, which really doesn't have anything to do with me, right?
That's just, uh, what do you call that?
That's a baseline phenomenon that has to be taken into phenomenon that has to be taken into account before you make any before you draw any conclusions about the nature of someone's audience.
But the presumption is, is that you know, I'm speaking politically and intended divisive way to the people who show up to my, um to my lectures into my talks, and that's just not true.
The lectures aren't political except peripherally.
I mean, do now and then, through a critical comment or two out a boat, the manner in which this strange alliance of postmodernism and and neo Marxism has been dominating the university.
But I think that's perfectly reasonable thing to point out.
Apart from that, the lecture is almost all concentrate on psychological self improvement, and it seems almost impossible for the media to be not cynical about that.
You know, I think it's partly because almost everything that the classic media covers has to be politicized.
And I was on a show, for example, called Q and A in Australian show, which was, It's their biggest political show.
It's modeled on one in the U.
K, which is also quite big, which are It was also on a while back, and every issue immediately becomes discussed among polarized political lines.
It's a Ziff.
Our discourse has degenerated to the point where the only possible response to a question about anything important has to be ideological, so left or right, and it has to be political.
And so I think part of the problem is perhaps that the phenomenon that constitutes the attendance at my lectures doesn't fit the standard news media narrative, which is driven by journalists.
I think who had political ambitions fundamentally or still have political ambitions of one sort or another, and who tend to view world lee through a political lens.
But for me, the experience of my lectures is actually on unbelievably positive one and not particularly stressful, like it's nowhere near a stressful as almost any interview I have with almost any journalist, because again things get politicized very rapidly.
What happens in the lectures is that, you know, 3000 people show up and they're happy to be there.
And so it's very welcoming atmosphere, and I get to talk to them for 70 minutes about some psychological problem, I would say often associated with one of the chapters in my book.
Like what it means to what?
What a human competence hierarchy might look like, say, if I was talking about Chapter one, because we do organize hierarchies, human beings, naturally organized hierarchies, like other animals do.
But we tend to organize hierarchies to achieve valuable goals, you know, valuable in that their goals that people assume would be usefully achieved to decrease the some amount of suffering in the world, or maybe to bring happiness to people are a bit of luxury or something, generally something of a least limited use and often far more than limited.
You know, when I talk to people about the fact that the best way to make progress in human hierarchy has nothing to do with power but everything to do with reciprocity and responsibility?
I just read this or watch this really cool Ted talk.
Think it was a Ted talk by friends Do wall f r A N s d e w a l And he studied political behavior in chimpanzees, so I wish I had the, um, the U R L fort.
Maybe somebody can post that if they would.
But one of the things that the Wall pointed out was that the most empathic chimpanzees in a chimpanzee troupe are actually the dominant, the most dominant males.
They're the ones who do the most comforting and the most care, like the females, are more empathic than the males on average.
But across all of the chimpanzees, the most dominant males are the ones that show the most empathic responses, and that's part of the walls.
And he's not the only animal Ecologist.
Someone who studies the natural behavior of animals.
He's not the only person to point this sort of thing out, You know, is that the ability to move forward in a hierarchy is dependent on far more than power and aggression.
And it's dependent on reciprocity and friendship, but also especially in the case of human beings, on skill.
Because hopefully when we organize our hierarchies and we're attempting to solve complex problems by setting up a hierarchy that allows for competition and cooperation, that the hierarchy organizes itself so that the most competent people rise to the top.
And I actually think that generally speaking, that's true in the selection process isn't perfect.
And it's marred by.
And you could say, the proclivity to select people for reasons other than their fundamental competence.
And that might be their attractiveness or their extra version or their height or their charisma, their self confidence.
It might be the race or their gender, their sexuality to in situations where true prejudice plays role.
But that only happens when the hierarchies have become corrupt, because obviously it's in everyone's best interests.
If we're trying to solve complex problems that the most confident people are the ones that have the opportunity to rise to the top, and I actually think we do a damn good job of that in the West.
Which is why I, almost everything that we do in the West, works by.
Everything is reliable and why the power's always on.
And why are electronic technology works?
Why are society in general works?
You can be cynical about that if you want, but I don't I know what you would compare the functionality of our societies to, because things are way better than they were 150 years ago.
They're getting better, very, very rapidly as Western ideas of production and private property and on honesty and integrity, I would say as well spread around the world, especially now that the more radical socialist ideas that were pushed by people like the Soviets have have declined, at least to some degree since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Well, anyways, this is the sort of thing that's discussed at the talks, you know, or that's Rule one and, you know, rule to I talk to people about taking care of themselves, like there's someone who they have responsibility for.
And that's not a political issue, too it's it's Ah, it's an injunction to assuming that you have a certain intrinsic value, you know, and that it's necessary for that value to manifest itself, for you to push yourself against the world, to challenge yourself.
Because otherwise what you're capable of won't manifest itself.
It has to be developed.
It has to be called forth by necessity, right?
You have to pick a hard problem and try to solve it and push yourself against it in order for.
And you have to try to do that truthfully and responsibly in order for what it is that you're intrinsically capable of and composed of to come to the forefront.
And that seems like a very positive thing.
As far as I'm concerned, too, encourage people to be responsible for themselves and for other people, and also to point out that that you have a moral responsibility to do so for yourself, just as you do for others.
And I think that that message has bean very helpful to people.
At least that's what they've told me.
And it's predicated that the rule is predicated on the old Judeo Christian idea.
The oldest idea in some sense that you know that there's a relationship between logos, which is truthful speech and communication and bringing things into being from chaotic potential.
That's the idea that's put forward in Genesis and also the idea that men and women alike are made in the image of God, which suggests that, like God, we have the capability of affecting potential affecting the possible future and turning it into the actual present, and that we do that, at least in part as a consequence of our ethical choices, you know, And then I'll give you one more example in Rule 10.
Just be precise in your speech.
I point out that a tremendous ah that the games that you have in your life, the ethical aims and those air the aims that direct your actions also direct your perceptions that this is true at a neuro physiological level and that much of the way that the world manifests itself to you is a consequence of the structure of your ethics.
So it's your ethical structure that's in Stan.
She hated narrow physiologically that serves as an intermediary between the world of phenomena.
Let's say objective phenomena and your perception of that, and you see the world through unethical lens.
And one of the things that that suggests and I own blind this in Rule six is that if the world looks to you like a dismal and terrible place and you're nihilistic and depressed and hopeless and all of that, I mean, there could be physiological reasons for that you might be ill.
But if it's a psychological issue, it's certainly possible that at least part of the reason that everything appears to you in that light is because your ethical structure is not well formulated.
It's incoherent.
It's nihilistic.
It isn't predicated on the idea, for example, that people have some some spark of divine virtue and that everyone is valuable in that right and that we all have the possibility to make a genuine contribution to the world.
Or it needs to stop it from degenerating anymore than it has to into a kind of hell.
So, anyways, that's a very long answer to that question.
But it is.
See, it's so interesting to me that the journalists who interview me have no curiosity about why it is that, um, so many people are coming to watch my lectures state.
It's like the curiosity is being boiled out of them in some sense, because it certainly makes me curious.
I Every time I go on stage and there's 3500 people there, I'm curious about why they're there.
And so we have a discussion about all these things that I've been talking about him.
I can tell you two that the one thing that really brings the host dead silence, which is very much worth paying attention to, is the discussion.
Anytime I have a discussion about the relationship between responsibility and meaning, you know, because one of the fundamental thesis of 12 Rules for life and also of maps of meaning, is that because life is essentially tragic in its fundamental essence, you need a sustaining meaning that's deep and profound and deep and profound enough to get you through bad times because there will be very bad times in your life will be death and they'll be illness and they'll be disappointment of of all sorts.
And and they'll be just that standard difficulties of life in the world to contend with.
And you really must have something that's profound and powerful to set up against that, and I think that your voluntary adoption of the struggle to improve being is the proper and two don't to that and that, and that the best way to do that is to live responsibly and truthfully.
I truly believe that.
And I think that people know this, you know, because when I talked to my audience is about exactly this about who they admire.
For example, you know, it's like, Well, you don't admire people who lie and cheat to see if you don't teach your Children To do that, you admire people who keep their word, who are honest and reliable and you want them around, especially in times of trouble.
And you want people who are capable of being responsible for themselves and to take care of themselves properly is if they matter as a moral duty, and then you also want people who have extended themselves past that so that they can take care of their family and regard that as a noble and appropriate enterprise and who are reliable for their Children and for their husbands and wives.
And then you want people who are capable of extending themselves even beyond that and taking care of the community.
And when I talk about that and that's meaning, it's where you find the meaning in your life.
If you're if you're looking for it, it's not in happiness.
And it's not an impulsive pleasure.
No, none of that works for any length of time, and it tends to kick back hard.
And it's certainly not something that's going to get you through rough times.
It's the ability to pick up a heavy load of responsibility and to move forward with it.
And what's so interesting is that every time I talk about this with my audiences, they're reduced to complete silence and this.
I think there's something and then that's, you know, I've noticed that in 150 different cities now, and it's something you really have to take seriously when you see it happening over and over.
And I do believe that a huge part of the reason that people are coming to watch my lectures and to buy my book.
The lectures, of course, have more direct impact on me than the book sales.
Although the book sales now have approached three million copies, which is quite something in hardcover around the world and they're not translated into all the languages they're going to be translated into.
That's I think, 50 languages is what they're slated for now.
But the lectures have more impact on me because I get to see the audience and then to talk people afterwards.
You know, when they tell me the same thing, the many people who come up to me in the meet and greets because people can come and talk to me after the after the lecture there, special tickets arranged for that, Um, it's handled by a particular company and they tell me, You know, they've been trying to develop a vision for their life and to act more responsibility and to speak more truthfully and to take more responsibility.
Maybe already said that and that the changes in their lives have been overwhelming.
As a consequence, merely trying to just speak the truth or not lie has had a huge effect on many of the people that I've talk to it.
It's not a simple thing to do, you know, and it's a risky thing because the consequences of speaking the truth in the short term, especially if you're not very practiced out it can be quite devastating, which is, of course, why people don't do it.
But the medium to long term consequences are extremely beneficial, and it's what sets the world straight.
And so what question are you asked way to sell them well, Dr Peterson, don't you think that it's interesting that so many people are coming to your lectures, that air fundamentally psychological and philosophical in nature and apparently doing so because they're really trying hard to get their lives together?
It's like, Yeah, I think that's really interesting And it's a question that's really worth pursuing.
It's the only question that's worth pursuing as far as I'm concerned, because it's a real mystery that there's such a demand for this.
I can't I can't fathom it.
I think it's It's being a source of tremendous optimism to me that people have that burning desire for a more profound dialogue.
And, you know, it's not necessarily the people that you expect to sew The journalists.
You know, they're very cynical about my hypothetically angry audience, for example, and you know, I've spoken now too.
I think 350,000 people, right?
350,000 people in 150 cities, and we haven't had one episode of misbehavior from anybody in the audience, except for one person who stood up in some city and had a few, you know, rebellious things to say.
But they that person wasn't a partisan of mind by any stretch of the imagination.
The, um, lectures have bean very, very peaceful, and they're very, very positive.
And that's part of the reason why I've been able to travel around so regularly over the last year with my wife and do 150 lectures.
You know, because it's quite well demanding all that traveling and all that thinking, because each of the lectures is different, at least to the degree that I could make it.
But they're so positive.
It's so exciting at a fundamental level to see people want to engage in serious dialogue of that sort, that it's unbelievably sustaining.
Let's call it that it makes up for the energy use.
Australia tired me out.
I think I maybe did do a bit too much traveling around and, you know, there were some other issues in my family that had to be dealt with in January and March that were quite serious.
And so that was another issue, that it was draining.
Let's say, But I'll tell you both my wife and I am Dave Rubin, too, and and my tour manager, John O'Connell, who's being a really good guy.
You know, we've all found this entire experience extraordinarily positive, and the same thing happens with people who are arranging the tours.
It's their experiences is the same.
So how to balance between making peace and speaking the truth in intimate relations?
What if truth hurts the other or two sides?
Conflict?
While you can be absolutely certain that that's going to happen, Bean, look the first thing.
That's a really good question.
That's from Vincent.
It's a really good question.
It's a really difficult question.
The first thing you have to decide is this goes back to what I was discussing about 10 minutes ago about what your aims are.
You know, your whole the whole way.
You perceive the world is dependent on what you're on.
The aim of your ethical structure, and so that ethical structure is, is, is a It's a hierarchy with something at the top that's of crucial importance.
And Carl, you would say that whatever is at the top of your ethical hierarchy functions psychologically as if it's God for you.
It's because it's the highest of all possible values.
And you could think of God in that sense as a personality that perhaps a personality that you're trying to mimic because of value structure actually constitutes a personality that you're trying to act out or mimic.
And so the highest element in that personality structure would be the most valuable portion of that personality you might say.
Well, what do you want?
What do you want?
If you could have what you want it, if you could knock on the door would open, so to speak.
And if you could ask and you would receive, what would you want?
And And that means, what would you give?
What would you give?
What would you be willing to give up important things for?
How would you prioritize, which is the same as giving up important things, And it's not easy to come to terms with what you want, because you might be angry and resentful and bitter, and you might have your reasons for that.
And and that might contaminate your ethical structure, let's say and make it so that there's large parts of you that would be the shadow part from the union perspectives who's actually that are actually after conflict and harm and cruelty and suffering out of spite and revenge.
And then the probability that part of you is like that is unbelievably high, because it's it's very hard to be pure of spirit, Let's say, given how much suffering and malevolence there is in the world and how much were exposed to that.
So it's very easy to take the low road.
If you if you are married, let's say or you have a close relationship with someone and you want that relationship to be good, then the first thing that you have to figure out what it is Well, what do you mean by good, you know, So when I would say, Well, good would be and loving, Let's.
And what that would mean is that each of you would be trying to take care of the other and yourself as if you're of equal import, and that that import is high.
And so I think that once you married to someone, for example, or once you have Children, and then maybe this.
The same thing applies to your immediate family, your parents and your siblings.
Is that probably somewhat less so for them, although still significantly, that you have to treat your spouse and your Children as if they are yourself?
And I know that's an old idea.
It's not often explained well, but you you well, that also assumes that what you want for yourself is something approximating what would be best for you.
And you'd have to figure that out as well.
And I don't know.
It seems to me that well, you want, like the people that you're with, and so you have to treat them well and you want them to love you and to love them.
I would say, at least to the same degree, that you'd want that from a pet.
You know, it's very nice to come home if you have a dog or another animal that loves you.
Two.
Have something there that's really on your side that's happy to see you.
It's one of the wonderful things that can happen while in a marriage, but also when you have Children, you wanna like the people you're around.
You want to love them.
You want to support them when they're having a hard time and vice versus so you want to make your the vessel in which your family's ensconced water tight end and capable of withstanding storms.
You wantto discipline yourself so that you're not doing things that you're ashamed of.
You want to tell the truth.
You want to work responsibly and be a good provider whether you're female or male, in whatever capacity you could manage.
And I would say that also goes for Children to the degree that they're capable of contributing to the family environment.
And you have to think that all through you wantto embed your family in a healthy social life too.
And in a healthy community, life.
But that all has to be conscious and thought through before you can start telling the truth.
No.
How to balance between making peace and speaking truth in intimate relationships.
What if truth hurts the other or two sides conflict?
Okay, so the first thing you have to do is with the person that you're communicating with.
You both have to figure out what it is.
It what are you aiming at?
you know, I think it's in Rule nine, which is assumed that the person you're listening to knows something that you don't that I outlined a number of different conversational types.
You know, when there's the conversational type that's designed to mutually amuse and not could be lots of fun.
And there's the conversational type that's designed to win.
That's where I have a point of view and you have a point of view and we engage in a power dispute, especially essentially a dominance dispute where the goal is for one of the positions to come out on top and win.
And then there's another conversation where the goal is to explore a problem and to come to a joint to jointly further the understanding of that problem.
And I would say that that's how you balance making peace and speaking The truth in intimate relationships is that you know the first thing you have to do is what you have to have, Ah, conversation about just exactly what the problem is.
And that might take a long time and a lot of listening, because when people are upset about something, they don't always know what it is that they're upset about, and what they're upset about might be associated with 100 other things that they're upset about, that they have not dealt with.
And some of those could be directly Germaine to the issue at hand.
But some of them could be a consequence of old family trouble or old trauma to use a very overused word.
But trouble in the past that hasn't been dealt with property, and it all amalgamate ce into a complex.
That's the psychoanalytic idea that consists of all the problems that the person is dealing with that haven't been resolved.
And then any new problem gets it gets.
It's poorly separated from that entire complex of problems.
And so when the person is upset than all the things they're upset about, consort of manifest themselves in in, ah, incoherent and chaotic manner, and that's really hard.
And so if someone's upset about something, you or the other person might take a tremendous amount of listening before you could even get to what the problem is.
And often during that process of listening, there's a lot of mutual recrimination and accusations as each person tries to work it out because if you're annoyed at someone.
And maybe all the other things that are wrong with your life are in the background, driving the annoyance.
But you don't really know it.
You're gonna accuse them of all sorts of misbehavior.
Some of it no, with some justification, no doubt, and all sorts of inadequacies.
It's not a good way of communicating, but it happens a lot.
And then that person has to defend themselves like mad just so that they can not be the target of all that vitriol that's stored up for such a tremendous length of time.
So anyways, you have to listen to each other a lot.
It's like, OK, what's the problem?
And then a rule there might be, Well, what's the minimum problem?
It's like while our relationship is no good, it's like That's a non starter for a discussion, man, huh?
Because you can't fix your whole relationship.
You have to be more precise.
You have to think, and maybe your partner has to help you figure out what it is that you're upset about right now that could be rectified.
I mean, maybe you made a nice dinner or even a dinner that wasn't so nice.
and you are treated casually and with a certain amount of contempt while everyone was eating it, you know, they came in and grabbed the food scattered to the four ends of the house and ate it and didn't bring their dishes back and didn't say thank you.
And you know, you're very irritated about that.
And you have your reasons, you know, the way you might respond to that is while this relationship isn't working, but it's not precise enough, you think?
Well, I have this specific problem.
I'm trying to make it a specific problem.
Then I'm trying to come up with a specific solution that might make this relationship this part of the relationship work better.
And so, look, you have to aim at peace, half damit love and responsibility and mutual support.
You have to want that for the people that are important to you in your life, and then you can start to talk to them because you're gonna listen in the proper way.
You're gonna listen in a way that's aiming at that higher good, which is mutual piece amongst the members of the community, something that I learned, for example, from Jean Pierre J.
He called that an inkwell abraded state and celebrated state is like a game that everyone wants to play.
And so if you set your household up properly, then it's a game that everybody is participating in voluntarily.
And that's gonna be predicated on the desire for peace and the willingness to speak truth and the ability to take responsibility.
So that has to be part of your higher order, more lame.
And then when you're having a difficult discussion with someone, the discussion is going to be affected by that higher order moral aim.
It's not going to be contaminated to the same degree by your desire to inflict pain and attained victory and crush your opponent and punish them for their previous sins.
And, um, indicate your disappointment, things they've done over the years and all of that.
And so you can tell if you've got it balanced.
By the way, Vincent, if the conversation continues, you know when when we used to sit down for family meetings which happened on a bi monthly basis, something like that once every two months, when we return to do it, divide up economic and practical duties amongst my wife enough, And I and the kids, we had some rules and the rules were well, you know, there's a certain number of things that have to be done in the house to keep it running in a manner that anyone with any sense would want it to run.
And there are certain responsibilities that everyone has to undertake to facilitate that.
And there's difficult discussions that have to be had about who's going to do what.
And so here's the rules.
We have to make a list of what needs to be done.
We have to agree on that.
And then we have to each accept the responsibilities that go along with that in some sort of order.
Maybe you choose one, and then I choose one, and then someone else chooses one, assuming that everybody's mature enough and capable of doing the jobs that they pick and that you you have to negotiate until you come to the best solution that can be negotiated, which isn't necessarily a perfect solution.
But it might be the best one that could be done, and then you have to stick with it until the next negotiation.
And if you get upset during the negotiations, which you likely will because these air difficult topics.
How did divide up responsibilities in the house and people get mad because they feel they've been taken advantage over are being listened to.
One of the rules was, while you can leave the discussion, but only until you calm down and then you have to come back because these things have to be pushed through.
They have to be negotiated through because the alternative is while important things don't get done.
Or people do them resentfully because they're sort of forced by their own orderliness or their own conscientiousness.
Or, you know, But we know by force, psychological or otherwise, on the part of other people, these things have to be negotiated through.
You can tell if you've got the balance between making peace and speaking the truth right.
If the conversation continues and it can be emotional and will be and can be difficult because important things have to be dealt with.
But as long as the people are still in the conversation and communicating than you, then you've got the balance, right.
You know when you might have to take a break.
Maybe you have to hold off till the next day.
Um, maybe Sometimes when you're negotiating something that's difficult, you have to offer the other person the opportunity to sleep on their decision to that which I think is often a very good idea.
If you have to make an important decision in your life, it's very useful to tell the person that you're negotiating with it.
Look, I'm interested in this and it seems good, but I'm not gonna agree until I sleep on.
It gives your well, lots of things happen when you sleep.
You organize your brain when you sleep, at least to the degree that you can organize it.
And you can often be more solid or more doubtful about a decision if you sleep on it.
So so that's good.
That's a good question, Vincent Dan says.
I have many friends but feel lonely from outside of Mr Popular.
Yet every single friendship feel shallow.
How to transition to fewer closer friends.
Well, it's hard to say, Dan, because I don't know the specifics of your situation, and you sound like an extroverted person and extroverted people like to be in the center of a large group of people and, you know, they like parties and they like to tell jokes, and they're energized by social interactions, and so they can have a fairly large group of friends that where their attention is spread across many people.
No, and you know that can perhaps be a corner.
Or one of the consequences of that could be this feeling that you have that the friendships are shallow because there's not much to them.
The first question might be, Well, you know, do you have an intimate relationship?
Because a fair bit of depth of human interaction comes as a consequence of long term committed relationships, right with your wife or your husband or your parents or your siblings or your Children?
And so I would say that true depth in relationship is generally to be found within family.
That doesn't mean that friends aren't important, and the next issue is well, are there things that you're doing with your friends?
Are there activities that you're undertaking with your friends that are more significant than mere casual amusement, you know, or is it It's just casual amusement because if it is, you know, the bar scene or or that kind of um, party life.
Let's say the friendships aren't going to be very deep because they're not there predicated on shallow activities.
And so it may be that you need to find some activities that you feel our profound on your own and find people that you can share them with, because a fair bit of friendship is in fact, the engagement in shared activity.
And so the more profound the activity, at least in principle, then perhaps the more profound the friendship.
I'm certainly the people who's friendships I would regard as most crucial to me, our people with whom I'm involved in complex and difficult in endeavors as well as friendships.
There are things that we're doing together that we both regard is of crucial importance.
And I think that's necessary because I think that a fair bit of friendship apart from you know, the part that's amusement and fun, which is important, is a consequence of the profundity of shared activities.
And so you might want to ask yourself, you know, are you doing anything with anyone that you regard is important And and then the other thing I would ask is, Well, you know, do you have a new assortment of intimate relationships.
Do you have a partner, a wife or husband?
You have Children.
I don't know how old you are because are you spending enough time attending to your parents and your siblings and to keep those relationships alive with holidays and with visits and that sort of thing?
Um, that's where you find that relationships that generally speaking are deep and meaningful and lasting, even though there are often the ones that are also the most problematic.
Disney has taken a direction towards promoting S J W agendas.
Yes, well, you can say that again.
This is being reflected despite backlash in the Marvel and Star Wars movies, thoughts.
My sense is that self limiting?
I mean, I know that one of the things that I know some people in the comics industry, comic book industry, and I know that, um, the superhero types that have been put forward to manifest a diversity agenda have generally being colossal failures, and that tends to be the case at the box office is well and so look, here's something that I think is universally true.
As soon as you subvert art and I would regard movies as art.
They're a form of literature, and they could be a very profound form of literature.
But even if they're not, even if they're, you know, like a ah, well paced and well written action thriller, if the story which is the art in the movie part of the art in the movie, if the story is subverted to a political agenda, then it's going to be punished for that at the box office because no one, except for the odd acolyte, is going to be the least bit happy with that.
And even they're not.
They'll their mouth, their approval.
But they won't go watch the movies because they just hear what they already know.
There's no mystery.
There's no investigation in a good story.
The story teller should be trying to figure out the story, as he or she writes, and the audience should be participating in that process.
The the moral of the story should be stamped on the story right from the beginning, because what you have then is not, aren't you have propaganda, and when people are out to see a movie or to watch something on television that has an artistic Oh a fundamental artistic nature.
If it's subverted to propaganda, then is going to fail and thank God for that.
So that's, I think it's self defeating.
We'll see.
There's nothing that beats a good story.
You know, there's there's no propaganda that can compete with a good story.
So, uh, I think it'll burn itself out.
Who here is a simple one?
What is the soul to you?
That's a hard question.
I would say, like theologically a soul is that aspect of the human, that aspect of human being that's akin to divinity that's made in the image of God.
And so and I think that that's a very, very important concept.
I don't think a society can survive.
I don't think that you can survive a relationship with yourself.
I don't think you can have a relationship with another person, and I don't think a society can organize itself in a productive and sustainable and peaceful manner without that idea as the core idea.
And so the core idea is that there's something off irreducible value that characterizes each human being and that it's off the highest value, which is what makes it say akin to God or Akin to divinity.
And so that's the soul.
And then the question is, maybe how does that manifest itself in the world?
So what are its What are its whole marks?
And I would say that that's very tightly associated with what morning people describe as consciousness, and there's more to it than consciousness because it's also character.
But I would say character is a manifestation of consciousness.
What consciousness does, as far as I can tell, is confront unformed potential.
This is partly why I think it's improper.
I'm writing a fair bit about this right now in my new book, Why It's Improper to Think of people as deterministic your deterministic.
Once you've established a habit and you've practiced something for a very long period of time, you you become more deterministic in your actions because you're expert out reacting.
And there's neurological, narrow physiological circuits that air laid down to facilitate your action under those conditions and to run with some degree of automaticity.
But most of the time, much of the time, what you confront is the changing future, the future of potential right, and it's it's like a it's like a place of multiple pathways and your consciousness is that part of you that confronts those multiple pathways and decides which one to walk down?
And it does so according to its ethic.
We talked earlier about the fact that you need a value hierarchy.
It's inevitable that you have a value hierarchy and that you look at the world through it and that it should be well structured.
And there should be something of divine importance at the top, I would say What should occupy the top position is the realization, for example, that each person is of divine value and that the most appropriate way of interacting with potential is by embodying and speaking the truth.
That's not a bad way of briefly conceptualizing what might be at the highest pinnacle of the value structure an