Two very intelligent men talking about interesting things!
Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein on Jordan’s podcast.
Also quite interesting is the reverse — Jordan and Bret Weinstein on Bret’s Dark Horse podcast.
It’s a big investment of time, but they are absolutely worth it.
They cover a lot of ground, but I’ll call two things out. In the first one, they discuss what is the “it” that’s going on nowadays. Why are people going so crazy? Why has identity become an unquestioned reality — often at the expense of objective reality?
In the second they spend a lot of time on an evolutionary explanation for the origins of religion.
I’ll be honest: I don’t know what to make of Peterson. Many things he says seem perfectly reasonable, sometimes obvious but saying obvious things is a virtue in these strange times, and occasionally insightful.
Other things he writes make me wonder if he’s all there. So he puzzles me.
He’s trained in a weird discipline (Jungian psychology) so there are definitely some strange aspects to what he says. But it’s obvious to me he’s done his homework, and there’s incredible depth in what he says — which comes out in these two conversations.
Jungian psychology attracts a lot of people outside of academia because it sounds “profound.” Peterson rides on that wave of mystical-sounding razzle dazzle. Naturally it attracts students, as does existentialism and lots of other popular stuff. Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist and brings his expertise into the domain of social issues. Again, very fashionable. It amuses me that there are people here who at one time frequented message boards on which the received opinion seemed to be that Darwinism is a lie from Satan. But now it turns out to be the fount of wisdom!
Obviously we get religion from lobsters.
If you like Weinstein, check out his conversation (not sure if there’s more than one) with John McWhorter. I’ve found it on YouTube, I don’t know if it’s part of his podcast or not.
It’s here. I’ll try to listen today.
Listened at lunch. Very interesting. And I’m very worried that Weinstein might be right, and we’re possibly seeing the destruction of the Republic.