Femsplainers with Christina Hoff Sommers and Danielle Crittenden

[0] Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[1] To support this podcast, you can make a donation at Jordan B. Peterson .com slash donate, or by following the link in the description.

[2] Dr. Peterson's self -development programs, self -authoring, and understand myself, can be found at self -authoring .com and understand myself .com.

[3] Welcome to the famsplainers.

[4] I'm Danielle Crittenden.

[5] And I'm Christina Hoffs Summers.

[6] And we are thrilled to have the father of all mansplainers in our studio today.

[7] Because, you know, I think he's actually more of a man whisperer.

[8] Yes, a man whisperer, the mad genius behind the intellectual dark web, whatever.

[9] Welcome to the Femsplainers, Jordan Peterson.

[10] Thank you very much.

[11] So delighted to have you.

[12] It's an honor to have you.

[13] It's an honor.

[14] It's amazing.

[15] And a note to our listeners, we're recording this in front of a lot.

[16] audience at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D .C., where Christina is a resident scholar, and there'll be video of the podcast as well, and we will let you know where to find that when it's ready.

[17] And we're also grateful to AEI every week for the use of its recording studio for the podcast.

[18] And now for an introduction, though he needs no introduction to the people here, but Jordan Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto, an author of many books and and poster of many fantastic lecturers.

[19] His most recent book has, I can't keep track of how many languages it's been translated into.

[20] And the sales, just a phenomenally successful book tour.

[21] In fact, my first question is really about your tour.

[22] You look pretty good for somebody who's visited, what, 100 cities in the past year?

[23] Since January 23rd.

[24] I don't know how you do it.

[25] Mostly flying.

[26] Well, what do you do for fun?

[27] Do you ever get to relax?

[28] In brief moments.

[29] And what do you do?

[30] Go on Twitter and get...

[31] Oh, God, yes.

[32] Although I wouldn't qualify that as relaxing.

[33] And I try to forestall that temptation as much as possible.

[34] Well, I have the odd amount bit of time that I can spend with my wife.

[35] She does travel with me. And so, you know, we've had...

[36] We try to take some time to walk around the cities that we're in and see what we can.

[37] We're usually not at any given place for more than a day or two, and they're usually pretty packed up with, well, whatever is associated with the lecture and then with press that the publishers usually arrange.

[38] I heard you interviewed in Sweden.

[39] You were in Stockholm, and you had a half an hour to visit the city with your wife.

[40] And you loved it, but it's very tiring.

[41] Yeah, well, you take your breaks where you get them.

[42] Well, the thing is that the lecture tour is unbelievably part.

[43] Positive.

[44] And a lot of this is ridiculously positive, you know, like so if I'm going out on the streets now or in cafes or, you know, airports, I meet people all the time.

[45] And they're always polite and they're always happy to see me. And they always have some very touching story to relate.

[46] And then the audiences themselves are very positively predisposed to whatever it is that we're doing together.

[47] And so that makes it.

[48] it a lot easier to stay motivated and to continue.

[49] Right.

[50] You know, I mean, it's demanding because everything's scheduled so tightly, and I'd do a different lecture every night.

[51] Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast.

[52] To support this podcast, you can make a donation at Jordan B. Peterson .com slash donate, or by following the link in the description.

[53] Dr. Peterson's self -development programs, self -authoring, and Understand Myself, can be found at self -authoring .com and understand -myself .com.

[54] Welcome to the Famsplainers.

[55] I'm Danielle Crittenden.

[56] And I'm Christina Hoff -Summers, and we are thrilled to have the father of all mansplainers in our studio today.

[57] Because, you know, I think he's actually more of a man -whisperer.

[58] Yes, a man -whisperer, the mad genius behind the intellectual dark web, whatever, welcome to the Femisflainers, Jordan Peterson.

[59] Thank you very much.

[60] So delighted to have you, and it's an honor to have you.

[61] It's an honor, it's amazing.

[62] And a note to our listeners, we're recording this in front of a live audience at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D .C., where Christina is a resident scholar.

[63] And there'll be video of the podcast as well, and we will let you know where.

[64] to find that when it's ready.

[65] And we're also grateful to AEI every week for the use of its recording studio for the podcast.

[66] And now for an introduction, though he needs no introduction to the people here, but Jordan Peterson is a professor at the University of Toronto, an author of many books and poster of many fantastic lecturers.

[67] His most recent book has, I can't keep track of how many languages it's been translated into, and the sales, just a phenomenally successful book tour.

[68] In fact, my first question is really about your tour.

[69] You look pretty good for somebody who's visited, what, 100 cities in the past year?

[70] Since January 23rd.

[71] I don't know how you do it.

[72] Mostly flying.

[73] Well, what do you do for fun?

[74] Do you ever get to relax?

[75] In brief moments.

[76] And what do you do?

[77] Go on Twitter and get...

[78] Oh, God, yes.

[79] Although I wouldn't qualify that as relax.

[80] And I try to forestall that temptation as much as possible.

[81] Well, I have the odd amount bit of time that I can spend with my wife.

[82] She does travel with me. And so, you know, we try to take some time to walk around the cities that we're in and see what we can.

[83] We're usually not at any given place for more than a day or two, and they're usually pretty packed up with, well, whatever is associated with the lecture.

[84] And then with press that the publishers usually arrange.

[85] I heard you interviewed in Sweden.

[86] You were in Stockholm and you had a half an hour to visit the city with your wife.

[87] And you loved it, but that, you know, it's very tiring.

[88] You take your breaks where you get them.

[89] Well, the thing is that the lecture tour is unbelievably positive.

[90] And a lot of this is ridiculously positive, you know.

[91] Like so if I'm going out on the streets now or in cafes or, you know, airports, I meet people all the time.

[92] they're always polite and they're always happy to see me and they always have some very touching story to relate and and then the audiences themselves are very positively predisposed to whatever it is that we're doing together and so that makes it a lot easier to stay motivated and and to continue right you know I mean it's demanding because everything's scheduled so tightly and and I do a different lecture every night every time I go I find that amazing because I give a lot of lectures and I anguish over everywhere and then I have another one and it I you go up without notes yeah well I have a large collection of you know things that I know what how to talk about and usually what I try to do is to formulate a problem before the lecture and so I'm addressing a specific problem right and then I can track how I would set up the argument and then I walk through it.

[93] But part of it's also an attempt to formulate the argument on the fly, you know, to make the question, what would you say, to formulate it more precisely and to make a more precise and engaging answer.

[94] And then I can use the audience to judge whether or not that's happening.

[95] And so it's also a real challenge to do that.

[96] So I enjoy that.

[97] And it's an excellent intellectual workout.

[98] And I've been recording the lectures and I've been using some of them to write the first draft of the chapters for my next book and for books after that and so I'm able to maximize the what would you say the utility of doing this at each event and my wife seems to be particularly well suited to traveling like that she actually enjoys it quite a bit and is a very stable person and so that's also helpful and you know it's It's nice to have an extra brain along because things are scheduled so tightly that we don't ever have any room for error.

[99] Yes.

[100] I don't know how intellectually rigorous we plan to be with you today because we know that whenever you're on one of these platforms, you're talking about your ideas.

[101] But on the Fempsplaners, we want to hear more, a little bit more about Jordan Peterson, the man. Desperately and definitely want to hear about your wife, Tammy.

[102] Yeah.

[103] And also, you're so well known for your views on men or how you're.

[104] ideas have been taken up so enthusiastic by young men, but we want to talk to you about women.

[105] Yep, that's good.

[106] So, but one of the things you and I share is that we both grew up in Canada.

[107] I promise Christine I would not do my Canadian accent while you were here.

[108] But you grew up in rural Alberta.

[109] I grew up in Toronto.

[110] And you are, what, the country's most famous guru now since Marshall McLuhan.

[111] But is the fact that you came from Canada have any of you?

[112] effect on your views?

[113] Do you think, has it formed you in any way?

[114] She's always looking to promote Canada.

[115] So, go for it.

[116] Well, I think the particular part of Canada I grew up in probably was formative to some degree.

[117] I mean, the town I grew up in was only 50 years old, you know, and the particular part of the world that I grew up in was really the last settled part of the North American Prairie.

[118] This was outside of Edmonton, correct?

[119] Yeah, about 400 miles.

[120] north of Edmonton.

[121] Oh, 400 miles.

[122] Yeah, yeah.

[123] It's right at the tip of the...

[124] Short distance, short distance.

[125] Yeah, so the prairie, the prairie stretches up that far north.

[126] It stretches up farther north in Alberta than it does anywhere else in the North American continent.

[127] And so we were at the tip of viable farming, essentially.

[128] And so it was a new place, and it was a rather raw place, and it was a rather harsh place in many ways, especially because of the winter.

[129] And it was fundamentally a working class place although a prosperous working class place right because most of the industry there was related to the oil and gas industry and although it was cyclical when things were good working class people could make a very good living.

[130] This was during the 70s so through the whole.

[131] Yeah that's right I was it fun to be a kid in 400 miles outside a small town but I liked it when I was a kid I wouldn't say it was as fun when I was a teenager Right.

[132] But I'm not convinced that, you know, the majority of people who are teenagers necessarily have the most wonderful time of it.

[133] I think adults often look backwards at the past through rose -colored glasses.

[134] I think that's what the cartoonist Trudeau accused Reagan of doing continually.

[135] Gary Trudeau.

[136] You're at the American Enterprise Institute.

[137] Don't.

[138] Don't insult Mr. Ray.

[139] No, no. I'm kidding.

[140] I'm definitely not.

[141] used for it in your book was Teenage Wasteland.

[142] Yeah, yeah.

[143] It's what you called it.

[144] But it's Canadian -ness.

[145] How does that form you or affected you, if at all?

[146] Maybe it didn't.

[147] It's hard to say.

[148] I mean, I've lived in lots of different parts of Canada now, and Canada is quite different.

[149] I lived in, well, Alberta for a while, and it had this particular flavor of existence.

[150] I mean, mostly in Fairview, I was striving to leave and to move ahead, let's say, or to move I hesitate, say, up, but somewhere different, somewhere more urban.

[151] But that's the case with many people.

[152] I mean, the small towns all across the west in the U .S. and in Canada are dying.

[153] They're down to nothing because everyone's moved to the cities.

[154] I lived in Montreal for a good while, and that was interesting because it was a very, very different culture.

[155] It was a culture that was to some degree stratified by language and by class.

[156] None of that was true in Alberta because it was so new that there's no class structure.

[157] So that was quite interesting.

[158] Right, you worked.

[159] What I loved, I pulled a passage because I think, as you say, people are born in small places everywhere and some want to leave and some don't.

[160] You said, I wanted to be elsewhere.

[161] I wasn't the only one.

[162] Everyone who eventually left the Fairview I grew up knew they were leaving by the age of 12.

[163] I knew, and my wife who grew up with me on the same street knew.

[164] What was that thing?

[165] What would you call that?

[166] What's the thing that makes you want to leave?

[167] And sets you off because, as you point out, there was no class this story.

[168] education was cheap in Canada compared to the United States.

[169] Oh, yeah, it wasn't cost that was stopping people.

[170] You were from a, what, middle -class order?

[171] My father was a teacher, and my mother was a librarian, though she had trained as a nurse.

[172] So, you know, we had a comfortable, I would say, a suburban lifestyle, essentially.

[173] You know, a moderate middle -class suburban lifestyle.

[174] That's what Fairview looked like.

[175] It looked like a suburb that was built mostly in the, say, between the 1950s and the 1970s.

[176] The young Jordan and the then.

[177] young Tammy, and you have to tell us that story how you met, but wanted more.

[178] Well, you know, I think that's one thing that is different to some degree about class.

[179] My father and my mother had both left the town as they were from, and they were forward future -looking people.

[180] And, you know, most of my friends who quit school and who didn't attend university, they didn't have that sense, I would say, that more developed sense of a world outside of what they knew.

[181] And the other thing is that my father took us on long trips when I was a kid.

[182] He was a teacher, and so he had summer holidays, and we drove all over Western Canada and down into the U .S. long driving trips, thousands of miles.

[183] And, you know, that also gave us the sense that the world was a bigger place.

[184] But I knew way before I was 12.

[185] I believe that I was off at least to university.

[186] And I think generally, in your family, if you're liable to go to university, people don't even really talk about it.

[187] It's just a given that that's what's going to happen.

[188] It's something that you take in with every breath almost.

[189] It's an often an unspoken expectation.

[190] And maybe people make casual reference like, well, when you go to college, but it's not like there's a question about it.

[191] Whereas if you're from a working class background, especially if your family hasn't pursued post -secondary education, that isn't in the realm of unspoken or spoken expectation.

[192] And it wasn't like lots of my friends, including many of them who dropped out before they hit high school.

[193] They weren't, they were by no means, the dimest people in the class.

[194] Like, they were plenty smart, but they weren't oriented towards the idea of pursuing a career that involved intellectual, what, intellectual engagement, wasn't in their worldview.

[195] you.

[196] And, you know, when you hear people on the, let's say, more socialist end of the distribution talk about barriers to education, they often talk about cost.

[197] And sometimes cost is a barrier.

[198] And it's more of a barrier.

[199] Yeah, and it's more of a barrier, although there's still plenty of community colleges and state colleges where you can get educated for a perfectly reasonable amount of money.

[200] But for my friends, it was never a reason that money was never a reason they didn't pursue post -secondary education.

[201] It was more like, a truncated view of time, I would say.

[202] You know, there was more of an emphasis on the here and now.

[203] And there were jobs of plenty, I guess.

[204] Well, there was also that, yeah, yeah, and well -paying jobs.

[205] Like, it wasn't obvious that you were in better shape economically to go to university.

[206] Probably worse.

[207] Oh, yeah, well, especially if you were doing something like working on the oil rates.

[208] Right, right.

[209] But, you know, that was rough, cold, harsh work.

[210] And it wasn't, once you had an inn, you could stay employed, but it wasn't that easy to land an entry -level job either.

[211] And so, yeah, well, it was wise for lots of working -class people to work in those jobs because they were unbelievably lucrative.

[212] And they should have been, because they were very difficult and dangerous and frigid cold and rough.

[213] So, you know, it's not like the people didn't earn their money.

[214] Well, just tell us quickly, like, how you met your wife.

[215] You met her when you were seven or eight or...

[216] Yeah, in grade three.

[217] In grade three?

[218] Yeah.

[219] And you, did you fall in love with her?

[220] In grade three?

[221] In grade three?

[222] Yeah.

[223] And was it mutual?

[224] And not in the beginning.

[225] She wouldn't admit it if it was.

[226] There were lots of the boys in grade three were in love with her.

[227] She had a whole little crew of guys that were perfectly willing to follow her around and she was perfectly willing to exploit that.

[228] She was very good at it.

[229] Yeah, she was very popular.

[230] It's just so wonderfully.

[231] You met his children.

[232] They were friends for a long time.

[233] You know, we used to play chess together and croquet, and she was a vicious croquet player.

[234] She would, I don't know if you've ever played croquet, but if your balls touch, then you can stand on yours and whack it, and then the other person's ball will vanish off into this stratosphere, and she liked to knock it all the way down the street.

[235] And then she'd laugh.

[236] And, you know, so she always had a good sense of, a good, vicious sense of humor.

[237] It's one of the things I actually admire about my wife when we've had, when we've had, are verbal disputes, which, you know, have certainly happened.

[238] She can string together a sequence of insults that's so hair -raising that you have to laugh.

[239] Did she have brothers?

[240] She did.

[241] She has a brother, much older, eight years older.

[242] He's quite a peaceful person, and she had two sisters.

[243] I guess my girls with brothers can get along with guys, because guys, they show love and affection by insults and jabs and jeers.

[244] And if you, and I had a brother, and I said, sort of learned, okay, but if you don't have brothers, girls are like, oh, that's so rude, that's so, so, yeah.

[245] So she was...

[246] Yeah, well, she has a naturally...

[247] Or maybe she came by it naturally.

[248] A serbid twist.

[249] She did.

[250] Well, and her father is quite sharp -witted, and well, he was a real town character.

[251] He's still alive.

[252] He was a real character in the town, a real hyper -extrovert.

[253] Everybody knew him.

[254] And he had a pretty good wit on him, and she had some of that.

[255] Well, it still does have some of that.

[256] So, she She was a, you know.

[257] Aside from her acerbic humor and her ability to whack balls.

[258] And I just don't want to go further on that description.

[259] That could have many things that tells us about you.

[260] But what else brought, what else attracted?

[261] I mean, you've known her pretty much your whole life.

[262] So some of the other qualities that not just attracted you, but enable you to sustain.

[263] I mean, I think every young person in this room will want to know, and maybe there isn't one, but what's the secret?

[264] What's it like to be?

[265] someone that long how do you sustain that well I think if you're fortunate some of it's some of its good fortune you know and I would say this is true I've watched people in their relationships you know personally for a long time but also as a professional because I've done a lot of clinical counseling and I mean there's some things that that need to be a given about the relationship I would say it doesn't hurt to find the other person very attractive you know and that's a mysterious thing we're not exactly sure what it is that produces let's say chemistry between people, although chemistry is definitely part of what produces it.

[266] There's subtle things that attract people to one another that are way below the level of consciousness.

[267] So, for example, women don't like the odor of men who have RH blood factors who, if they had children with, would be likely to produce a stillborn infant.

[268] Well, that's definitely a category match .com.

[269] Yeah, right, right.

[270] Well, it's so strange, though, because you...

[271] How do you even know?

[272] Well, that's a good question.

[273] And you know by odor, apparently.

[274] And so there's also...

[275] If you're wearing cologne, I didn't...

[276] Well, that...

[277] Then it would depend on what type of cologne is.

[278] R .H., what was it?

[279] Right.

[280] Smell is a very strange sense, and it's very deeply tied to very profound emotions, including memory.

[281] And so you find people attractive for reasons that you can't always determine.

[282] And so that was part of it.

[283] I mean, I've always found her very attractive, and that continues.

[284] And I liked her combativeness, you know, like I think that there's, you want someone, I think, in a relationship that you can spar with.

[285] And it's partly because you have hard problems to solve.

[286] And if the person that you're with isn't willing to put forward their opinion, then you only have half the cognitive power that you would otherwise have.

[287] And hopefully you find someone who's interestingly different from you, like not so different that you can't communicate, and you have to be careful of that.

[288] But interestingly different.

[289] And then hopefully they have the ability and the will to express their opinion.

[290] And then, well, then it's, you know, then your interest stays heightened.

[291] And there has to be that tension in a relationship.

[292] You know, people think, well, I want to get along perfectly with my partner.

[293] It's like, no, you probably don't.

[294] You just get bored, and then you'd go looking for trouble.

[295] And so you want a little bit of trouble in the relationship, and a little bit of mystery and a little bit of combativeness and the ability to exchange opinions forthrightly.

[296] And I trust her, which is a huge element.

[297] I mean, when we finally did decide to get together permanently, we were both in our later 20s.

[298] And, you know, one of the things that I had learned by that point and insisted to her about was that we had to tell each other the truth.

[299] And she took to that wholeheartedly, you know, and for better and for worse, because truths can be harsh.

[300] Does that include, like, does this how fit, make me to know that?

[301] Yeah, well, the truthful answer to that is I don't answer questions that are likely to get me in trouble.

[302] Yeah, so.

[303] I have a son who will answer honestly, and it's infuriating, but then I realized if you want the truth, talk to Tammer.

[304] Well, that's the thing, you know.

[305] It's useful to know.

[306] The truth is empowering.

[307] Truth tellers are charismatic.

[308] And, you know, actually, both my sons are, like, brutally honest, which is disconcerting.

[309] But it's, I can see that it's made them very formidable and because of the people trust them and the friendships, and just, it gives them a, And you've written a lot about this.

[310] Well, you know, if I tell my wife that she looks good in an outfit, she knows that I mean it.

[311] Yeah.

[312] And so there's some utility in that.

[313] And then if you're silent and say, I don't answer questions, she goes and she knows it.

[314] Well, sometimes, you know, she'll say, you know, do you like this?

[315] And I'll tell her that I don't.

[316] And, you know, and that doesn't necessarily make her happy in the moment.

[317] Right.

[318] But if I do say I like it, she knows that I mean it.

[319] And, you know, I actually like her sense of style a lot.

[320] So it turns out that 90 % of the time.

[321] it's pretty easy for me to say, look, I think you look great, and mean it.

[322] And, you know, she's a fairly harsh standard bearer, too.

[323] Like, she's insisted that I stay in whatever reasonable physical shape I happen to be in.

[324] You know, that was something that she's very demanding of.

[325] And I would say that it's the same from my side.

[326] And we've been good at negotiating, which is, you know, what do you want from a partner, fundamentally?

[327] What do you want and need?

[328] I mean, the first thing is, is that, well, hopefully, like I said, you're blessed with the fact that you find each other attractive.

[329] And I think it's very difficult for the relationship to begin or proceed or sustain itself without that.

[330] But having that, then, what do you want?

[331] Well, you want someone that you can trust.

[332] You want someone that you can build a view of the future with, and you want someone that you can negotiate with.

[333] And that's very hard to negotiate with people, because they have to tell you what they think.

[334] They have to know what they want or figure it out.

[335] They have to tell you what they want.

[336] They have to be satisfied when they get what they want, which is also a very difficult thing to manage.

[337] And you have to continually update that because your life goes through different stages.

[338] Well, and your attraction wanes, as we all know at our stage of life, not fatally necessarily.

[339] Speak for yourself.

[340] But no, but you will go.

[341] I mean, you will not be 25 forever.

[342] So that has to be renegotiated.

[343] Yeah, well, and you have to work at that too, you know, and that's something that people also don't understand because they tend to think that, well, that all romantic interaction should be spontaneous.

[344] It's like, well, if that's your theory, then you might as well just give up right now if you're going to get married because that, like the only reason you can think that is because you don't have enough responsibility to make romantic entanglement virtually impossible.

[345] And what happens when you're married, especially when you have little kids, is that, and you both have a job, let's say, is you're so busy that the probability that you're going to find time for spontaneous mutual interaction decreases to zero.

[346] And so if that's what you're hoping for, then you're never going to have it.

[347] And so what you have to do is you have to make time for each other.

[348] And, you know, if you're dating when you're establishing a relationship, well, you put some effort into it.

[349] You know, you decide that you're going to go out for dinner and you dress up to some degree, and, you know, you try to present yourself to each other in some halfway's mutually acceptable manner.

[350] And you hope that there's going to be a positive consequence of that, that you're going to find each other attractive.

[351] But then people somehow think that once they're married, that the same amount of effort isn't necessary, and that's wrong.

[352] I would say more effort is necessary on the same front.

[353] And you have to think it through.

[354] It's like, you know, if you don't want to be bitter about the intimate element of your relationship, how much time do you have to spend together each week?

[355] And my rule of thumb sort of derived from clinical observations is that you need to spend 90 minutes a week with your partner talking.

[356] And that means you're telling each other about your life and staying in touch so that you each know what the other is up to.

[357] And you're discussing what needs to be done to keep the household running smoothly.

[358] And you're laying out some mutually acceptable vision of how the next week or the next months are going to go together.

[359] right so that that keeps your narratives locked together like a like the strands in a rope you need that for 90 minutes or you drift apart and you need to spend intimate time together at least once a week and probably more like twice and that has to be negotiated and if you don't negotiate it and if you don't make it a priority then it won't happen in all likelihood and then well well then you don't have it and that's a catastrophe because there's not that many things in life that are you know intrinsically what would you say?

[360] engaging and meaningful and pleasurable and also bonding all of that and if you let that go then well part of you dies and part of the relationship dies and while then there's always the possibility of becoming attracted by alternative entanglements which which you would do if you had any spirit left right I mean that's the thing is if well if you're not if your if your relationship at home is entirely unsatisfying sexually what are you supposed to do with that nothing you're supposed to just bear it?

[361] I mean, in one way, the answer is yes, because it's your marriage.

[362] But another way is, well, what, that's all the fight you've got in you?

[363] You're going to just let the erotic element of your life die and accept everything that goes along with that because you're not willing to cause a bit of trouble to ensure that it's maintained.

[364] And we're not very good at thinking these things through consciously.

[365] I mean, people are bad at negotiating period, as far as I can tell, but they're particularly bad at negotiating things that are deeply private.

[366] How much do you want your partner to know about you anyways?

[367] It takes a lot of trust to have a real conversation about what you need and want.

[368] Now, you have, in the press, people read that you have a following of young men, and I went to hear your lecture in Washington, D .C., and there were a lot of women there and your book I'm first of all men don't buy books that often compared to women so I'm presuming you have a lot of female readers and I found it Danielle and I found it completely readable and well it wasn't written for men no it was more like a delusional desire on the part of the radical leftists that the only people that could possibly be attracted to me are angry men exactly be better if they were angry young white men you know right then that fits the narrative But you have a diverse audience, a diverse following, including many women.

[369] They're also not particularly angry.

[370] I mean, I've talked to 200.

[371] You're diffusing the anger.

[372] That's the point of your book, is stop being angry.

[373] Stop being resentful, right?

[374] Well, resentment is that that's absolutely crippling.

[375] Resentment, just resentment, deceit, arrogance.

[376] That's part of, I'm writing another book, and one of the rules is don't allow yourself to become resentful, resentful, resentful, deceitful, and arrogant.

[377] Yeah, there was three things together.

[378] Yeah, but it could be rad if you just...

[379] Right.

[380] Well, that's supposed to be a good thing.

[381] So, yeah, and I mean, there's been 250 ,000 people, as I said, come to the lectures, and there hasn't been a single negative incident, not one.

[382] This is what I find fascinating, is that I found you early on.

[383] I had no idea you.

[384] I just thought, it was like, Britch Cassidy and the Sundance kids, like, who is that guy?

[385] Who is that guy?

[386] You were pretty good.

[387] And we were covering a lot of the same topics later on, and wow, and then, you know, I found out who you were.

[388] What is astonishing to me is that there's this amazing, just split between the positivity of your audience, the diversity of your audience, the intellectual content of your message.

[389] And then you get with a snarky journalist with an agenda.

[390] And I'm not mentioning names, but this...

[391] BBC.

[392] This, no, this young woman from GQ.

[393] Oh, yeah.

[394] She hated me on site.

[395] And it was just like, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

[396] That was Channel 4.

[397] We don't want to blame the BBC.

[398] It was Channel 4.

[399] You were a saint.

[400] And she seemed, you know, like as often, she seemed intelligent and capable of insight up to a point.

[401] But it's almost as if something had seized her mind.

[402] Oh, yes, something had.

[403] Something had.

[404] That's for sure.

[405] You bet.

[406] I think people, and Camille Polly is that a whole generation of some of our most talented young women are incapable of thought because of this ideology.

[407] Or a different thought.

[408] Maybe you mean for saying.

[409] She couldn't, and you were saying completely like interesting, fascinating, original things, even to me who've studied these topics.

[410] Wow.

[411] No, it was quite the day.

[412] So I went to Baltimore.

[413] You survived it.

[414] yeah well it made me think a lot that day because I went there and I had to go out of my way to do it not that I'm complaining but there's a reason for saying that you know so I got there and Baltimore yeah well I was talking in Baltimore so so so um there's the aquarium and I showed up to the to the hotel room where this was all occurring and you know what you expect generally speaking even from journalists who aren't you know who are more of the attack dog variety or who maybe aren't positively predisposed to you ideologically or personally.

[415] You expect a certain modicum of professional politeness.

[416] Right.

[417] You know, because while you don't have to be there and you came and you accepted an invitation and all of that.

[418] And so even with the Channel 4 journalist, Kathy Newman, she was quite polite and forthcoming in the green room before the interview.

[419] So she would have at least that professional persona, which is, it's not nothing, right?

[420] There's something to be said for going through the motions professionally in an appropriate manner.

[421] But when I walked into the hotel room in Baltimore, it was obvious that this interviewer had already made up her mind about me 100 % and that she was absolutely, you know, negatively predisposed to me with a personal animus.

[422] And animus is exactly the right word.

[423] And there was about a half an hour photography session because of it.

[424] It was GQ.

[425] And so I was in that atmosphere.

[426] The photographers were fine.

[427] I was in that atmosphere for about 45 minutes before we started to talk.

[428] And part of the reason that I'm so, I'm not as calm during that interview as I usually am, I'm a little bit harsher.

[429] And the reason for that is that, you know, it just started off instantly combative.

[430] And what I should have done, you see, it's very, very difficult to be awake enough.

[431] to do these things properly.

[432] And the interview progressed fine, although by the end of it, I thought that I had maybe done enough interviews for a while because I didn't think I had regulated my temper as well during that interview as I might have.

[433] You actually did.

[434] Well, it's not so bad.

[435] And then she brought up a question about anger, and I just saw you kind of adjust.

[436] And then after that, it was smooth sailing.

[437] Well, that's good, because it was touch and go, you know, and I thought, boy, you know, maybe you're running out of patience.

[438] Maybe you, you know, maybe it's time to dial back on the interviews because, you know, I've had many interviews like that.

[439] And they're very, I find them like, and it takes me like three days to recover from an interview like that.

[440] And then you start thinking yourself like, what I should have said.

[441] I should have said that.

[442] And I drive myself mad.

[443] No, but you did very well.

[444] But it's so interesting that what it told me was how parochial she was and she lives in her own little world.

[445] But, Christina, isn't it more a little bit about the ideology of our time?

[446] And gosh, you encounter this everywhere.

[447] and I used to write about this wisely, I would encounter it.

[448] I mean, I think part of the issue is that you will acknowledge that there are differences between the sexes.

[449] That seems to be the heresy.

[450] No, that's a heresy.

[451] Because when I was reading your book, there's nothing about it that is anti -female.

[452] In fact, you do a lot of examination of the Adam and Eve story.

[453] and you have this wonderful passage about, like, Adam being the originally aggrieved man who throws the woman under the bus.

[454] It's her fault.

[455] It's her fault.

[456] I'm gone, you do.

[457] You made her.

[458] It's your fault, too, that I'm hiding.

[459] Yeah, it's really funny.

[460] So there's nothing in this.

[461] And the rules such as they are, you know, they seem very commonsensical.

[462] They could apply to anyone.

[463] So is that a fair surmise of why you get so attacked?

[464] Just the very fact that you're willing to speak about the sexes as being not unequal, but...

[465] Different but equal.

[466] Yeah.

[467] Well, you know, I would say that that's part of it because there's a threat there.

[468] So one of the things that happened when I was in Scandinavia, I just wrote a column about this, actually.

[469] It was interesting being in Scandinavia, especially in Sweden, because they've pushed the equality of opportunity doctrine farther than any other country in the world.

[470] They invented it.

[471] It almost started there.

[472] Like in the UN, in the original, you know, the charter, the Swedes were there.

[473] And they've never given up.

[474] No, no. And so, and the week that I was there was the same week that two articles were published on gender differences in temperament and in interest.

[475] And the biggest sex differences that we know of that aren't morphological are in interest.

[476] So women are more interested in people by and large and men are more interested in things by and large and the difference is actually large.

[477] It's one standard deviation.

[478] And so that means if you're a man, you would have to be more interested in people than 85 % of men to be as interested as 50 % of women.

[479] And if you're a woman, you'd have to be more interested in things than 85 % of women to be as interested as the 50th percentile male.

[480] So the difference is actually quite It's substantial.

[481] And it's certainly large enough to drive occupational choice differences.

[482] And it explains a lot about the configuration of people in the workplace.

[483] Oh, absolutely.

[484] Well, and, you know, we're approaching parity in terms of overall workplace distribution of men and women.

[485] But there's massive differences in occupational choice.

[486] Like, it's very interesting, for example, to go to the website of the U .S. Labor Department and look at male and female -dominated industries.

[487] And, you know, there's the top 10 male -dominated industries have basically zero women in them.

[488] So bricklayers being one of them.

[489] Like people.

[490] There are people -free zones, according to Camille Pahlia.

[491] You find just a lot of men in the people -free zones.

[492] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[493] And the women or, you know, you ask a group of women and men, would you rather spend the next three weeks taking apart a machine and putting it together or helping a group of people work out their problems?

[494] And the pool of people who want to do the machine, It's just far more men than women.

[495] Well, and there's more men in women -dominated industries than there are women -in -men -dominated industries at the extreme.

[496] So that's kind of interesting.

[497] Would that be like nursing?

[498] Nursing, yeah.

[499] Yes, there's way more male nurses than there are female bricklayers.

[500] I've studied these male nurses, and they already, you know, gender activists are upset because they earn more than women.

[501] And a professor of nursing at University of Pennsylvania tried to find out why.

[502] And she found out they, immediately find out what's the best paying field, subfield.

[503] So they go into, like, nurse anesthesiology.

[504] It pays a lot more.

[505] The men are there in disproportionate number.

[506] And they're willing to work, you know, insane hours.

[507] They're far more willing to move to a higher paying.

[508] Same thing Farrell found with gender differences is that men are more willing to move.

[509] They're more willing to work longer hours.

[510] Yep.

[511] They're more willing to work outside.

[512] They're more willing to take on dangerous tasks.

[513] They're more likely to work in scalable industries.

[514] So, like, you can't scale.

[515] personal care.

[516] It's very, very difficult.

[517] They're much less likely to work part -time.

[518] If they have small businesses, they're much more likely to work full -time in the small business rather than part -time.

[519] I mean, women have their reasons to want to work part -time.

[520] And Farrell also pointed out that if you work 10 % longer hours, you make 40 % more money, a non -linear return on overtime.

[521] That's something that's really useful to know, you know.

[522] It's hugely beneficial to an employer that have some...

[523] Well, it also marks you out, you know, like if you have...

[524] 10 employees and they're all doing a reasonable job, let's say, but one of them is working an extra half an hour a day or 45 minutes a day, and you can observe that every day, then that gives them an edge with regards to potential promotion.

[525] And so, and the return on those edges is nonlinear.

[526] And so, anyway, so I went to Scandinavia and it was the same week that two studies were released showing what had already been established beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the personality differences between men and women and the different.

[527] and interests as well, actually get bigger as your society gets richer and as it gets more egalitarian.

[528] And not just a little bit either.

[529] That's the other thing that's so interesting is you might think, well, the effect is, it's the opposite of what the social constructionists would predict, first of all.

[530] So that's the first thing to point out is it's not only that their hypothesis wasn't supported.

[531] It was decidedly refuted.

[532] And none of them have come to terms with that.

[533] And it's not a small effect.

[534] The difference between personality between men and women in Scandinavia is a lot larger than it is in non -egalitarian countries.

[535] Like in rural but swan.

[536] But that's also true in the United States, the richer, the demographic your household, the demographic your household, the more likely the woman is to take time out and be at home with the kids.

[537] Right.

[538] Right.

[539] She can afford to do it.

[540] She can afford to do it.

[541] And she can afford to major in odd, you know, low -paying fields like, I don't know, feminist dance therapy or something.

[542] Well, the other thing you see, too, is that one of the things that's also interesting, I think, is that, you know, there's this idea that marriage is a patriarchal institution, you know, that's primarily put there for the utility of the male and think, well, like, I think that's complete bloody rubbish, and I don't think there's any evidence to support it at all.

[543] But I think the best counter evidence is that, well, if that's the case, then rich people shouldn't be getting married because they don't have to oppress themselves.

[544] But the truth of the matter, is, is that the higher your demographic position, the more likely you are to be married.

[545] So marriage has fallen apart among, you know.

[546] And the more likely the wife is staying home and, but not, I mean, she has all sorts of pursuits, but she's not.

[547] Well, there's an old saying anyone, any woman who marries for money earns it.

[548] Let's pause there for a quick break.

[549] Hey, Christina.

[550] How's your holiday shopping going?

[551] Oh, I'm at that stage where I'm trying to figure out gifts for a lot of people whose tastes I don't know and don't understand, including my two grown -up sons.

[552] Same, but I can give you a secret Santa tip.

[553] It's called Centbird.

[554] Of course, Centbird.

[555] Yes.

[556] Centbird is our luxury fragrance subscription service, which allows recipients to choose a new cologne or perfume every month from over 450 designer brands.

[557] You get generous -sized samples in sleek, reusable travel sprays.

[558] And I've been loving experimenting with so many lovely fragrances.

[559] I wouldn't have tried them if I had to commit to a whole bottle.

[560] I know, and my two daughters have been so jealous of my subscription, so this holiday I'm getting them each one of their own.

[561] Yeah, but I don't see how that's going to help me with my sons.

[562] You forget.

[563] Scentbird is for men, too.

[564] There's a full selection of designer colognes for art guys, including such high -end brands as Zena and Hugo Boss.

[565] That's a great idea.

[566] And since they're always complaining they don't know what to get the women in their life, Scentbird will solve that problem.

[567] Yeah, especially as it means they won't even have to go into a store.

[568] We know how much men love holiday shopping.

[569] Done.

[570] Just remind me how I do it.

[571] Visit scentbird .com slash femsplain.

[572] Use our code femsplane for 50 % off the first month.

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[574] Free shipping.

[575] S -C -E -N -T -Bird .com slash femsplain.

[576] And use our code femsplain for 50 % off your first month.

[577] month.

[578] I might get one for my little dog, Izzy, too.

[579] She could use a nice scent.

[580] We're talking to Jordan Peterson, the author of 12 Rules for Life, an antidote for Chaos, and who the New York Times is called the most influential public intellectual in the world right now.

[581] But now let me just, okay, this is where you might get in a little trouble.

[582] Because in your book you call men order and women chaos.

[583] And you say, order the known, appears symbolizing.

[584] associated with masculinity and chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection.

[585] Yeah.

[586] What's up with that?

[587] Yeah.

[588] We chaotic.

[589] You find us chaotic.

[590] Well, it isn't men and women that are order in chaos.

[591] It's masculinity and femininity symbolically.

[592] And so what's happened fundamentally is that our brains are wired for social cognition.

[593] So we're not natural scientists.

[594] We're natural sociologists.

[595] That might be a better even though I shuddered to think that that might be true.

[596] Especially given the state of sociology.

[597] Yes, well that's it.

[598] Okay, triggering.

[599] Or maybe we're more naturally people who observe through the lens of fiction and that what we see is the world as characterized.

[600] And the world obviously is made out of men and women and children and those seem to be our fundamental cognitive categories, masculinity, femininity, and then the category of children.

[601] And those categories have expanded to take on connotations outside of pure person perception.

[602] And so, you know, it's for this reason that if you go to a movie and maybe it's a Disney animated movie and I like to talk about those because they draw on a very deep symbolic well.

[603] It's perfectly reasonable to see a witch that lives in a swamp because those go together.

[604] like it makes sense the witch doesn't live in a gleaming chrome high rise you know she lives in a swamp because that's maybe in a shack for her broom I think she could just fly out of the door well that's it that's well the high rise would be better for the brink right because you could take off you could take off better but there are categories of symbolic association that are natural to the way we think and the fundamental elements of those categories seem to be gendered and so this is partly why I make reference to Taoism for example so for the Taoists, the world is made out of chaos and order.

[605] And chaos is the domain that you don't understand and that emerges unpredictably, but also the domain from which new forms emerge, right?

[606] Because it's from novelty that the new emerges.

[607] And I think the fundamental association between femininity is chaos is the association between what's unexpected and novel and what's new, because new forms emerge from chaos.

[608] And it's not that chaos is bad in order is good that that's not both have their pathologies both have their pathologies yeah yes and what you're looking for and and this is this is what the book concentrates on above all is that you're looking constantly to find the balance between those two so for example formally speaking the domain of order is that place that you are when what you're doing is producing the results that you want to have produced so imagine imagine think about the preconditions for not being anxious Okay, so the preconditions are that you're constantly making predictions about what's going to happen next, and those predictions are tied tightly to your behavioral output.

[609] So you act in a certain way, and you presume that a certain thing is going to happen.

[610] And if your actions produce the results that you desire, then you assume that you know where you are and you know what you're doing, and that your plan is intact, and that the environment is secure, and that keeps your anxiety under control.

[611] That's order.

[612] and then maybe you're at a party and you don't know anybody and you tell a joke and everybody looks at you like what you said was not only not funny but also downright offensive and then all of a sudden you've moved from the domain of order into the domain of chaos because you thought you were somewhere and you thought you were someone and you thought you were with people that were of a certain type and you got all that wrong and so it also suggesting it is going to be the woman who says I find that really offensive.

[613] I'm not suggesting that.

[614] But, you know, it probably is.

[615] Never mind.

[616] But women are also more sensitive to negative emotion.

[617] Right.

[618] So there is some slightly higher probability that that might be the case.

[619] But then I think women are also associated, at least in men's imaginations, with nature, which is part of the chaotic domain, say, as opposed to culture, because they're sexually selective.

[620] So you got to think, what is nature?

[621] I mean, we have that as a cognitive category, right?

[622] We think of the natural world.

[623] We think of nature versus culture.

[624] It's a fundamental opposition.

[625] What is nature?

[626] Well, nature is trees and landscapes and animals and all of that.

[627] But that isn't what nature fundamentally is.

[628] Nature fundamentally is that which selects from a genetic perspective.

[629] That's nature.

[630] That's the fundamental definition of nature.

[631] And it is the case that human females are sexually selective.

[632] And it's a major component of human behavior.

[633] So the evolutionary theory, roughly speaking, is that the reason we diverged from chimpanzees eight million years ago, seven million years ago, is at least in part because of the differences between sexual selectivity between female humans and female chimpanzees.

[634] Female chimpanzees are more likely to have offspring from dominant males.

[635] but it's not because of their sexual selectivity.

[636] So a female chimpanzee has periods of fertility that are marked by observable physiological changes.

[637] Not the case with human females.

[638] Human female ovulation is concealed.

[639] So that's a very profound biological difference between human females and chimpanzees.

[640] And the chimpanzee females will mate with any male, but the dominant males chase the subordinate males away.

[641] But human females are sexually selective.

[642] And it's not a trivial fact.

[643] So you have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors.

[644] You think, well, how can that be?

[645] Well, imagine that on average, every single human female has had one child throughout the entire course of history, which is approximately correct, by the way.

[646] Then imagine that half of the men had zero and the other half had two.

[647] Okay, and that's roughly the case.

[648] So half of males, historically speaking, have been reproductive.

[649] of disasters, and the reason for that is because of female sexual selectivity.

[650] So it is actually the case that female humans are nature.

[651] It's not only that they're associated with nature symbolically.

[652] As far as reproduction is concerned, they are the force of nature that does the selection.

[653] And so their nature in the most fundamental way.

[654] And there is a chaotic element of that, at least in relationship to men, and also in relationship to women, because a lot of the female on female competition is competition that's chaotic for the right to be sexually selective, right?

[655] Not only with regards to men, which drives a lot of politicking, but also in relationship to each other, because part of what human females do is jockey for position in the female dominance hierarchy for the top position, which is the woman who gets to be most sexually selective.

[656] And so that drives female -female competition, and it's a different dynamic.

[657] There's similarities between female -female competition and male -male competition.

[658] but there are also differences and they're pronounced so men for example are well men are more likely to compete for socioeconomic status and that's partly because that drives female mate choice so the correlation for men between socioeconomic status and sexual success is about 0 .6 and for women it's zero zero in fact it's actually slightly negative so and that's a huge difference between men and women but do you know that do you know the anthropologist sarah herdy H -R -D -Y and she's like my favorite feminist theorist although she would say I'm a theorist who happens to be a feminist but she studied primate behavior and she watched she looked at the women very care the females and not women very carefully and looked at it at chimpanzees and gazelles and found that the female initially like male primatologists would look and say oh the the females, the males are dominant and the females are so cooperative, she looked more carefully, and so the females weren't exactly cooperative, like they would pass around their infant, their baby, you know, whatever they were, and would find, and so the male primatologist would say, oh, they're so kind and caring, she found out that when it was not your, it was not hers, they would take like little tufts of hair, you know, would come out, or they'd do something to the eyes, and the baby would like be injured.

[659] And she saw all this violence.

[660] Especially true when there's status differentiation.

[661] Yes.

[662] So it's much more likely that'll happen when a higher status female is taking care of a lower status infant.

[663] Exactly.

[664] And she said the great tragedy, well not tragedy.

[665] She said the reality of our species.

[666] And in fact, the subtitle of her book is the woman who never evolved.

[667] We didn't evolve for niceness and cooperative.

[668] There's immense competition.

[669] and we can, according to her, we are, it's indelibly, you know, marked in our nature to compete for the dominant males.

[670] And there's, no doubt about that.

[671] And that seems too cross -culturally as well.

[672] That does flatten out a little bit in the more egalitarian societies.

[673] So instead of being exaggerated, it does flatten to some degree.

[674] Right.

[675] So you could imagine that there's a biological component and a cultural component.

[676] Of course.

[677] And in that case, if you monitor, the cultural component, then that seems to decrease the overall.

[678] So, like, let me be more clear about this.

[679] Women are less prone to mate up, across and up, status hierarchies in Scandinavia than they are in less egalitarian countries.

[680] But they're still prone to do it.

[681] So worldwide, for example, women, young women find men who are about four years older than them maximally attractive.

[682] And they tend to mate across and up status hierarchies.

[683] And so one of the consequences of that, for example, is that as women have entered the workforce, they've actually driven inequality because rich women will only marry rich men.

[684] Men as rich as them or richer, whereas rich men will marry women who are poorer than them.

[685] But women won't.

[686] And so what that means is it's another factor that's pooling wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

[687] It's assortative mating now, and you just find someone with your background.

[688] Whereas a doctor might have once married his secretary, you now, Mary's another doctor.

[689] Can I ask then, stepping a little bit back from primates as well, how does this selection work in the era of swiping right and left?

[690] How, what is your reaction to the way young people date today?

[691] Oh, that's a good, I was really hoping we'd get into that.

[692] I was really, because I were very into the monkeys, so I didn't want to interrupt it.

[693] No, no. Well, I should close off the Scandinavian discussion just by pointing out, and this is something that the Scandinavians are really going to have to wrestle with is that if you institute effective policies to promote equality of opportunity, which the Scandinavians have done, you're going to produce some equality, so like a 50 -50 distribution of men and women in the workplace, but you're also going to exacerbate certain kinds of inequality, and you can't get out of that.

[694] So you cannot have equality of opportunity and equality of outcome together.

[695] They don't work together.

[696] An equality of outcome, essentially equality of outcome doctrine, which is often...

[697] described with the code word equity is that at every level of every occupation, the people have to be represented by the same number that they're represented in at the population.

[698] So if it's not 50, 50 men and women in each occupation and in each strata at each occupation, then that sort of prima facie evidence for discrimination and for systemic discrimination.

[699] It's like, nope, sorry, you have to factor in choice, and choice actually turns out to be a very important determinant.

[700] As the society gets flatter and flatter, choice becomes a more and more important determinant.

[701] And so what that essentially means is that the most radical end of the left -wing political agenda is logically impossible, apart from the fact that it's impossible for a variety of other reasons.

[702] And they should look at the data.

[703] I mean, it's just a cliche now in any group of activists, and they'll say, oh, well, we need an, order for women to achieve equality, we need government -funded daycare, and we need online.

[704] They have it in Sweden.

[705] Sweden has fewer women in managerial levels.

[706] American women are ahead.

[707] In fact, now they have quotas over there, so they need female CEOs and females on board.

[708] It hasn't made any difference to them.

[709] They're bringing in American women because we're so much further ahead.

[710] And it's made no difference in the distribution of men and women lower in the hierarchy.

[711] No, it's called the Nordic paradox.

[712] Okay, you guys are so wonky.

[713] I want to get back.

[714] Okay.

[715] Yes, that's good, good.

[716] I think we all want to get back to D .A. I want to get back to these monkeys.

[717] Well, I was thinking this morning about, I was talking to a variety of political types, and we were talking about...

[718] This morning?

[719] Yeah.

[720] In D .C.?

[721] Hard to believe.

[722] Who?

[723] No, I'm not telling you.

[724] A bunch of Republicans here, and I've been talking to Democrats as well, but it was mostly Republicans here.

[725] And we were talking about abortion.

[726] And I made a case.

[727] that that's really not a very productive discussion because you're talking about a problem way too late in the sequence of problems.

[728] So by the time the discussion starts to be about abortion, there's 50 problems that have already emerged that no one has addressed.

[729] And some of those problems are, the fundamental problem is how human beings should regulate their sexual behavior.

[730] And that's a big problem.

[731] And you think, well, and there's an interesting thing that's happening because, you know, the people on the right would say, well, that's easy.

[732] It's like, don't sleep around and get married and have sex with your marital partner, and that'll solve the problem.

[733] So there's strictures on sexual behavior, and those would be the traditional ones.

[734] And what you see on the left is that there's this weird paradoxical demand, let's say, that people should be allowed to express their sexuality in any manner that they choose whenever they want, but that sex is so dangerous that it has to be carefully regulated at every single stage of the interaction.

[735] And so you know that many state legislatures have now followed the example of university campuses and put it in affirmative consent legislation so that every move you make towards physical intimacy has to be preceded by the instantiation of a verbal contract, essentially.

[736] It's like, well, can I take your hand?

[737] yes you actually from what I understand you actually have to say yes like nodding is not sufficient and so and so each stage has to be has to be proceeded by affirmative consent and you know which which well I won't I won't say anything about yeah I will it's absurd it's absurd to assume that that's how human intimate relationships are supposed to proceed and then you have complicated laws emerging that are part of that, for example, this is the case in California, as I understand it, is that you cannot give affirmative consent if you're intoxicated.

[738] Okay, so you think about that.

[739] It's like, well, what does that mean?

[740] It means that, like, a lot of sex is illegal.

[741] It has been illegal for a long time, including...

[742] Marital.

[743] Yes, that's what it seems to mean.

[744] On my honeymoon?

[745] Okay.

[746] I'm rethinking it.

[747] It seems to me. It seems to mean, and I'm rethinking it.

[748] It seems to me to mean the California legislation that if you have sex with your wife or husband and either of you is intoxicated, then you're either one of you or both is guilty of rape.

[749] That's what it looks like to me. Actually, I was in a debate a few years ago at the University of Virginia Law School, and I turned to my debate partner and said, so if what you're saying is right, two people can rape one another.

[750] Right.

[751] She said, yes.

[752] And I thought, oh, shit.

[753] I mean, how can that be?

[754] Well, that's the question.

[755] Well, okay.

[756] So then I would say, well, it's interesting because I think that a lot of this confusion has emerged fundamentally as a consequence of the birth control pill.

[757] So, you know, because you've got to think situationally before you think ideologically or psychologically.

[758] It's like, it seems.

[759] to me that the 20th century will be remembered for the hydrogen bomb, the transistor, and the birth control pill.

[760] And those are unbelievably radical technological innovations.

[761] And maybe the most...

[762] Internet came in.

[763] Yeah, but it's dependent on...

[764] My fair lady?

[765] My fair lady?

[766] Just saying.

[767] It's dependent on the transistor, you know, because it spawned all of that.

[768] So that's the big technological innovation that spawned all that.

[769] And of the three, I would say the birth control pill is probably the bigger hydrogen bomb.

[770] and because it changed the fundamental biological nature of women and men and because it gave women for the first time in biological history the option of choosing their reproductive status and that's we like that's absolutely yes and no like yes we like it but it's not something that's come without a tremendous this, it's come with tremendous complexity.

[771] Have you been reading Lionel Tiger?

[772] Have you been reading Lionel Tiger?

[773] No, no, I haven't.

[774] I think you'll find him interesting because he writes about that.

[775] Well, and I'm not, I'm not making a case for the abolition of the birth control pill by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm pointing at its complexity.

[776] And so because one of the questions is, well, once you can regulate your reproductive function, what attitude should you have towards sex?

[777] And one answer might be, the more of it, the more varied circumstances the better because why not and I would say that was actually part of the attitude that emerged in the aftermath of the birth control pill in the 1960s right and it was it was a reasonable response in some sense because it's such a cataclysmic change that you don't know what it implies well what's the consequence of that well first of all people aren't reliable enough to use birth control in an entirely reliable manner so even though it can work at near 100 % efficiency, you have to take it extraordinarily regularly and in a disciplined manner for that to work.

[778] And so there was still the problem of unwanted pregnancy, let's say.

[779] And then there was the problem of the proliferation of sexual epidemics, and that culminated in AIDS, which could have easily wiped all of us out, but didn't.

[780] But there's other sexual epidemics that could have had the same effect, but we've been fortunate enough to escape them.

[781] And then more recently, there's been.

[782] this weird inversion, especially on the radical left, that points to the reemergence of something like a set of sexual taboos.

[783] I think the idea that sex is casual and that it's a form of entertainment is, I think it's an absolutely preposterous idea.

[784] I think that it's psychologically shallow beyond belief to hold that as a core proposition, because it forces you to, first of all, if it's repetitive sex with multiple partners, it forces you to treat people as if they're interchangeable.

[785] And I don't see how that's good for you psychologically or for the people that you're using interchangeably.

[786] It implies that you can divorce sexuality from play, from the desire for a relationship, from emotional fragility, from love, from family, from responsibility, all of those things that are part and parcel of everyone.

[787] And I don't think you can.

[788] And I don't think people's experience indicates that you can.

[789] And especially on the emotional front.

[790] And I think that's partly what's driving.

[791] And there's also a residual sense that there's something about sex that's fundamentally dangerous.

[792] And maybe it's dangerous emotionally and personally.

[793] And maybe it's dangerous socially and psychologically, which most certainly is because it's a powerful force.

[794] And the way the left is reacting to that is by insisting that all forms of sexual behavior are valid and that it's reasonable to manifest all of them, but that it's simultaneously so dangerous that absolutely every aspect of it has to be state -regulated and in an increasingly draconian form.

[795] And so I think what needs to happen is that the left and the right have to get together and have a real discussion about, what constitutes valid sexual morality.

[796] And that's the conversation you have to have way before.

[797] You worry about solving, like, the abortion debate, which, you know, is very divisive and very intractable.

[798] One of the things we talked about, actually, just last week on the podcast, is this cover story in the Atlantic about the sexual recession amongst young people, that, despite the advent of the birth control pill, abortion is going down.

[799] That there's less, sex is going down.

[800] Hookup, fewer hookups.

[801] Have you looked into that?

[802] Do you have an opinion on that?

[803] Well, if you raise the cost of something, you decrease its prevalence.

[804] And I think that it seems to be dangerous now to hook up.

[805] You know, what will happen?

[806] I kind of think that it's also a reflection of the same thing that Bloomberg reported on just a few days ago.

[807] They said that across businesses, men are thinking, I'm not spending any time with a single woman that isn't, you know, associated with me in some formal manner, like my wife.

[808] I'm not going to do it.

[809] I'm not going to mentor young women.

[810] I'm not going to be in a room alone with them.

[811] Because I could face career annihilation.

[812] Absolutely.

[813] And instantly.

[814] They're frightened of young women now.

[815] But as Kate Julian said, that's part of it.

[816] But we can over -exaggerate the part.

[817] I mean, anxiety and depression is going up amongst both young men and young women.

[818] Suicide is going up.

[819] That there's, it's not just a, you know, most people, I think, are not, We're talking about an elite demographic who is into the consent and political correctness and work with it.

[820] This is across the board, and it's global.

[821] It's happening even in Sweden.

[822] It's really happening in Japan.

[823] Yeah, and Japan, exactly.

[824] Weird things are happening in Japan.

[825] And that speaks to, and especially in Japan, they have people, especially young men, have given up on intimacy.

[826] And that having sex is actually, I mean, too much trouble.

[827] But having given up on the sex robots?

[828] Right.

[829] Well, right, right, right.

[830] Well, that's the question.

[831] Well, and there's pornography.

[832] Yeah, there's pornography.

[833] Like, basically zero risk sexual behavior.

[834] But even when you allow for pornography, that men and women will sort of separate that from their actual sex.

[835] Anyway, we're seeing a whole, I guess, collapse of intimacy, let alone sex.

[836] And I don't think that's just explained by the political nature.

[837] So I'd be interested in your thoughts.

[838] Yeah, well, I don't know the literature.

[839] on the decline in sexual activity well enough to know if it's valid or reliable.

[840] But, I mean, I think that, you know, in a stable society, you take lots of things for granted.

[841] You take the fact that men and women are going to be sexually attracted to one another for granted.

[842] And even though it's more fragile than it appears, you know, and it's suppressed more easily than you might think, and you take the idea that men and women are going to move together towards the establishment of long -term intimate relations.

[843] relationships for granted.

[844] But that's partly because you don't understand what invisible preconditions exist to make that self -evident.

[845] You know, and when those invisible preconditions are disrupted by rapid technological or sociological change, then things shift underneath you, and you don't know why.

[846] A lot of it is traced to the advent of the smartphone, especially in the Generation Z, that Kate was explaining this to us, that you could see, it was broadband internet and the smartphone that led to this, you know, increasing fall -off of relationships.

[847] Well, maybe the abstract is more interesting than the proximal.

[848] You see that when you're having dinner with people.

[849] I just want to know the truth.

[850] Have you ever been with somebody you loved and found fascinating and all that, but you really wanted to get back to your smartphone?

[851] Has that ever happened?

[852] Yeah, well, it happens all the time.

[853] It happens to me. She'll never admit it.

[854] No, it happens during our podcast.

[855] I can tell you to put your phone back.

[856] No, I'm researching things for the purpose of the podcast.

[857] They're very addictive.

[858] They're very addictive.

[859] And, you know, I read the other day that they're very alluring.

[860] They are.

[861] We're kind of going together.

[862] The preferred method of interpersonal communication between young people now is texting rather than face -to -face communication.

[863] Right, and the swiping, the apes don't swipe.

[864] Well, that's a very interesting topic, too, like the Tinder phenomenon.

[865] Right.

[866] Because that's also a major technological revolution because what it's done, I would say, for the first time, is reduce the cost of rejection to males to zero.

[867] Because it hides it.

[868] The only people you ever hear from are people who haven't rejected you.

[869] Although they, true, but there was one man who had to make 300, he actually tallied it.

[870] Yeah.

[871] He had to make 300 requests of swiping right or whatever.

[872] to yield one reply.

[873] So I think he had the sense of rejection.

[874] Sure, sure, sure.

[875] But it's massively attenuated.

[876] And it's not observed.

[877] You're not being humiliated.

[878] Not at all.

[879] Not at all.

[880] It's really at arm's length.

[881] And, you know, you can swipe very, very rapidly.

[882] And so you can get all that rejection over with in a very short period of time.

[883] It's like losing a video game or something you go on to that.

[884] Well, less.

[885] Worse.

[886] I mean, not nearly as bad.

[887] Yeah.

[888] So, and, you know, I don't know what.

[889] And, I mean, Tinder also reduces the, one of the other things that, things that you want to think about with regards to sex, and I think this is probably particularly true for women, is that to what degree is it in women's interests to allow the cost of sex to fall to zero?

[890] Because pornography certainly does that.

[891] And it just seems to me that that's not a very good long -term strategy for relationships between men and women, because whatever sex is worth, the cost of zero is the wrong price.

[892] And so that's...

[893] You know, I've heard...

[894] Well, you go to the bunny ranch and pay quite a bit for it.

[895] Well, true, true.

[896] But that's true, but you know, you don't have to.

[897] And, you know, I've heard from a number of women what written, read blog reports on their frustration with their attempts to be relatively sexually selective.

[898] Like, let's say they decide that they're not going to sleep with their new partner on the first date.

[899] You know, they're frustrated by the fact that to the degree that they're being cautious in their sexual behavior, which I think is actually an admirable.

[900] idea, that they're instantly out -competed, especially if their partners are somewhat impulsive by women who will say yes at the drop of a hat.

[901] And so, well, again, I don't think, you know, it depends on what the goal is.

[902] That's the thing, is that there's the short -term sexual gratification, but that literature indicates that married couples, for example, or couples in a permanent long -term monogamous relationship are more sexually satisfied than single people.

[903] And maybe the single people have to be parsed out into those who are sexually successful and those who aren't.

[904] But I suspect that wouldn't make that much difference.

[905] But whatever, there's the utility of relatively immediate sexual gratification for whatever that's worth and the adventurousness that goes along with that, let's say, the hunt and the excitement of having a new partner and all of that.

[906] And maybe even the danger that's associated with that because people like to have a little bit of danger in their life.

[907] But what's the goal?

[908] It's like, what do people want?

[909] And I mean, there's a great book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts that was written by Google Engineers and so it contains great psychology because Google engineers don't care about political correctness and they just write down what they find and they don't even notice that it's politically incorrect hence James DeMore for example and what they found was that women use pornography just as much as men but the pornography that women use is verbal it's not imagistic and that pornographic novels essentially follow the same extraordinarily standard plot line to the degree that publishing houses like Harlequin which I was going to say it's the it's the bodice rippers that's right yeah right so in the Harlequin series you have you know the ones that were published like in the 1970s that are pretty they're tame there's a small bit of they're pretty hot actually well there's a variety they range from they range completely tame to essentially to hardcore pornography but the but the plots are quite similar and the plot is you know young relatively innocent woman, finds powerful, interesting, dangerous male, tames him, and then they live happily ever after.

[910] Yeah, yeah.

[911] And it's the beauty and the beast plot, which is a fundamental.

[912] Wasn't the biggest search for women on porn hub we discovered, we did an episode on porn, was for women it was rape?

[913] Wasn't that like the show?

[914] No, lesbianism.

[915] Or at least that was your porn.

[916] That was your search.

[917] That's not me. Oh, okay.

[918] I don't know.

[919] I don't know.

[920] You know what my porn is.

[921] Going to the William Sonoma store.

[922] I know.

[923] It is.

[924] It is female All those pots.

[925] Oh, the pots for pants.

[926] No, but the philosopher Bill Maher once said that men and women should never tell one another their fantasies because women are outraged by what we say and we're totally bored by what they say.

[927] And I thought like women have kind of these scenarios and, you know, I don't know what they're doing.

[928] Storylines.

[929] Storylines.

[930] And men is just like, I don't want to say this to you, but there's a lot of just close -ups of female body parts.

[931] Yeah, well, men are much more visually oriented and sexually.

[932] But now they're being shamed.

[933] I mean, now it's called the male gaze.

[934] And so there's all this like, oh, my God, the Sports Illustrated is exploiting the female figure.

[935] I say, yeah, men like it.

[936] And I'm worried that now sort of the way in the past sexual, you know, gays were shamed, we're now reversing it and shaming, like, heterosexual.

[937] Yes, that's definitely, that's definitely happening.

[938] Remember, we had the young woman who complained about, being whistled at, and I said, don't worry, it stops.

[939] With sexual behavior, the question is, what's the end game?

[940] And this is what people have to ask themselves.

[941] It's like one of the corollaries to the female pornographic romance is actually the establishment of a long -term relationship.

[942] And the question is, you know, it's so funny because I got pilloried in the New York Times for talking about enforced monogamy.

[943] It's quite interesting, eh?

[944] Because I talk to that.

[945] That gets brought up like in every sparky interview.

[946] Oh, it's so ridiculous.

[947] I talked to that woman for two days.

[948] I know, and it's just like a little side comment, and then that became like the showcase.

[949] Can you just explain, like, in forced monogamy?

[950] You mean forced marriage or?

[951] No, I mean that it was an anthropological term, which she knew perfectly well, because she's a very smart person, and all it means is that there's a pronounced proclivity in human societies around the world to enforce monogamous relationships at multiple levels of the sociological hierarchy.

[952] You do it culturally.

[953] You do it in expectation.

[954] You do it legally.

[955] You know, and enforced monogamy, so my son was just married.

[956] And if he came to me next year and he said, you know, okay, dad, guess what?

[957] I've managed to have four affairs in the last year with hot women and my wife hasn't found out about any of them.

[958] I'm not going to pat him on the back and say, good job, kid.

[959] You know, I'm going to say, what the hell's up with you?

[960] You know, you violated the vow that you took.

[961] You're putting your whole future at risk.

[962] You're betraying yourself and your wife.

[963] And, well, that's enforced monogamy.

[964] You know, the idea is that the social norm is, the establishment of a long -term monogamous relationship, and that there are strictures put in place to support that, but also to punish deviation from it.

[965] And you say, well, maybe not so much on the punishment end, but it depends.

[966] It's like, what do you want?

[967] What is it that you want?

[968] You want a long -term, stable relationship or not?

[969] And if that's the goal, then your behavior should be devoted to whatever it is that facilitates that goal.

[970] And I don't see that, I certainly they don't see that casual and impulsive sex fits that bill, not in the least.

[971] And all of the evidence with regards to living together shows that that's actually detrimental to the establishment of a long -term relationship.

[972] So, first of all, common law marriage, people who are in a common law marriage are much more likely to be divorced.

[973] So that's the first thing.

[974] The second thing is, people who live together before they get married are much more likely to be divorced after they get married.

[975] So the idea that, well, you can try someone on for size and see how it's the first thing, it works and then you're going to see if you're compatible it's like that's one story another story is well how about you and i live together for a little while and you know if you're you're not so bad but maybe i can find someone better and if i do you know in the next year and a half or so because we're not hooked together in any formal way i can just trade you in it's okay you can do the same to me but i don't really see that as the sort of complementary mutual interaction that leads to the formulation of long -term trust.

[976] And I think it's a better story for interpreting what constitutes living together than, well, you know, we're going to try each other out because that's what mature people would do.

[977] It's a lease or a rental.

[978] Yeah, well, that's right.

[979] You never wash the rental cars.

[980] Yeah.

[981] Yeah.

[982] Yeah.

[983] Well, that's it.

[984] And what more, most importantly, the data indicate that it doesn't work is that you're more likely to get divorced, not less likely.

[985] Because maybe the right attitude is, well, you're probably about as flawed as me and you know we're lucky that we found each other and so let's see if we can make a commitment because we're engaging in something that's very risky you know an intimate relationship and we're going to commit to each other and see if we can build something of value across time and there's a definite a risk in that but there's a compliment to your partner it's like well i think you're worth making a sacrifice for and what's the sacrifice well it's everyone else it's a big sacrifice and there's and if you don't see that as a compliment then i don't think you're thinking because not only is it a compliment, it's sort of like the ultimate compliment.

[986] And maybe you don't get to have a marriage that works without that compliment.

[987] Maybe it's so difficult to establish a long -term relationship that's functional, that you have to make a walloping sacrifice very early on in the relationship in order for that to even be a possibility.

[988] And, you know, maybe not, because what the hell do we know about what binds people together?

[989] But it's not that easy to stay with someone for a long period of time.

[990] You know, it's a real, it's a real, it's a a real commitment.

[991] It takes a tremendous amount of effort.

[992] So anyways.

[993] Yeah, but that, actually, you're bringing us back to the beginning and your time with Tammy.

[994] And one of the things about, I think, I'm going to guess this is a bit of an overlooked part in your chapter in your book, but I just, it was like one of my favorites.

[995] It was your book on Modern Parenting.

[996] Oh, yes.

[997] And that was the rule.

[998] That's the one I thought I would get most trouble for.

[999] I know, but it reminds.

[1000] My critics don't read that far into the book, though.

[1001] Well, my mother, when I had my first child, gave me a 1950s copy of.

[1002] Dr. Spock, and he was considered so controversial, and yet he was just like the most sensible person, made new children very, very well, was a pediatrician, and your rule for parenting is do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.

[1003] And you kind of in that one chapter, and it's not even one of your longest chapters, just did this wonderful sweeping overview of modern parenting and the problems, and in some ways that we're producing, maybe be some of these kids who are prolonging the markers of adulthood, that you feel that parents, you said, you see today's parents as terrified by their children, not least because they've denied credit for their role as benevolent and necessary agents of discipline, order, and conventionality.

[1004] And then you told some hilarious stories about when your wife ran a daycare center out of your house, and you would get into tests of wills with some of the two -year -olds.

[1005] They're tough, man. Two -olds are really tough.

[1006] The son is ornery.

[1007] I'm glad to hear he got married.

[1008] Congratulations.

[1009] Tough kid.

[1010] Yeah, he still doesn't want to do anything.

[1011] He doesn't want to do.

[1012] He's very charming and very emotionally stable.

[1013] So it's like he's easy to get along with, but trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do.

[1014] It's like he had my wife defeated when he was nine months old.

[1015] And she's tough.

[1016] Like, seriously, she's no pushover.

[1017] But he would just sit there with his mouth closed and glare at her.

[1018] It's like, I'm not eating that.

[1019] And I can take more than you can dish out.

[1020] It was really something to see, you know, to see that kind of force of will in someone that's small.

[1021] Talk a little bit about that and just the modern roles between men and women.

[1022] I mean, we're less, you know, you're not really supposed to distinguish between fathers and mothers, even though that seems to inevitably happen in most.

[1023] Well, it happens in large part because the children differentiate between them.

[1024] Like parents are under the delusion that most of what you do with your children is driven by what you want to do with your children, when in fact it's driven to a massive degree by what you're, children want you to do with them.

[1025] And so there were studies done 30 years ago on feminist parents who decided that they were going to raise their children in non -gender differentiated manners.

[1026] And when they were studied, they found that the parents who had that explicit philosophy were just as gender differentiated with their children as the parents who didn't have the philosophy.

[1027] And the reason for that is that if you're a parent that has any sense at all, you don't respond to your children as a rigid ideologue.

[1028] respond to them as whatever it is the child manifests him or herself as.

[1029] Like, you know, with any individualized relationship, you take your cue from the person.

[1030] And you might think, well, a child has no intrinsic nature.

[1031] But, you know, if you think that, you either don't have children or you've never seen a child, or you're so blinded by your ideology that you don't have a child, you just have a blank projection screen onto which you project your presuppositions.

[1032] And then heaven help your child you know so so a lot of the gender differentiation is actually driven by the children's demands and and that's all for the good that chapter i thought i would get into tremendous trouble for writing that chapter because it's contentious right on the surface just the rule because the rule first implies that children can be dislikable and then i would say again you know it's like have you met children exactly were you ever a child were there children you didn't like well obviously and so lots of children are dislikable, but it's taboo to admit that because they're all sweetness and light and innocence ever since Rousseau.

[1033] But, you know, Rousseau put all five of his children in an orphanage where they all died.

[1034] So maybe we won't.

[1035] So we won't talk too much about Rousseau.

[1036] And then the next taboo is, well, that parents can dislike their children.

[1037] But if you're a clinician, and you don't think that parents can dislike their children, then well, then you're not a clinician.

[1038] Because one of the things you constantly see is that pathology within families is an incredibly common source of psychological destabilization, right?

[1039] And it's terrible tension between parents and their children and between siblings.

[1040] What I suggest in the book, which I think is radical by today's standards, is that your fundamental job as a parent is to ensure that by the time your child is four years old, that they are maximally desirable to other children and to adults.

[1041] Because what happens is that after the age of four, you aren't the primary agent of socialization.

[1042] The social world becomes the primary agent of socialization.

[1043] And if your child is the sort of child that's invited to play by other children, because your child is capable of forestalling gratification and taking turns and playing someone else's game when it's necessary, and abiding by the rules and not having a temper tantrum when they lose and not getting too, you know, high on their horse when they win, then many children will invite them.

[1044] You get married when you have your children, and you're flawed and your partner's flawed, and hopefully you're flawed in different ways, and so you put the two of you together, and you make one approximately normal person, and then hopefully.

[1045] And then your child has to interact with that diad that is a reasonable representative of soul, social norms.

[1046] And if your child disappoints you with their behavior, the probability that they will disappoint other people is very high.

[1047] And so you have an ethical obligation to ensure that your child is behaving in a manner that makes them optimally desirable to their playmates and also to other adults.

[1048] Because then the kids invite them to play and they get to be socialized.

[1049] They have friends, for God's sake.

[1050] It's like, what do you want for your kids?

[1051] How about some friends?

[1052] Wouldn't that be nice?

[1053] And maybe what you'd like is that they regulate their behavior well enough so that when you take them places, restaurants, to see your friends, to see your relatives, they behave in a manner that's sufficiently civilized, so their intrinsic charm wins over the adults, and everywhere they go, people are smiling and welcoming, instead of wishing with fake smiles that the damn brat would leave, along with their foolish parents.

[1054] which is not a good, that's not a good environment to have your child constantly exposed to.

[1055] No friends because they're too selfish and immature and irritating to adults so that they're barely tolerated under the mask of false smiles.

[1056] It's like you have an ethical obligation to regulate your child's behavior so that they're optimally acceptable socially.

[1057] And that is not how people look at children in the modern world.

[1058] They think, well, you're raising their self -esteem or you're enhancing their creativity or you don't want to put constraints on their behavior because you're going to interfere with the flowering of their intrinsic self.

[1059] And, you know, it's all Russoian nonsense.

[1060] And there's no evidence to support it.

[1061] And he's no expert.

[1062] Oh, my God, he was the worst father in history.

[1063] Such a corrupt.

[1064] And he had these babies with this poor scullery mate and left them all in actually a place where they would just languish and die.

[1065] Yeah, right.

[1066] Five of them.

[1067] Rousseau.

[1068] Yeah, I know.

[1069] I know.

[1070] Yeah, exactly.

[1071] Man is intrinsically good.

[1072] Yeah, well, except for Jean -Jacques Rousseau.

[1073] But I just remember a few weeks ago I was reading about you, and somehow I got onto somebody's Twitter feed whom I will not mention, because, oh, my God, but anyway, a difficult person.

[1074] And she was attacking you and had a selection from your book where you had called two -year -old's little monsters.

[1075] And so suddenly all of these distraught Twitter followers of this feminist were saying, he called the monsters.

[1076] Little monsters.

[1077] Yeah, little monsters.

[1078] And then occasionally there'd be a parent who would say, they kind, two -year -olds kind of are monsters, you know, and then there'd be, and then they kind of are.

[1079] And they had taken this out of context and shown it like something to deplore.

[1080] And it was so amusing to me, this little.

[1081] Hopefully they'll soon be cursed with some two -year -olds.

[1082] Well, they're going to get their own little pastors.

[1083] My son was, I won't say which one, was two years old and had, he was a good boy, but he had an insane meltdown in a supermarket.

[1084] I was with my mother.

[1085] We both pretended we didn't know him.

[1086] We didn't want to be the parent.

[1087] Oh, yeah.

[1088] And we heard people say, oh my God, look at that child.

[1089] Oh, watching a two -year -old have a tantrum is, it's a real little miracle.

[1090] It was terrifying.

[1091] I didn't want to be associated with it.

[1092] We had a boy who used to be in.

[1093] like when my wife was taking care of more kids than ours, there was a little boy who had learned to throw a pretty decent tantrum.

[1094] And he would do that.

[1095] And it didn't work in our house because we'd just leave him, have his tantrum, and go into a different room.

[1096] And then he'd kind of wake up out of it, and there wouldn't be anybody around.

[1097] And so that, like, if you put all that work into a dramatic display and you have zero audience, you're not going to sustain it.

[1098] Anyways, he could actually hold his breath until he turned blue.

[1099] So you should try that.

[1100] You go home and see if you can do that.

[1101] front of the mirror man like it's hard it's very very you have to be will you do it was impressive it was and and you know two -year -olds are very impressive they're they have unbelievable outbursts of rage and and disinhibited emotion and your job is you know they're driven by these underlying motivational systems that are unbelievably powerful and it's part of what makes them delightful because when they're happy they're insanely happy and when they're playful they're incredibly playful and so the positive end of them is is is way exaggerated compared to, you know, a rather drab adult.

[1102] And so it makes two -year -olds extraordinarily interesting, but the same is true on the negative emotion side.

[1103] They're completely disregulated, and it's really hard on them.

[1104] Like, to have a two -year -old who isn't in control of their emotions means that you have a child who's developing central personality, you know, their ego, for lack of a better word, is constantly being swamped by these powerful underlying emotional systems.

[1105] You know what it's like if you are enraged for any period of time, you're engulfed by grief like it's exhausting it's it's it's demeaning and it's exhausting and it's the same with a little kid it's like it's a real defeat for the developing integrated individual to be subjugated by those catastrophically powerful emergent emotions and part of your job as a parent is to scaffold the part of the child that can regulate and inhibit those powerful underlying system so with my son for example when he used to misbehave I would count and say, you're going to go sit on the steps.

[1106] He'd say, oh, no, I'm not.

[1107] I would say, oh, yes, you are.

[1108] And then usually I'd have to chase him around because he wouldn't go sit on the steps.

[1109] And so I'd put him on the steps.

[1110] Say, you're going to sit there until you've got yourself under control.

[1111] And so he'd say, no, I'm not.

[1112] I'd say, yes, you are.

[1113] And then he'd try to get up, and I'd just hold him.

[1114] I say, you're going to sit there.

[1115] I'm going to hold you until you sit there.

[1116] No, I'm not.

[1117] It's like, I could out wait a two -year -old.

[1118] So I usually won those battles.

[1119] And then he'd sit there.

[1120] I'd say, look, kid, this is the deal.

[1121] It's two things.

[1122] Like, you want to have a bad day or you want to have a good day.

[1123] You think about that.

[1124] Because if you want to have a good day, we can just have a bad day.

[1125] But if you want to have a bad day, we can have a bad day.

[1126] So you sit here, and as soon as you get control of yourself, and you're ready to be civilized, then you can come back, and we can have a good day.

[1127] So we'd sit there.

[1128] Just, just, I was unbelievable to watch, just enveloped with rage, you know, just trying to get himself under control, you know.

[1129] And so I'd come back 30 seconds later.

[1130] and I'd say, you know, what if you got yourself, got your act together yet?

[1131] No, not yet!

[1132] And so I'd wait, and usually it took him two or three minutes, and he'd calm down, and then he'd come back out, and he'd say, I'm ready to have a good day, and he meant it, you know, and I could tell he meant it, too, because whatever resentment I was harboring towards him for his misbehavior, and you have to watch that when you're an adult, would vanish, because he'd come and he was done.

[1133] He was ready just, you know, to proceed on a civilized basis.

[1134] It was really interesting to watch that because it took him every time he sat on the steps, it took him a shorter and shorter period of time to attain mastery until it got to the point where he could only have to sit for 15 seconds or so and he would bring himself under control.

[1135] And that was a victory.

[1136] Like if you imagine the neurological systems developed that are responsible for personality integration, it was a victory for those systems because they were attaining the ability to regulate the lower order, spontaneous emotions.

[1137] And, you know, and he turned into an individual who's capable of a tremendous level of self -control.

[1138] And, you know, and he had large demons to fight with.

[1139] Yes, absolutely.

[1140] And while it turned out well for my daughter, too, because she ended up being very ill, and he ended up being extraordinarily level -headed and reliable, and thank God for that.

[1141] Could you come to my house and do that for my little multipoot Izzy?

[1142] Because I can't, I can't.

[1143] I can't train her.

[1144] Maybe that's the next book, the dog.

[1145] I would love to help.

[1146] 12 rules on how to train your dog?

[1147] Yeah, so you like cats.

[1148] You like cats.

[1149] What's with that?

[1150] That's the one rule I objected to.

[1151] Like, what's with petting the cat?

[1152] I wrote about dogs for two pages to begin with just to satisfy the dog people.

[1153] It didn't satisfy us.

[1154] Yeah, well, they're not satisfiable.

[1155] You can't satisfy them.

[1156] All right.

[1157] Well, we can't thank you enough for coming here.

[1158] I know the AEI audience is just so dull.

[1159] I'd have had the chance to hear you.

[1160] Well, I'm really happy that we got the chance to talk finally for some length of time.

[1161] I've only met you, like, well, once we met in D .C., but I've just seen you on the Internet.

[1162] We've passed electronically, right?

[1163] Oh, you've swiped past you.

[1164] Oh, yeah, well, there was that.

[1165] We're not going into that.

[1166] Okay.

[1167] Thank you, everyone.

[1168] Thank you, Jordan Peterson.

[1169] Dr. Peterson.