Jordan Peterson on Political Responsibility, Toxic Compassion, and Speaking Truth at Oxford Union
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Jordan Peterson on Political Responsibility, Toxic Compassion, and Speaking Truth at Oxford Union
Jordan Peterson addresses Oxford Union students on the moral obligation to engage in politics, the dangers of cynicism, and the importance of speaking truth despite consequences. Peterson tackles questions on cultural Christianity, parenting, and the cost of silence in academic institutions. He challenges young people to reject cynicism, warning that civic responsibility refused will be taken up by tyrants. The psychologist also confronts accusations about his views on transgender issues and reflects on universities losing public trust through ideological capture rather than truth-seeking.
Peterson addresses a student questioning whether political life remains a noble endeavor or has become too corrupt to engage with meaningfully. He rejects the premise that politics has become uniquely worse than previous eras, stating plainly that all the civic responsibility you refuse to shoulder will be taken up by tyrants and used against you.
The claim of being "too moral" to involve oneself in politics, Peterson argues, is a convenient excuse that leads to abandoning the political realm to the corrupt few. He emphasizes that citizens are morally obliged to shoulder at least their weight in terms of political obligation, and if they can manage more, to do it honorably.
Peterson acknowledges the additional temptations that come with political power, describing them as notoriously difficult to resist but not impossible. He points to the perennial problem of competent people refusing political office because they would have to abandon successful enterprises for positions arguably of less consequence, yet warns of the consequences when the most competent refuse to serve.
Rejecting Cynicism in Youth
Addressing young people specifically, Peterson challenges the right to cynicism at a young age. "When you're your age, for example, you don't have any right to be cynical about the political. It's like, what the hell do you know?" he asks a student, pointing out that cynicism without experience or accomplishment is unearned.
He describes the maturation process from naivety to cynicism as an improvement because it means opening one's eyes to the malevolence of the world. However, the mistake is stopping there. Peterson suggests becoming cynical about your own doubt, recognizing the moral obligation to be optimistic, to promote a positive view of the future, and to take on civic responsibility despite cynicism.
This openeyed appreciation for the corruption of the world, he argues, is no excuse for not contending with it. Young people should learn and see if they're capable of withstanding the temptations of power if it's ever offered to them, walking into that responsibility with eyes open to increase the probability of doing it properly.
Toxic Compassion and Parenting
When asked about managing compassion without it becoming toxic, Peterson begins with the biological reality that human beings have the largest dependency period of any animal. This creates genuine difficulties in applying maternal compassion with proper discernment.
He describes the conundrum parents face: infants are 100% right in their distress all the time for the first nine months, requiring complete compassion. But as the infant moves toward autonomy, parents must pull back from that compassion to allow space for independence. This is hard because of the bond formed and the identity potentially found in that bond.
The maternal instinct can become parasitical if not properly mediated, Peterson warns. The institutional solution is marriage, where men are temperamentally less agreeable than women, creating a balance where women typically protect and men encourage. The question of how much to encourage versus protect depends on the individual child and must be fought out between parents.
Peterson advises that mothers should have enough individual identity so they have better things to do than infantilize their children. This allows them to offer necessary maternal protection while having valuable pursuits to attend to when children should be functioning autonomously. This balance prevents losing one's identity in the maternal endeavor while modeling competent adulthood.
The Cost and Necessity of Speaking Truth
A student describes being warned against mentioning Peterson's name at Oxford, with fellow students confiding they aren't brave enough to share similar views publicly for fear of career consequences. Peterson responds with a definition of faith: the willingness to assume that no matter what happens to you, if you tell the truth, it's the best thing that could possibly happen to you.
People lie or remain silent for two reasons, he explains: to gain an undeserved advantage or to escape a deserved punishment. The question becomes: benefit by what standards and over what time frame? While deception can provide temporary advantage, it doesn't ensure medium to long-term benefit.
Peterson warns against walking down a career road that requires holding your tongue. If you're unpopular because of what you say with potential employers, you should thank your lucky stars they don't want you around because you don't want to be near them. Conversely, when you say what you have to say and someone says you're exactly the sort of person they're looking for, you get to work with those people and have a life that's actually yours.
He traces the progression of academic cowardice: undergraduates think they have to write what professors want, graduate students believe they can't speak until they have faculty positions, junior faculty wait for tenure, and tenured professors wait for full professorships. The result is a 35-year-old coward who hasn't said a true word in 20 years, somehow expecting that greater security will produce courage.
Peterson points to examples like Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford epidemiologist who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, was pilloried by compatriots, and now runs the National Institute of Health. If you align yourself with truth, you have reality on your side, which is a good deal as you progress forward.
He shares his own experience applying to graduate school with a very strange letter that told his potential advisor exactly what he was like. Many likely rejected him immediately, but the person he ended up working with thought he was just the person he was looking for, resulting in a relationship that continues 45 years later.
"If you lie, then the life you have isn't yours," Peterson states. "The life you have is the life of the spirit of the lie. And if that's the life you want, then go ahead and lie with silence or with commission. But if you want your life, then tell the truth."
Cultural Christianity and Stumbling Steps Forward
A theology student from Wycliffe Hall asks about cultural Christianity—the expectation to attend church and abide by Christian morals without necessarily having personal conviction or pursuing a personal relationship with God.
Peterson recalls being cynical as a 13-year-old about people who were Christian one hour a week and ordinary sinners the rest of the time. As he got older, he realized that aiming upward toward the divine for one hour a week is substantially more than not doing it ever.
He argues that to some degree everyone who's a Christian is a cultural Christian because nobody can manifest the full depth of faith in their own life. "We all fall short of the glory of God," he notes. Better a cultural Christian than nothing at all, and doing a good thing badly is much better than not doing it at all.
Starting with practice, even without full commitment, creates the possibility for growth. Someone going to the gym once a month for 15 minutes is better than nothing, and maybe in five years it becomes three times a week. Peterson cautions against being cynical about people's stumbling attempts to make their way uphill, even if they're merely culturally Christian to camouflage themselves properly, as this at least shows caring what others think—part of being social.
Confronting Accusations on Transgender Issues
A student accuses Peterson of calling being transgender a sociological contagion and comparing trans people to Satanists. Peterson immediately corrects the misrepresentation, pointing out that the student compared his statement about satanic ritual abuse claims in 1980s daycare to something very different than what was presented.
The student then claims Peterson has cultivated a climate of hostility contributing to high suicide rates among trans youth. Peterson responds by pointing out the falsehood of the question, stating it had nothing to do with what he actually said. He calls the idea that his comments contributed to suicide rates preposterous, with no evidence whatsoever that such rates result from lack of social acceptance.
"What makes you think you know what you're talking about?" Peterson asks. "I can't possibly imagine anybody sequencing a collection of questions more cliched, formulaic, and accusatory than the ones that you just managed. You don't have any idea about what you're talking about, and your confidence far exceeds your competence."
When the student persists with accusations about denying the existence of transgender people, Peterson asks why there's been an explosion in prevalence of transgender identification among juvenile women. He points out this is the pattern of social contagions for the last 350 years, always involving juvenile women—eating disorders, cutting, anorexia, bulimia, hysteria in Freud's time.
The student accuses Peterson of pretending to care about women as an avenue for perpetuating hate toward minority groups. Peterson characterizes the entire exchange as moralizing pharisaism designed to reputation savage the target, formulated in the manner that female personalities characterized by antisocial bullying are particularly proficient at.
Universities and the Loss of Public Trust
Asked what universities should do to regain trust from students and the public regarding perceptions of wokeism, Peterson argues they shouldn't navigate in relationship to how the public perceives them—that's part of the problem. People shouldn't navigate through the world in relationship to how they're perceived, though they should care about reputation.
Gaming the system for reputational advantage through public relations strategizing is the wrong approach. What universities should do is conduct themselves in accordance with the dictates of conscience and let the cards fall wherever they will. If they do that, they'll regain public trust.
Peterson recalls working in Boston in the 1990s when Harvard had a stellar reputation that was well deserved. It was conducting itself as a truth-seeking enterprise at all levels: undergraduates were committed top-quality students, junior professors were the hottest young minds gathered from universities worldwide, senior faculty were genuinely educated and committed to their work, and administration served first the undergraduates and then the senior professors rather than themselves.
There's no reason universities in principle couldn't return to such conduct, though Peterson finds it unlikely. He suggests Oxford and Cambridge have a fighting chance because of their collegiate independence, which provides protection against a centralizing administration of woke mob. It's trickier in the United States and Canada.
Peterson cannot see how American and Canadian universities can be salvaged. They're hyperdominated by administration that was subject to a coup by the progressive mob, and professors are tilted so strongly toward the left that given their tenure, he can't see how this can be reversed or even ameliorated. While universities shouldn't be politically one-sided and need diverse political opinions, he questions where replacement faculty would even come from.
Universities shouldn't concentrate on reputation or manipulate public opinion to get back in good graces. They should return to their truth-seeking mission and let the cards fall where they will. It isn't obvious at all how that will happen.
Admitting Past Error
When asked what he's been most wrong about, Peterson provides a simple answer: "I was a socialist when I was 14."
Video Transcript
When you're your age, for example, you don't have any right to be cynical about the political. It's like, what the hell do you know? Hello. Hello. Um, I just wondered whether you thought pursuing a political life, whether directly or more obliquely in your case is still a noble endeavor or whether the political domain has become so infested, such a talking shop that you just can't get anything done and the most worthwhile thing maybe just to stay away from it and focus on other things. Well, I don't think in many ways that it's worse than it. All things considered, it's no worse than it usually is. And the problem with not involving yourself in the political is that it it's dirty work and it has to be done. And if you don't do it, so here's a rule. all the civic responsibility you refuse to shoulder will be taken up by tyrants and used against you. And you might say, "Well, I'm too moral to involve myself in the political." And you don't have to be all that moral to claim that you're too moral to be involved in the political, you know, but what's the alternative? You're going to leave it to You're going to leave it to the corrupt few. That's not very wise. So you're morally obliged to shoulder at least your weight in terms of political obligation. And if you can manage then more can you do it honorably. That's not a really a question that's much different than can you conduct yourself in any complex enterprise ethically. It's difficult and there's additional temptations that come along with political power. Those are the temptations of power generally speaking and that's a blandishment that is notoriously difficult to resist but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. But the as I said the core of the issue is well if good men don't hoist their political load then the pathological will take their place and that's not a good idea. It's a perennial problem too. I mean, one of the things I've observed about the political realm, I have friends in Canada, for example, one man in particular who I know who would make a wonderful prime minister, um, is extremely competent and deeply ethical and charming and witty and and careful, but he already runs a remarkable set of enterprises, and he'd have to abandon all of that as many of the people who have taken political office in the US have had to in the last month. He'd have to abandon all that and arguably take a position that's of less consequence than the one that he already occupies. But there's a genuine problem if the most competent refuse political office because who does that leave us with? Well, we see who it leaves us with generally speaking. So, and besides that, when you're your age, for example, you don't have any right to be cynical about the political. It's like, what the hell do you know fundamentally? Well, seriously, it's like, well, I'm cynical about politics. It's like, well, you're 25. What gives you the right to be cynical? You know, you you know, are you a captain of industry? Do you have five children and 10 grandchildren? Have you had a successful marriage? You know, have you proved yourself even in the academic realm? No. What? Well, right. Right. Good. So, I I'll I'll close with with an observation in that regard. You know, I mean, people move from, if they mature, people move from naivity to cynicism, right? And cynicism is actually an improvement over naivity because it means that you've opened your eyes to the malevolence, let's say, of the world. The mistake is stopping there because, well, you could become cynical about your own doubt. I suppose that's the end of that voyage. And you become cynical about your own doubt and you think, "Oh, I see. I have a moral obligation to be optimistic. I have a moral obligation to promote a positive view of the future. I have a moral obligation to take on my civic responsibility despite my cynicism, let's say. And that cynicism might be like your openeyed appreciation for the corruption of the world, but that's no excuse for not contending with it. And so contend with it. No. And learn and see if you're capable of withstanding the temptations of power if it's ever offered to you. And so that's your responsibility. And you can walk into that with your eyes open and that'll increase the probability that you'll do it properly. Okay, we'll take the next question. [Applause] Hello. Hello. Check the mic, please. Right there. Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you so much Dr. Peterson. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm currently reading your latest book and you talk about toxic compassion. So my question is how do we manage to care in a way that empowers people instead of disempowering them? Uh, sorry, how do I manage to still care about people but in a way that doesn't disempower them or become toxic in how you mentioned toxic compassion? I still can't hear you well because the there's yeah there's feedback in the mic. Just tell me and I think everyone else heard that. Yes. Um how do you manage to be compassionate without it being toxic? Compassion when you talked about evil. Oh, there we go. How do you manage to become compassionate without the compassion being toxic? That's a really good question. Yeah. First of all, it's a good question because of the admission that compassion can become toxic, right? Well, you can think about this biologically. Let's start with that. So, human beings have the largest dependency period of any animal. And so, you could imagine that that could go very badly wrong, right? Because anything difficult and anything difficult can go very badly wrong. And so you could imagine that it takes wisdom to apply maternal compassion with discernment. Okay. Now, so here's a conundrum that women are faced with, for example. So because our infants are born at such a in such an undeveloped state, they're basically helpless for the first nine months, let's say, before they can start to crawl. And even then, they're pretty helpless, but they're perily helpless when they can't even crawl. And so the only attitude that you are allowed to have towards a infant is compassion. The infant is 100% right in its distress all the time. Right? And you're at its beck and call and rightly so. But then as the infant becomes moves towards autonomy, you have to pull back from that compassion. You have to allow space for autonomy and you have to encourage that separation. Now that's hard. It's hard because you've made a bond with the baby and maybe you found your identity in that bond. You might well have and so you're actually upset that you have to sacrifice the intensity of that relationship to allow for the autonomy of the child. That might be particularly true if your own identity is somewhat lacking. And so your that maternal instinct can start to become parasitical. for example. And so that's a difficult thing to contend with psychologically and genuinely difficult. The way that we mediate that institutionally is by is with marriage fundamentally because men are temperamentally less agreeable than women. And the classic situation around children in a family, and this can vary by sex, but this is the stereotypical perspective, is that the woman will protect and the man will encourage. And then you might ask, well, how much should you encourage a child compared to how much you would protect them? And the answer is it depends on the child. And so this is actually something that has to be fought out between parents, you know, and even for women who are more disagreeable, the propensity for them to protect is strong, not least because they did function as the primary protectors, let's say, for the first nine months. That's a difficult thing to modify. And then of course it is a matter of contention. No. If a child is misbehaving, for example, under what circumstances do you discipline and under what circumstances do you console? Well, you know, you face the same conundrum within the confines of an intimate relationship, right? Because if you have a relationship with someone that you love, an adult, your wife or your husband, some of the time you're going to console and some of the time you're going to discipline. And the relationship is actually at least in part that negotiation. You have to have that around children. So I would say one of the answers to that is don't do it alone. Right? It's very difficult thing to get right and you need you need someone who's acting as an opponent like a benevolent opponent to help you chart your course properly. And maybe you need more than one person. You know, it doesn't hurt to have a grandparent around who can also offer a certain amount of of of of the advice that might rectify your approach. I would also say too, you know, like it's certainly the case that the maternal presence for children is very important particularly in the first year, but really cardly for the first three years. And so then you might say, well, how much of an individual identity should a given mother have in those first three years? And the answer to that should be something like enough individual identity so that the mother has better things to do than to infantileize her child, right? And so you can see in that that you could have your cake and eat it too, right? You could offer your child the maternal protection that's necessary. But given that you have your own individual pursuits that are important to attend to, you'll have something valuable to do when your child could be could be spending his time or her time alone and functioning in an autonomous manner. And so that's a good balance, too. And that also stops you from from losing your identity so to speak in the midst of the maternal endeavor. And I think that's a good balance for women to strike you know to the other thing too as a woman is you want to model competent adulthood for your child. You want to start doing that very early and so you should have an autonomous existence and that's also knowing that and focusing on that is also going to help you make the difficult discrimination discriminating judgments that are necessary to help you determine when you console and when you say you know stand on your own two feet. So we take the next question remember that second. Yes. Hello. Hello. Um, in your last um interview with Steven Barrett, you um said one very important phrase, which is that with Steven Bart Barlet. Oh, yes. Okay. uh when you said that bad things happen when good men hold their tongue it really struck me and I think when I've had in an institution such as Oxford where I had the optimism that I would come and be able to uh be very open about my views and thoughts and I had uh realized that that is not entirely the case and the point that I'm getting to is that I am very open very outspoken very outspoken about my stance protecting um anti- vocism as as it says and when I mention your name for example don't do that there are there are people who take me aside into the corner and says you cannot say that u you cannot bring that person saying Voldemort and there. But I have so many people, so many fellow students here who then confide in me and said, I am not as brave as you to share these views online. I cannot speak freely and I don't feel like I I can be cancelled. I my career can suffer. I also fear that every single day. But your phrase really inspired me. And so what I my question is that how do individuals who depend on building a career in an economy such that is driven by wokeism can survive and and still stay true to to their moral stands. So here's a a definition of faith. Okay. Faith is the willingness to assume that no matter what happens to you, if you tell the truth, it's the best thing that could possibly happen to you. Now, this is a very weird thing to understand. Now, the reason people lie or remain silent, there's two reasons. One is to gain an undeserved advantage and the other is to escape a deserved punishment. And so people will lie and manipulate or remain silent to you could say to twist the fabric of reality so that it makes itself manifest to their benefit. But the question is benefit by what standards and over what time frame? And so it's definitely the case that you can gain a temporary advantage by deception, but that doesn't mean that you're gaining a medium to long-term advantage, right? And so then you might say, well, how do I play things out so that I balance short-term, mediumterm, and long-term advantage optimally? And the answer to that is you say what you think, right? And then there's all sorts of things that might happen, including the things that you just described. And it's also potentially the case that you might pay a price for in your career. But you got to ask yourself, do you want to walk down a career road to a destination that requires you to hold your tongue? Like if you're not popular because of what you say with people who might hire you, you might thank your lucky stars that they don't want you around because you don't want to be anywhere near them. And if you do say what you have to say and someone comes along and says, "You're just exactly the sort of person we're looking for," then you get to go and work with those people. And that means that you have a life that's actually yours instead of the life of whatever lie you happen to be telling for the sake of convenience. And so, and I would say too, you should be afraid of saying what you think, but you should be a lot more afraid of hiding. Right? You start hiding. I saw this with professors and it's still happening now. It's like so the undergraduate says well I have to write what the professor wants or I won't get the grade. And then which is by the way far less true than you might be than you might fear even among relatively woke and ideologically corrupt professors. Um, and then you're a graduate student and you think, well, I can't really say what I think because I'm not I haven't got a faculty position yet. And then you're a junior faculty member and you think, God, I'm not tenured. And but when I'm tenured, I'll say what I think. And then you get tenured and you think, well, I'm not full professor yet. And then you're full professor and you're a 35year-old coward who hasn't said a true word in 20 years. And now you think all of a sudden because you're secure, you're going to be brave. That's your theory of courage, is it? The more secure you get, the braver you'll be. Well, that's as stupid a theory of courage as you could possibly hope to develop. So start now and grow a hide like a thick hide and see what happens. Like my experience and it's not only my experience but my experience with the people I know is that I know lots of people who paid a price for abiding by their conscience and a lot of them are riding pretty high at the moment right things swung around in a remarkable way which and that tends to happen now it doesn't always happen sometimes you tell the truth and they shoot you and that's the end of that but I I mean Jay Badacheria I I know Jay and Jay was a is an epidemiologist at Stanford and a good one and he wrote the great Bington Declaration and got pillaried by his compatriots for doing so. Stanford has a pretty solid tenure uh uh arrangement and also Stanford has the Hoover Institute so people who are more conservative have a bit of protection but Badacheria was dragged through the mud in a pretty major way and now he runs the National Institute of Health right and he's not the only one that such things have happened to and so I would say you know the truth is a long-term and profound game and you got to decide if you're going to play it and there'll be costs just like there are to everything. But if you're going to align yourself with anything in your life, you might as well align yourself with the truth because then at least you have reality on your side and that's a good deal as you're progressing forward. So take your lumps now and learn how to do it and you'll be fortified optimally when you make your way out into the world. When I applied to graduate school, I wrote a very strange letter and I did that on purpose. I told my potential advisor as clearly as I could exactly what I was like um for for better or for worse. And there's no doubt that many people read that letter and thought there isn't a hope in hell that I'd give that guy an interview. But the person I did end up working with read the letter and thought that's just the person I'm looking for. And I had a great relationship with him. I still work with him. It's 45 years later. If you lie, then the life you have isn't yours. The life you have is the life of the spirit of the lie. And if that's the life you want, then go ahead and lie with silence or with commission. But if you want your life, then tell the truth. Your truth. Your truth is you. And the life you have if you tell the truth is your life. Well, what possible threat would be sufficient to entice you to give that up? Right. Thank you, ma'am. [Applause] Hello. Hello. Hi, Dr. Houston. Thank you so much for speaking at the Oxford Union this evening. Can you hear me? Okay, I can. Okay. Um, I'm a theology student at Wickliff Hall here in Oxford. Um, I was wondering what your stance is on cultural Christianity. And by that I mean the expectation to go to church, um to abide by Christian morals, things like that without necessarily having a personal conviction or pursuing a personal relationship with God. Um whilst I see the benefits in cultural Christianity in that it provides a framework for the structure of society, I wonder if it only goes so far. Do you think there should be more emphasis on developing one's personal relationship with God instead or as well as cultural Christianity? Well, I would say that sorry, I just want if we can do a short answer because the time is very short. We can take one more question. A short answer. Thank you. I don't know. And I believe in you. I believe in you can do it. When I was a kid, I used to 13 years old, let's say. I like to be cynical about those who attended church, you know, those people who were Christian one hour a week and then were ordinary sinners the rest of the time. And when I got substantially older, I realized that being aiming upward toward the divine for one hour a week is a lot more than not doing it ever. Right? And so, and then I would also say that to some degree everyone who's a Christian is a cultural Christian because nobody can manifest the full what depth of the faith in their own life, right? We all fall short of the glory of God. And so, better a cultural Christian than nothing at all, you might say. And so, and then also doing a good thing badly is much better than not doing it at all. So, and maybe you start with practice and maybe you're not even committed to it, but you at least have the possibility that will grow. You can go to the gym once a month and for 15 minutes and that's better than nothing. And maybe in 5 years it's three times a week and you're in pretty good shape. And so, you don't want to be cynical about people's stumbling attempts to make their way uphill. And I would say that's even the case if you're culturally Christian merely to camouflage yourself properly in the cloak that your neighbors expect. At least then you're showing some sign of caring what other people think about what you do, which is part of the hallmark of being social. And so, you know, there's no end to the depth that you can discover if you pursue any genuine conviction to the utmost degree. But you know, you have to start with stumbling steps forward and you don't want to be too harshly judgmental about that. Okay, thank you. That's short enough. Yes, that's great. Oh, yeah. Private spot. Yes, remember that. Hello. Hello. Um, my question is in regards to a comment you made on Joe Rogan's podcast a couple years prior where you called being transgender a sociological contagion and compared trans people to Satanists to to Satanists. No, I don't think so. You called being transgender equivalent to participating in satanic rituals in the 1980s. This is a quote from Sorry, I didn't I didn't catch that last part. you called being transgender and being transgender um and you compared that to satanic rituals that occurred in daycare. Oh, I see. Oh. Oh, I see. So, that's very different than the proposition that you laid before me. General, you do have a history of intense anti-trans comments. So, I wanted to question you on that. In the United States, trans youth have the highest rates of suicide among any demographic. Um, how do you respond to those who believe your comments have cultivated a climate of hostility against trans people and contributed to this alarming rise in suicide rates? Okay, so first of all, I respond to them like I responded to you by pointing out the falsehood of their question. The question you asked me had absolutely nothing to do with what I said as you well knew. And the moralizing, you have a chance to do so. And the moralizing element of your accusation that constituted the last half of your question is also equally ill formulated. You have no idea what you're talking about. The idea that my comments had anything to do with the hypothetical rise in suicide rates among transgender people is preposterous. And there's also no evidence whatsoever that those suicide rates that you're describing are a consequence of of any attitude whatsoever towards their hypothetically transgender lack of social acceptance which is definitely cultivated by comments like yours that deny the existence of trans people. What makes you think you know what you're talking about? I can't I cannot understand for a moment. Lack of social acceptance is a driving force behind trans youth committing suicide. And I'm asking you to explain why you feel it's appropriate to deny the existence of transgender people. I can't possibly imagine anybody sequencing a collection of questions more cliched, formulaic, and accusatory than the ones that you just managed. You don't have any idea about what you're talking about. and your confidence far exceeds your competence. I am friends with many transgender individuals. I I also I also don't know who educated you at this fine university, but they're doing a damn dismal job. I would like to Dr. Listen, I think one of the thing at Oxford Union, we have we welcome all kind of questions and I think I would appreciate if the substance of what she's asking. There's no substance. You can't answer the substance of a question when you're asked a question with no substance. denying the existence of an entire community and comparing transgender people to participating in a sociological contagion. They are participating in a sociological contagion. Obviously, why in the world do you think there's been an explosion in prevalence with regards to transgender identification among juvenile women? Why do you think that? Do you know that that's the pattern of social contagions for the last 350 years? You know, it's always juvenile women. It was eating disorders. It was cutting. It was the eating disorders were anorexia and bulimia. In Floyd's time, it was hysteria. So, I take a lot of issue with you pretending to care about women as an avenue for perpetuating hate towards minority groups. You did this earlier in your conversation um with the president and you're doing it once more. But you really are something. Okay. Thank you. So, yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Arushi. We'll go to the next question. Anyone else? A lot of people. Would you like to choose someone this time? like an an accusation of hate, particularly one that's formulated in that manner that begins with the proposition that I was comparing transgender people to those who participated in satanic rituals, which is not at all what I said or meant on the Joe Rogan special is not a question with substance. And that's for sure. It's not a question at all. It's a form of moralizing phariseaism that's designed to reputation savage the target of the question in precisely the manner that female personalities characterized by antisocial bullying are particularly proficient at. So yeah, that's what I have to say about that question. Your question. Hello. So my question My question is where do you strike a balance between the individual versus the influencer or the head of state when it comes to freedom of speech? Is the freedom of speech of Javier Mle or Gustau Pedro the same as any other civilian? I don't know exactly what you mean by the same. Do you mean of the same value? Do you mean of the same legal standing? I'm not sure what you mean by the same. I guess in the same value. So can Gustavo Pedro, head of state, tweets as a person or is he tweeting as a head of state? Is there a balance between this? That's where my question is going. Okay. So there's there's two questions there I I guess. And one of them is that has to do with the value of any individual's utterances. Okay. So I actually think that this is you might think about this as a metaphysical statement. I don't think there's any difference in quality in relationship to the truth of any individual's speech. So it's just as important that you speak the truth as it is that any person chosen at random from anywhere speaks the truth. And I I think that's part of the reflection, you might say, of the of our divine value. I'm I'm part of the axiomatic presumption of free western society is that every person, peculiar as that might be, is reflects the image of God. And there's deep truth in that. It's it's it's no different really than speaking metaphysically about the ultimate value of each individual. And what that means is that the relation the relationship that each of us has with the truth has a world redeeming quality. And that's regardless of your position. And that's why for example in many of the Old Testament stories there's tremendous emphasis on the there's a scene for example in the story of uh what's the prophet who identified conscience as the voice of God. A widow is contrasted with Jezebel who's a queen. And the widow conducts herself despite her poverty in a hospitable and truthful manner and in so doing indicates her moral superiority in the genuine sense to the corrupt queen. And that story is a reflection of the fact that even when someone who is lowly pursues the truth in the course of their individual pursuits that that is part of the force that sets the world straight. And I think that's true. Now having said that, I would also say that you're responsible to have the impulsive your impulsive proclivity with regard to what you might say bounded by recognition of your social responsibility. And so if you're the cor the CEO of a corporation or the leader of a country, you have to conduct yourself in a manner that's commensurate with that role, particularly if you adopted it voluntarily. And so it isn't as if Malay, for example, if his right to free speech is truncated. It's that as a responsible head of a complex organization, he should govern his tongue in accordance with his responsibility. Right. Take one last question from the audience. Is the member there behind the Yes. Hello, good evening Dr. Peterson. Um, my question is about universities and given that universities are coming under increasing scrutiny from the public for perceptions of wokeism. Students don't trust their universities because they think they're cracking down on them. We've seen this with protests, encampments. They they think the universities are holding them back in some way. What do you think the governing bodies of universities ought to do to navigate um how students and the public perceive them and what they can do to gain trust back from both those um members of of society? Well, they shouldn't navigate in relationship to how the public perceives them. That's actually part of the problem. Just as you shouldn't navigate through the world in relationship to how you're perceived. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't care what other people think. You should care about your reputation, but you shouldn't be attempting to game the system to your reputational advantage, which is what people tend to do if they're strategizing or maneuvering for the sake of public relations. Like what you should do is conduct yourself in relation conduct yourself in accordance with the dictates of your conscience and let the cards fall wherever they will. And if if universities do that then they'll regain the trust of the public. They had the trust of the public for a long time. You know when I worked in Boston in the 1990s for example or at McGill before that for that matter Harvard had a stellar reputation and it was well deserved because by and large it was conducting itself as a truth seeking enterprise and I could see that at all levels of the university like the undergraduates were committed top quality students they were forthright in their intellectual endeavors they were upward striving. There was a culture of meritorious attainment. The junior professors were the hottest young minds that could be gathered from the multitude of universities across the world because Harvard was a very attractive place to work. The senior faculty were genuinely educated and areriodite and committed to their work such that if we had faculty meetings, everybody tried to get them over with as fast as possible so they could go back to their labs. and the administration by and large served first the undergraduates and then the senior professors and instead of themselves let's say and so that was working like a charm and that wasn't that long ago I mean it's 30 years now so it's getting to be sometime but there's no reason the universities in principle the universities could return to such conduct it strikes me as rather unlikely and that might be I think Oxford and Cambridge have a crack at it possibly because of the way your institutions are formulated with that collegiate independence which gives them a fighting chance against a centralizing administration of woke mob let's say it's more it's trickier in the United States and in Canada and I for the life of me I can't see how the universities in essence can be salvaged not least because a propon first of of all they're hyperdominated by the administration which was it itself subject to a coup by the progressive mob and the professors by and large are tilted so strongly towards the left that given their tenure I can't see how that can be reversed or even amilarated like it shouldn't be reversed because you want a diverse range of political opinions at a university but it it should be at least balanced and I can't see for the life of me how that's possible. What are you going to fire half the faculty? No, definitely not. And even if you wanted to, where the hell would you find the new professors to replace them? So, the university shouldn't be concentrating on their reputation per se, you know, manipulating public opinion to get back in their good graces. they should return to their truth seeeking mission and let the cards fall where they will. And it isn't obvious to me at all how that's going to happen. I'll interrupt here. I think this is the last question we'll take from the audience. And before that we close this ceremony. I just have one final question which is what is the biggest issue you have been wrong about? What do you think? I was a socialist when I was 14. [Applause]
