Episode 249 · The Ben Avery Era
#249 - Jordan Peterson | The Tim Dillon Show
with Jordan Peterson
Apr 25, 2021 · 1:17:32 · 849,000 views · 27 segments, 156 moments indexed
Jordan Peterson joins us to discuss his recovery from addiction, his rise to fame, psychoanalyzes Tim and the false claims against him by the media.
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- 1 min
Tim opens the interview by asking Jordan Peterson what he wants to accomplish in the conversation, framing it as partly selfish personal advice-seeking.
1moment
- Tim asks what he wants to accomplish today, framing it as a question for the guest who is a clinical psychologist.
- 1 min
Tim asks Peterson about being labeled the most influential public intellectual in the western world and whether he ever wishes he didn't carry that responsibility.
4moments
- Tim introduces the new book 'Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life' and notes much was written before a recent ordeal.
- The book jacket claims the New York Times called him the most influential public intellectual in the western world.
- Tim asks whether being that influential creates pressure and whether he'd rather not be responsible for what's happening in the western world.
- Tim says his feelings about the position vary moment to moment, and he's still working through how to conceptualize and move forward in it.
- 4 min
Peterson describes the strange experience of sudden fame late in life, comparing public recognition to living in a friendly small town, and discusses being a conduit for ideas from great thinkers like Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Jung rather than solely his own originality.
6moments
- Tim describes finding fame strange despite it arriving late in life, noting he's continually recognized on the street.
- Being famous feels like living in a small town everywhere—surrounded by friends and well-wishers, though his online reputation tells a different story due to journalists who dislike him.
- Tim discusses with a clinical psychologist the cultural impact of his communication and its effects on individual lives.
- He credits much of his success not to original ideas but to synthesizing and communicating the work of profound thinkers like Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Jung.
- The ideas have profound effect because they were written by geniuses interested in helping people live meaningful lives, so it's unsurprising the influence spreads.
- Tim acknowledges being identified as a conduit for these ideas, noting it's a clichéd thing artists say but contains truth.
- 2 min
Tim argues the media pile-on against Peterson exceeded even negative coverage of Osama bin Laden, and asks how Peterson avoids resentment toward the people who attacked his character, especially during his health ordeal.
3moments
- Tim describes unprecedented media attacks on Peterson, claiming there was less negative press about Osama bin Laden than about him.
- Media attempted to understand Osama bin Laden's background and grievances, unlike their treatment of Peterson.
- Tim asks whether Peterson blames media critics for contributing to his personal health crisis and family struggles.
- 4 min
Peterson reflects on watching peers crumble under similar public attacks, admits the temptation toward bitterness during his and his family's illnesses, and explains why he worked to eliminate resentful thoughts.
8moments
- Tim worked through the answers to these questions while writing his second book's final chapter on not becoming resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.
- He's watched his professional peers who became targets of public attacks on Twitter and in newspapers generally fold up, apologize, and get hurt quite deeply.
- These attacks have given him insight into why people don't say what they need to say, because the trouble that causes is very difficult to cope with.
- Tim continually expects the attacks to stop, but they don't—he's mystified why it keeps happening.
- He's become associated with an inordinate number of memes and imagery: lobster, frog, king, red skull—a complex set of images that adds to the difficulty of sorting it out.
- Tim was tempted towards bitterness and resentment as a consequence of his illness, which created tremendous pain.
- His daughter and wife were also very ill at approximately the same time, making it difficult not to shake his fist at God and curse the structure of being itself.
- He's strived with the help of his wife and others close to him to identify and eradicate resentful and bitter thoughts, because they're not helpful or justifiable under any condition.
- 2 min
Peterson explains his framing of gratitude in the face of suffering as a form of courage and ongoing decision, similar to commitment in marriage, and describes wrestling with unfairness during his family's health crises.
5moments
- Gratitude is best understood as a form of courage, not naive positivity, like the decision to marry and keep deciding day after day.
- Tim argues gratitude in the face of suffering is a chosen attitude you continually strive for, not an assessment of the world's benevolence.
- His family struggles with serious health issues and he faces public criticism, which seemed unfair when he first examined these thoughts.
- After identifying and working through negative thoughts over two months, he found they offered no positive utility and dispensed with them.
- Tim says his recovery has progressed significantly since finally receiving a proper diagnosis.
- 5 min
Peterson details his mysterious illness, diagnosis of severe central sleep apnea, his dependency on benzodiazepines starting in 2017, the extreme insomnia and other symptoms, and the medically induced coma in Moscow used to detox him.
9moments
- Physician diagnosed severe central sleep apnea—waking up 25 times per hour—after investigating sleep structure.
- Breathing machine improved function from five percent to fifty or sixty percent over one month.
- Sleep monitoring ring showed zero to two minutes of deep sleep nightly; now reaching thirty to fifty minutes with the machine.
- Started taking benzodiazepines in 2017 after a three-week episode of severe insomnia.
- Clarifies the difference between staying awake for a record and being unable to sleep—subjectively experienced three weeks without sleep.
- During insomnia period, would faint when standing and felt ice cold no matter how many blankets he used.
- Had stopped taking antidepressants in early 2016 prior to the 2017 medication changes.
- Lists autoimmune symptoms: psoriasis, chronic mouth ulcers, peripheral uveitis in right eye, and alopecia.
- Daughter's severe arthritis was significantly improved by a meat-only diet maintained for five years.
- 3 min
Peterson discusses his autoimmune diagnosis, psoriasis, uveitis, and alopecia, the meat-only diet he and his wife maintain, his wife's cancer surgery complications, and comparing benzodiazepine and alcohol withdrawal dangers.
6moments
- Tim was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder this year after blood tests revealed various autoimmune markers, though other related conditions like uveitis had been diagnosed as they arose.
- He became dependent on benzodiazepines without craving them or seeking them out — stopping them in 2019 was catastrophic once he realized their danger.
- Psychiatric drugs like antidepressants helped Tim, and benzodiazepines stopped his insomnia instantly, which is why he kept taking prescribed doses during a stressful period.
- A small proportion of people have a catastrophic dependency response to benzodiazepines and can't stop without suffering severe withdrawal — Tim was in that category.
- He was put in a medically induced coma in Moscow primarily to help him detox from the benzodiazepines, though he still suffered terribly from withdrawal effects after waking up.
- Benzodiazepines like Xanax are in the same family as alcohol and barbiturates, and doctors use them to treat alcohol withdrawal to reduce the risk of seizures, which can be fatal.
benzodiazepinesMoscow
- 3 min
Peterson describes the decision to seek treatment in Moscow after Canadian and US treatments failed, his recovery process, and his current schedule of podcasts, writing, and possible touring.
5moments
- Family moved him to Moscow for medical treatment after options in Canada and the U.S. weren't working.
- The Moscow hospital experience wasn't positive overall, though the medical professionals did their best.
- Tim describes his wife's treatment for fatal cancer, including radical surgery with severe complications that ultimately saved her life.
- Adverse reaction to apple juice in Moscow was likely due to sulfites rather than sugar after years of dietary restriction.
- Getting back to work schedule as much as health allows, recording two to three podcasts per week on his own and appearing on two others.
- 1 min
Tim pivots from the serious interview into a BlueChew sponsor read, joking about erectile dysfunction pills and mocking the ad copy while still delivering the promo code.
4moments
- Tim describes what Jordan has advocated for: getting your puss mashed up.
- BlueChew is a chewable form of Viagra or Cialis ingredients that's cheaper and makes your penis hard so you last longer.
- Tim summarizes: it's a dick pill and you should get it.
- Free trial available with promo code TD at checkout, just pay $5 shipping at bluechew.com.
- 2 min
Tim continues riffing on BlueChew, joking about whether men should be forced to admit erectile problems to a doctor in person versus doing it online, and about a friend who started using it.
5moments
- Tim notes that BlueChew is chewable because he doesn't like swallowing pills.
- The best part of BlueChew is that everything happens online, so you don't have to tell a doctor in person you have erectile dysfunction.
- Tim questions whether avoiding the humiliation of telling a doctor face-to-face that your penis won't get hard might actually be character-building.
- He imagines a doctor would judge him for erectile dysfunction, then plays out what that judgment would actually sound like.
- Tim mentions a friend who started taking BlueChew religiously and began performing much better in bed.
- 1 min
Tim reads the BetterHelp online counseling sponsor copy, describing the service's features and giving the promo code.
4moments
- BetterHelp is an online counseling service where you can communicate with a counselor in under 48 hours.
- You can log in anytime, message your counselor, and schedule weekly video or phone sessions without waiting rooms.
- Over a million people have taken charge of their mental health with BetterHelp, and they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states.
- If you don't vibe with your counselor, you can just get another one—it's not a big deal.
- 1 min
Tim jokes about distrusting people who majored in psychology or business, then pivots to asking Peterson about COVID lockdowns, fear, and the psychological effects on society including rising shootings.
3moments
- Tim's anecdotal rule: whenever someone says they're majoring in psychology, he'd never want advice from them.
- He extends the same skepticism to business majors—people who emerge from those programs don't generally seem smart.
- Tim asks what COVID's psychological impact will be: the lockdowns, the fear of sickness and lost income, and the cumulative effect on the country's mental state.
- 4 min
Peterson praises society's resilience through lockdowns and rapid vaccine development, then discusses the statistical rarity of mass shootings despite their visibility, and differences in male versus female aggression.
8moments
- Tim notes how resilient social and economic structures have proven during the pandemic lockdown.
- Vaccination rates climbing to around 35 percent in the US should start making a real difference soon.
- Tim is surprised by how quickly vaccines were developed and distributed without catastrophic side effects.
- Signs of instability in the US are attributable to factors other than COVID that have been brewing for a long time.
- Tim jokes that his biggest disappointment with mass shootings is they're done primarily by men, keeping women out of another field like STEM.
- School shooters represent such an infinitesimal percentage of the population that it's very difficult to formulate policy around something so rare and unpredictable.
- Males are disproportionately violent compared to females in physical violence, though females have their own form of aggression centered on reputation destruction.
- With 330 million people in the US, one person in a million being seriously disturbed would equal a shooting per day, so the actual rate is less than that.
- 2 min
Tim asks whether men retreating into video games and digital life instead of marriage, family, and property ownership contributes to alienation and violence.
4moments
- Men and women retreating into the digital world and becoming less socialized, potentially away from traditional social structures like marriage, family, and property ownership
- Men not participating in traditional social structures report feeling alienated and disenfranchised, which often leads to negative pathologies
- Tim is asked whether he encourages traditional commitments—marriage, family, manifesting the life you want—as a way to point men in the right direction
- The question of whether digital spheres are a real problem because people can escape into them instead of building real-world connections
- 3 min
Peterson argues the left's characterization of hierarchy as inherently tyrannical is a nonsensical oversimplification, using Jocko Willink and Navy SEAL training as an example of hierarchy built on reciprocity rather than power.
5moments
- Tim identifies pornography and its ease of access as a genuine problem in the digital sphere.
- YouTube communities of encouragement, including the one Tim leads, offer a counterweight to digital alienation.
- The antidote to isolated bitterness is encouragement, not the left's characterization of society as tyrannical patriarchy.
- Tim argues hierarchies aren't predicated on power and tyranny but on fatherhood, encouragement, and reciprocity.
- Jocko Willink's Naval SEAL training exemplifies a patriarchal hierarchy built on productive principles rather than domination.
- 4 min
Tim pushes back, citing CIA secret prisons and corrupt institutions like the Catholic Church, asking how personal responsibility alone can counter powerful bad actors who go unchecked.
6moments
- Institutions we grew up with—the Catholic Church, the government—were built on reasons we now know were foolhardy or misleading.
- When hierarchies are supposedly based on generosity and cooperation, my generation sees them rotted out by dishonest actors who aren't checked or counterbalanced.
- Hierarchies degenerate because of power and deceit, but functional hierarchies are characterized by productivity and reciprocity.
- The radical left's claim that hierarchical structure itself is tyrannical and predicated on power is simply not true.
- If you want to stop deceit in the world, then stop lying; if you want to stop the arbitrary exercise of power, then stop using it.
- The CIA was running secret torture prisons while I was in community college, which makes it hard to believe that personal responsibility has any real impact on institutional corruption.
- 5 min
Peterson argues that starting with personal honesty is the most effective lever against institutional corruption, using Tim's own rise from community college to influencer as an example of individual impact.
8moments
- Tim's guest argues that speaking regularly to half a million people means Tim has significant influence and power.
- Comedians can say true things that people don't expect, and some truths only become apparent months later when someone goes to jail.
- Corruption in institutions typically stems from individuals acting in corrupt ways, lying, and dominating inappropriately.
- Tim's guest challenges the notion that there are clear limits to personal responsibility, citing Tim's own rise from community college to influence.
- Tim pushes back on the idea that truth is unstoppable, noting that platforms like YouTube can remove him anytime.
- Tim acknowledges personal responsibility is important but points to institutional injustice like private prisons and the kids-for-cash scandal.
- Complex social problems manifest at multiple levels—individual, family, community, country—and should be addressed simultaneously at all levels.
- As you become more responsible and capable, you're better positioned to assess what steps need to be taken in the broader social realm.
private prisonsKids for Cashprison system in america
- 4 min
Tim reads ShipStation's shipping service ad, then transitions into ExpressVPN, riffing about data privacy, Brandon's VPN use, joking about Signal and Whitney Webb hiding from people trying to kill her, and describing macaroni and cheese at a barbecue in Austin.
4moments
- Individuals feel pain where reality is; the rest is abstraction.
- Tim notes everyone's trying to sell your data, which is not good.
- Brandon uses a VPN because the government's always after you.
- Whitney Webb's situation: she's in some hut where people are trying to kill her.
- 4 min
Tim reads ShipStation's shipping service ad, then transitions into ExpressVPN, riffing about data privacy, Brandon's VPN use, joking about Signal and Whitney Webb hiding from people trying to kill her, and describing macaroni and cheese at a barbecue in Austin.
4moments
- Individuals feel pain where reality is; the rest is abstraction.
- Tim notes everyone's trying to sell your data, which is not good.
- Brandon uses a VPN because the government's always after you.
- Whitney Webb's situation: she's in some hut where people are trying to kill her.
- 5 min
Peterson explains how the loss of religious/mythological frameworks in the West leads to nihilism or ideology-as-religion, and how locating evil solely in social institutions is itself a flawed religious claim.
10moments
- Ideological possession as misplaced spirituality, tied to Western loss of religious grounding following Nietzsche and Dostoevsky's analysis
- People need answers to what is good, what is evil, and what is the purpose of existence — questions only religion can address at the highest level
- Traditional cultures structure ritual, myth, dance, music, and story around that uppermost domain; when fragmented, people turn to substitutes
- Two common substitutes emerge: either nihilism with terrible psychological consequences, or elevation of ideology to religious belief status
- The rationalist objection to God assumes nothing is God's, but something must exist there — even that critique falls into a religious story
- Blaming social institutions for evil is itself a religious claim, and a faulty one that will twist you because it's incomplete
- Locating evil only in the social world gives you a convenient enemy for unexamined spite, resentment, cruelty, and homicidal tendencies
- More sophisticated observers place the battle between good and evil inside the human soul; it manifests in institutions but that's not the primary locale
- Christopher Hitchens argued religion should be replaced by the literary canon, but the deepest literature is itself religious
- A cathedral expresses something about the structure of being that can't be said rationally — the same applies to music, which is fundamentally religious whether sacred or secular
- 3 min
Peterson responds to Christopher Hitchens' idea of replacing religion with literature, arguing the deepest literature is itself religious, while Tim raises skepticism about traditional religions given historical abuses like the Inquisition and modern Saudi Arabia.
7moments
- Secularized religions retain the same impact and moral lessons, but many people doubt whether Christianity, Judaism, and Islam remain relevant today.
- Traditional religions enforced through law and political power often became oppressive—the Catholic Inquisition and modern Saudi Arabia demonstrate the problem.
- When people reject their inherited faith, they search for new belief systems, sometimes landing on internet ideologies as replacements.
- People leave religion for many reasons: identity mismatch, family trauma, or documented abuse like what many Catholics fled.
- George Carlin captured it: people in groups are awful, but individuals are worth knowing.
- The left now indoctrinates people into a new religion that's as oppressive, unforgiving, and detrimental as old-school belief systems.
- The dilemma: rejecting both modern ideological religion and ancient superstitious belief leaves people searching for what to believe in instead.
George CarlinSaudi ArabiaCatholic InquisitionChristianityIslamJudaism
- 6 min
Peterson discusses humanity's built-in relationship with a moral ideal, uses the story of Cain and Abel to describe the divided human soul, and argues that superhero movies like the Avengers now serve as a substitute mythology for the battle between good and evil.
10moments
- Biblical truth is literary truth, not scientific truth—science isn't about morality, the Bible is.
- Carl Jung's psychological approach to religious texts emerged from addressing Nietzsche's claim that God was dead.
- Christ is by definition the perfect man, and each person has a relationship with the ideal whether articulated or not.
- Conscience tortures you because you fall short of your ideal—manifesting yourself in accordance with it is the nature of responsibility.
- Religious structures like Christianity work to make the implicit ideal explicit so we can understand and live it more consciously.
- You spontaneously respect or disrespect people, feel awe or contempt—all of this reflects your moral evaluation against an implicit ideal.
- The story of Cain and Abel reveals the dichotomy within the human soul: the part striving toward light and the part rendered cynical and murderous by tragedy.
- Losing Christianity means losing thousands of years of attempting to make implicit moral reality explicit—a catastrophe.
- We replace religious mythology with the Avengers universe, using the most sophisticated computational devices on earth to explore good versus evil in movies costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
- The Avengers franchise isn't mere entertainment—it's a serious exploration of the battle between good and evil that people line up to pay for and find genuinely gripping.
- 4 min
Tim explains his aversion to group identity, criticizes the gay rights movement and giving hormones to children, and connects his sobriety to an inability to tolerate resentment, prompting Peterson to link this to the danger of violating one's inbuilt moral sense.
10moments
- Tim expresses a natural aversion to group think and how he can get caught up in it like any human being.
- Being gay himself, Tim finds the gay movement completely insane and rejects what they represent, citing opposition to giving hormones to questioning children.
- Tim refuses to spend his time convincing people he's worthwhile or making them conform to his belief system.
- As an addict, Tim can't entertain other people's ideas of him too much because those ideas become resentments that lead back to addiction.
- Resentments built from deviating from one's inbuilt ethics become so catastrophic that addiction becomes necessary to insensate existence.
- Nearly universal agreement exists that teaching children to lie is wrong, establishing broad respect for honesty as a foundational value.
- Society tolerates dishonesty through television, politics, and culture, conditioning people to expect deceit from most entertainment and information.
- Tim's dramatic success comes from people being able to tell he actually believes what he says, contrasting sharply with staged American culture.
- Many people fear saying publicly what they've already said privately, and this self-censorship extends across academia and business.
- While ideal honesty would be better, culture has conditioned people to expect far less truthfulness than they should tolerate.
- 4 min
Peterson argues we should expect about as much dishonesty from institutions as from ourselves, and that the American political system was wisely designed to function despite that; Tim connects this to why authenticity resonates with online audiences.
9moments
- Institutions must function despite being composed of people as corrupt and deceitful as anyone else—that's not cynicism, it's wisdom.
- The American founders explicitly designed a system to prevent deceitful people like themselves from screwing things up too badly.
- Now that video and audio bandwidth is cheap and unlimited, people are starving for genuine conversation.
- Long-form discussion on YouTube brutally punishes dishonesty and insincerity—audiences spending that much time need to know who you actually are.
- Standard media interviews have built-in artificiality because the questions come from a bureaucratic script rather than genuine curiosity, which easily translates into manipulation.
- Tim barely prepared for this conversation, choosing spontaneous discussion over scripted questions because it makes more sense.
- He always refuses when people offer to send questions beforehand because prepared interviews lack authenticity.
- Long-form conversation works like free-form jazz—when people are genuinely jamming, it's spontaneous creation that takes the audience along for the ride.
- Online communication is technologically and ethically superior to legacy media, which explains why it's decimating traditional outlets.
- 3 min
Peterson praises long-form podcast conversation as punishing dishonesty and resembling jazz improvisation, then recommends his reading list at jordanbpeterson.com and Dostoevsky as accessible thriller-like literature before Tim wraps the interview.
7moments
- Tim describes his life as consisting of genuine discussions where he tries to learn something from every conversation without a predetermined goal.
- Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life is available now and Peterson plans to return for a speaking tour.
- Tim asks Peterson for book recommendations to help people understand his ideas and thinkers like Nietzsche and Jung.
- Peterson maintains a list of about 100 recommended books on his website that align with the ideas he presents.
- Reading through Peterson's recommended books would provide the equivalent of a good humanities education.
- Tim plugs jordanbpeterson.com as the place to find speaking tour dates and purchase books.
- The conversation may not have solved the world's problems but gave listeners an hour of smart and enlightening discussion.
Fyodor DostoyevskyJordan PetersonBeyond Order: 12 More Rules for LifeCarl JungFriedrich NietzscheChelsea Handler
- 1 min
Tim thanks Peterson for coming on, mentions his wife Michaela, and closes out the episode.
1moment
- Tim says he'll solve the problem he just discussed