Dr. James Lindsay
Appearances
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So, what are you in trouble for now?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right, which is another storehouse of value that's been severely parasitized. Okay, so now, so that's two things. There's 5% of the population, oh yes, the dark tetrad types are narcissistic, Machiavellian. So they use language only as a means to manipulate towards instrumental ends. There's no communicative intent. It's all essentially status gaming.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
They're psychopathic, and that means they're predatory parasites. And then they had to top it all off with sadism. And I think that's what changed the dark triad to the dark tetrad. I think the reason for that is that if you have a dark triad orientation towards the world. And the world turns against you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It makes you so angry because you're rejected and unsuccessful that that expresses itself in positive delight in the unnecessary suffering of others. Right? So this is dark material. Now, There's no reason to assume that the cluster B dark tetrad types would do anything other than gravitate towards storehouses of value. First of all, the parasite problem is a very deep problem biologically, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's so deep that some people think sex evolved to solve it. As you mix the genes, it's harder for parasites to move down the generations, right? So that's actually one of the canonical theories for the evolution of sex itself. Why would you take a 50% hit in terms of genetic transmission, when you could just clone yourself.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's troublesome for those with a conservative bent to throw away the idea of institutional legitimacy. The only possible antidote to really unrestrained investigation. The idea seems to be something like the The more radical the revolutionary precept, the more likely something Luciferian is behind it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, the parasites can breed, multiply faster than you can, and so they have the upper edge in a lengthy battle. So you mix up the genes, and anyways, the parasite problem is a very old problem. Okay, so I want to add one more thing to that. So imagine that a system of knowledge as a way of representing the world and navigating in it, okay?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So that would be like a scientific theory or an engineering theory, right? And so you might be able to assess that theory on the grounds of objective fact, say. Okay, but then imagine that there's a different form of language game. And that is that you orient yourself with a lot of, you bring a number of people together and you lay out some game rules. They could be religious axioms.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
or pointing out, depending on your perspective, the fact that various members of the so-called right are engaging in shenanigans that are very much reminiscent of those that characterize the radical left. And so that's what we talk about today, the nature of the woke right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
In fact, I think religious axioms are game rules. I think that's the right way to think about it. But it could be political, right? So communism, a pseudo-religion, has game rules, axioms that you have to accept. And so does conservatism. These are games that can integrate a large number of people. Okay, so that's a slightly different function, right? Because now...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's like if you and I decide to play basketball, we're going to produce a hierarchy within that set of rules, right? Whatever set of rules you lay out, people are going to be differentially able at implementing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right? Any set of rules.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So, for example, if you were in a gym and you had schoolchildren roll and you had a competition, you'd get a hierarchy of rules. rolling speed and then the top rollers would be the high status people within that game. You can organize systems of knowledge so that they're ground rules for a game and then you produce a hierarchy. Now, hierarchical position has value.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So the higher you are in a social hierarchy, the more positive emotion you feel and the less negative emotion and the less likely you are to perish.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Partly because you have social capital and social support. So people will compete for... status within the confines of any given hierarchical game. That's a whole different function than representation of the world. Now, maybe you'd hope that your game represents the world too, which I suppose that would be something like competition in a scientific lab? Right, because- Yeah, something like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Something like that. Or yeah, competition within a game that's actually productive and self-sustaining. Yeah. Right, and the axioms of Western culture seem to be a game like that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right, right. Now, okay, having established that, you can game it. Yeah, of course. Right. So we agree on so far, there's nothing in that that you think is objectionable? No, nothing.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I discuss the overlap between such behavior and classification of psychopathology with James, the relationship between woke behavior, mobbing, extreme perspectives, self-victimization, protest, gaming the system, and cluster B psychopathology, narcissism, histrionic behavior, borderline, antisocial, and the dark tetrad. And we... We attempted to determine how our views align and how they differ.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's transferable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
They tend to be very low in conscientiousness.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Partly that's an appeal to paranoia, too. Sure. And that's going to be more effective under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Yeah. Okay, so let's concretize this a little bit. I'd like to talk about, we can talk about Douglas and Joe. I think, let's amend our rule. We're not going to point any fingers at woke, right people. I'd like to talk about the current situation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, you know, Douglas's point with regard to Joe was that it's troublesome. for those with the conservative bent to throw out, to throw away the idea of institutional legitimacy. Yeah. And that's a fair comment, standalone comment. Joe's rebuttal to that, insofar as he had a rebuttal, because I thought the conversation was actually pretty civil given how difficult it was, was that
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
the institutions have been so cataclysmically faulty in the last 10 years that the only possible antidote to their falseness is really unrestrained investigation. And Joe's been a master of unrestrained investigation, obviously, because he's allowed his interest to take him wherever it goes, which...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
which allied with a certain amount of conscience is a pretty good orienting function as far as I'm concerned. And I'm at a loss to some degree how to reconcile those viewpoints because I think it is a cataclysm that the institutions have become unreliable, but let's walk through them a little bit. I think the universities are gone.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I think that Harvard is having this war with Trump and that Trump is 100% right. Yep, me too. The president of Harvard, in my understanding, said to the Trump administration that it was unfair to punish the researchers by withholding their research funds. But I look at that and I think those researchers have been filling out DEI statements for 10 years.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So as far as I'm concerned, they lost all their credibility. They're not independent researchers at all. And they could say and have said that they were just following the rules. It's like... That's not a very good excuse if you're a seeker after knowledge, right? If the rules have become pathological, you have an obligation to cease following them.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And well, it's a walk through the dark side of ideology. So join us for that. Nice to see you, Dr. Lindsay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Harvard took its DEI head, I think it was Harvard, and kept the person and changed the name. Well, all the universities are going to do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Why wouldn't they?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
More deceitful even, right? It's another form of mimicry. And I guess that's another thing we could point out about the psychopathic 5% is that they're masters of camouflage. What a psychopath does is mimic competence, right? That's right. And usually they can't get away with it because, not for long, because they... They don't create, they destroy.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And eventually that evidence accrues and then they have to leave and find another host, so to speak. Now online, that's a snap, right? Because you can just switch out. Exactly. You can just switch your identity. That's right. And you've solved the problem, or you can multiply it beyond. And then there's a bot problem online, too.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, yeah. We've tracked some of that. And for some of these discussions about the woke right, 30% of the comments are bots.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right. So that means we're automating the psychopathy. I've thought for a long time, and I do think this may be the case, that virtualization enables psychopathy. And if that's the case, we're in trouble. We're in big trouble. Well, at least 50% of internet traffic is criminal, right? It's 30% pornography, which is close enough to criminal. So I think distinguishing them is not useful. And then
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's been two years, eh?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
like old people are just scammed nonstop. Right, nonstop. Right, and so, and there's no policing and there can't be because you can hide so effectively.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So, and then it's, what it seems to happen is that the unrestrained psychopathy spills over into the public domain and everyone is mad, like in both senses, angry and insane because of it. Let's return just for a moment to the hierarchy idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah. So what are you in trouble for now?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So you pointed out one interesting mechanism of attaining status, which is to twist the rules slightly, create a new game and dominate that as its originator. So that's a transformation of a process that's actually creative and adaptive, right? Because if I wanted to make a variation of a business, I could do that.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And then if I served my customers well and so forth, I could climb to the top of that new business niche and succeed. This is the parasitical equivalent to that, right? It's to what? To generate a version that does nothing but attract unwarranted attention. That would be the narcissistic spin. And to use any means whatsoever to attract that attention.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Lay it out, man.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, it's certainly in Iran's interest. The Iranians would sacrifice every single Palestinian in a second. They're just cannon fodder. I mean, it's obvious that Iran is funding Hamas.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
This is such an ugly vision of the future.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So that's a Nietzschean revaluation of all values.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Okay, so to me, I know that... We've talked a little bit about religious matters, but I'm going to delve into that for a second.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
That's what a Tower of Babel is.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, well, that comes along for the ride.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Okay, so I want to talk about this Lucifer idea. So Lucifer is the morning star and he's the angel of the untrammeled intellect. That's how he's portrayed in Milton, right? And he's allied in some strange way with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right, right, right. The spirit of enlightenment, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, right, absolutely. Well, that's the question. What's the difference between what's genuine and what's false, let's say? So, in the story of Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve that they can pretty much have free reign... except for one thing. They can't, as far as I can tell what it means, is they can't take the right to define the moral order to themselves.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
They have to abide by the moral order, that there's an intrinsic moral order that's grounded below nature, even grounded in the principle of being itself. They have to ally themselves with that. But Eve, interestingly, Eve is tempted by the serpent. Maybe her powers of discrimination are somewhat lacking. Maybe her proclivity to empathy clouds her. And maybe it's a form of feminine pride.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
In any case, the serpent tempts her, telling her that if she ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that she would become like God, which is the one thing God forbade, right? So the idea seems to be something like the more radical the revolutionary precept, the more likely something Luciferian is behind it. So it's a serpent in the garden.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So it's clearly something poisonous, but then it gets weirdly associated with the idea of Lucifer, right? Which is a very strange leap. The leap is something like, what's the most poisonous of all possible serpents, right? So then it becomes a meta principle. And it looks to me like it's something like the drive to power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And that fits well with the notion that, well, Marx would be on top of the communists and Hitler would be on top of the Nazis and Mussolini would be top of the Italian fascists. So if the... belief system is pressed into the service of the hierarchical status of its originators, then there tends to be something profoundly Luciferian behind it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And the cardinal sin of Lucifer is pride. Is pride. Right. And the desire to replace God, to replace the fundamental moral order. So, I figured something else out too recently. So, imagine that you could found a society on power, because you can, at least for a short period of time. And imagine that you could organize a group of people hedonistically as well.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So that would be the real dark side of populism, right? We'll just have the government give people, it's like Pleasure Island in the Pinocchio video, right? Bread and circuses. You can get away with that for a while. Power. hedonism. You can abandon everything and sink into a pit of nihilism. That's not very effective psychologically or socially.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
But that begs the question that the postmodernists wrecked their ship on, I would say. Is there a unifying principle, a high-order unifying principle? That's the metanarrative idea, right? Because the cardinal proclamation of postmodernism is that there's no pinnacle metanarrative. There's no upper union. But I think that's wrong.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I think that the principle of voluntary self-sacrifice is foundational. And I think that's the narrative that runs through the biblical course.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and so... then we would have a dynamic where one, because we're trying to figure out how to identify the Luciferian players, let's say. That seems reasonable, right? So they're in love with the creations of their own intellect, but that intellect is not serving the principle of voluntary self-sacrifice. It's serving the principle of power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
You remember in the gospel account, when Christ is in the desert, the third temptation that Satan lays before him is the temptation of power.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right, right, right. So that seemed, okay, so you don't have any problem with the underlying dynamic of that. No, not at all.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
There's a number of people operating like that at the moment. Yeah, that's right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, we've got a hierarchy there. It's Luciferian at the core, Then we've got the cluster B dark tetrad traits. Then there's the mechanisms that you described, right? So that's a differentiated – that gives us a way of identifying.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, and that is also an unbelievably effective move on the psychopathic side, because the basic criminal attitude is, and I've dealt with criminal types quite a lot, it's pretty straightforward. It's it's perfectly fine for me to take what you have because you took it. Yeah, that's right. Right, and so Marx has just nailed that perfectly. That's exactly what it is. That's property is theft.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
As soon as property is theft, The criminal is the moral agent. And that happened in the Soviet Union, right? Because in the prisons, the criminals were treated as moral agents, whereas the political prisoners were treated as, you know, what would you say? The kinds of heretics who deserve nothing but the longest possible sentence and some death. Right. Because the criminals were victims.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
If property is theft, criminals are victims. That's a hell of a...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So that libertine offering is an interesting twist. I've been trying to puzzle out. I wrote this article with Jonathan Paggio on the scarlet beast of the apocalypse. And it was really illuminating to me. There's lots of the book of Revelation. I just don't understand me and many other people. But I understand some of it. So the scarlet beast is the degenerate state.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So imagine that when a uniting principle disappears, so that would be the Nietzschean death of God. you get the postmodern condition, which is that there's no uniting narrative. And so the state grows a lot of different heads. It's kind of a hydra now. It's collapsing into chaos, symbolically speaking. It has a lot of different heads because nothing's uniting it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And that's why it's blood red, because that's a very dangerous condition. It's a fragmenting condition. Okay, so that's the scarlet beast of the degenerate state. This is a symbol of the end of times. And I don't mean... the end of time per se. This is a symbol of how things end, right? Always, always.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right. I follow you. Okay, fine. So the state deteriorates till it's a multi-headed hydra, okay? But then it has something on its back, and that's the whore of Babylon. Yeah, the mother of all prostitutes. So the idea there is that when the patriarchal state or psyche loses its central function, female sexuality commoditizes. Right, and we can see that's like just happening everywhere right now.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
OnlyFans is the greatest example of that. That woman in Great Britain who's sleeping with like 100 men a night, or I think she managed 1,000 in a week, something like that. I won't say her name, but she's become very well known for the absolute outrageousness of her behavior. Her mother is her business manager. It's so awful that you just can't believe it. Okay, so you have this...
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
mother of all prostitutes so that's the central spirit of commoditized female sexuality that's going to happen when the state deteriorates of course female sexuality is going to commoditize when the state loses its protective and integrative function and so she offers this libertine pleasure, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So you could think of power, that's a way that power, that's what power offers to those who are willing to use power. It's like, why do you want control over someone? Well, to have your way with them, obviously, and there's gonna be a sexual component to that. That was certainly the case in Marx's own life, for example.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So you can imagine the fantasies that possessed him too would be, well, once we establish this new utopia, and the communists promised free love. It's a common leftist, as if it's love, which it isn't, and as if sex is free, which it never is. What happens at the end of the scarlet beast, whore of Babylon dichotomy, say, interaction is the beast kills the prostitute. So that's perfect, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Because so the degenerate, the degenerative patriarchal state breeds the commoditization of female sexuality, but ultimately destroys all pleasure. And I also think that's happening now. I mean, you have radically high rates of virginity, for example, among Japanese and South Koreans and in the West more broadly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
a breakdown, an apparent breakdown of the relationship between men and women, not least politically, right? With the men starting to fly off into the conservative sphere of influence and the women becoming increasingly liberal. So that's another, it shows you the fact that these mythological tropes appear fitting, shows you how deep the malaise is, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
The culture war is way deeper than the political.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, and the foundational principle there is sexual identity, right? Of course. This is a very strange thing about these fragmented identity claims is that they— Like, an identity should unite, and it should serve a psychological and a social purpose simultaneously. Sure. An identity that's predicated on hedonistic orientation isn't an identity at all.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Okay, so now we can link the transgression back to your original idea that... You have a hierarchy of social status, let's say, let's call it conservative. And so now the parasitic predators swarm in and they splinter it. They splinter with transgression. Sure. Right. So that's an important thing to note.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, right. All game rules are repressive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
In psychopathology, that's splitting, by the way. Sociologically, one of the things I've noticed about my home country, it's really stark in Canada. if conservatives protest, they're flattened. Left protest, there's no holds barred. No matter how pathological it becomes, the left-wing protesters are always the heroic victims. The trucker convoy was a great example of that, right?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Because, you know, it was a disruptive demonstration, although remarkably peaceful. And the legal repercussions are still unrolling. And I think maybe it's, tell me what you think about this, I think it's because it might be partly the spread of the ideas of Marcuse through the culture. Yeah, absolutely. But I also think that people are genuinely
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
There's something to genuinely fear when actual conservatives protest because they don't do it until they're pushed to the wall. There may be. There may be, but I think it's— Well, is it also an indication that something very fundamental has gone sideways? That's true. Because conservatives aren't the protesting type.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
One of the things that I think... Tell me what you think about this, but... I don't think we should name any names in this podcast, if that's okay with you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, those left-wing movements in the 60s all floated on a cloud of free love.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Okay, we can talk about why that is as we progress. Okay, good, good. I mean, I wasn't going to make that a cut-and-dried rule, but I have my reasons. So you just referred to some comments I made on Fox News and also to some degree on Rogan.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And the excuse was if you don't— Well, degenerate's the right word, too, I think, because I think one of the hallmarks— because if you were a relativist, you might say, well, who are you to place— modes of orienting yourself in the world in a hierarchy. Yeah, sure. Because you described some of them as degenerate.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
The reason that they're degenerate is because when they're employed, they degenerate. Yeah, sure, of course. Right, so they're games that violate their own principles as they play themselves out.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Defined primarily by full sexual liberation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
talking about, and I've actually written a fair pass along this. You know, there's been this idea that the extremes of political belief meet, hey?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So let's hash that out a little bit. You seem to find useful or possibly accept this additional diagnostic distinction, which would be cluster B or dark tetrad.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, I've been thinking about it as the hijacking of belief, right? That's a nice phrase. It's a parasite. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So do we, maybe we could lay out some of the behavioral markers so that, because we might as well make this concrete. I can tell you what I've observed about the behavior of psychopathic parasites online. Okay. Sure. Maybe if you have five of these, you're one of them. You know what I mean? So anyone alone isn't enough.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So in the comment sections, for example, anonymity is a marker. Mm-hmm. Use of a transgressive cover name, often satanic, often. So, you know, and it's tongue in cheek, but no, it's not. Derisive language, right? So that would be language indicative of contempt. Contempt's a really toxic emotion, contempt and disgust. Hitler used disgust language to characterize the Jews, not fear language.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And you destroy things you're disgusted by. That's right. You stay away from things you're afraid of.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right, absolutely, absolutely. They use derisive language. and contemptuous, what do you call those? LOL is a good example.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Now, you know there's lulz culture online. Yes, of course. I do it for the lulz. That's a hallmark of sadism. Now, those people, people who do those things, so those are four or five things, anonymity, pathological, nom de plume, derisive language, and then the use of these contemptuous and cool acronyms. Belittling, they use the word dude. That's a real good marker. Yeah.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Or they'll use a derisive nickname to kind of equalize the playing field.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah. Yeah, right. Diminutive.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right, right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right. Yeah, yeah. So those are markers. What else have I seen? An insane rise in explicit anti-Semitism. And that's been going on for about five years.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So this shit posting problem, so that's part of the enabling of the psychopaths by the free social media platforms, right? By the costless social media platforms. Do you have any sense? So we're working out ways to identify people.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's like a biblical plague of locusts.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So... The proliferation of this kind of pathology seems to be linked to... Another characteristic is the attempt to get people to distance themselves from you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Yeah, well, that's disgust terminology again, right? You're the carrier of something pathological. That's right. Yeah. So the social media platforms, so Musk's perspective, and Rogan's to some degree too, mine for that matter, is that the best antiseptic is sunlight. But there might be a flaw in that reasoning, and maybe you can help me think it through.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
When I'm sitting across from you, I bear the weight of my words, right? It's going to have an impact on the net, but it's also going to impact the relationship I have with you. And so I'm constrained or regulated. I'm regulated in my utterances by consequences. And so there's never been a time, really, where free speech existed without reputational weight.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Now, maybe pamphleteering and that sort of thing, but that's trivial compared to what we have now. I mean, how many people can you get your pamphlet to? And what sort of effect is that going to have? That was back in the time of writing, but now... your pathology can multiply virtually without end. And then I'm thinking, well, maybe it's necessary.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I thought for Twitter, for example, that there should be two sections. There should be a section where people's identification is validated and a section for the anonymous trolls. And that should be... demarcated. So you can go visit hell land of trolls if you want, but you know that they're not real people. Now, the problem with that, as far as I can tell, is the digital ID problem.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
The net allows people to escape the reputational consequences of their psychopathology, their destructive, sadistic, corrosive, power-mad, hedonistic psychopathology. It's a terrible thing. And people have no idea how dangerous it is. But if you verify IDs electronically, then we walk down the... root to Chinese totalitarianism, something like that, as far as I can.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, the guy who just got, the man who just got elected prime minister in Canada, he says two quite stunning things in his book, which no Canadians read because... we'll leave that lie. 75% of the world's fossil fuels have to stay in the ground. Okay, that's proposition number one. And he's made that a centerpiece of his thinking for 20 years.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
There's no priority guiding every financial decision by every individual and every corporation that should be prioritized higher than decarbonization. That means every single thing, and then he says, of course, there'll be losers in consequence of that, but it's a price we're willing to pay, we have to pay, the sacrifice of others.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
So this is a man who thinks that net zero is the proper game and that if you were a moral actor, decarbonization would be your God, right? Regulate every single one of your decisions. Well, out of that comes the kind of pathocracy that you described. It's like, you've seen this already. There's edges appearing. There's credit cards.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
They were issued in Australia that track your carbon footprint, right? And at the moment, you're still allowed to spend on whatever you want, regardless of your, at the moment, that's exactly right. And once you're fully trackable, Well, then we know what'll happen. You know exactly what'll happen. You'll be nudged in whatever direction benefits the power-mad Luciferians.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
That's exactly what'll happen.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
That's for sure. Because the AI systems trained on your purchasing behavior, for example, will be able to predict your likely behavior with a stellar degree of accuracy. That's right. Right. I mean, the advertisements that you're fed already do that to some degree. That's right. So the only solution I can
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
think of to this is to, because the digital ID solution seems to be troublesome, to say the least, means no privacy whatsoever, forever, fundamentally. I guess it's exposing this and hoping that people make wise decisions. And I guess that's what you're trying to do with the woke right idea.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And the cardinal sin of Lucifer is pride. Hello, everybody. My guest today is James Lindsay, who's been a commentator on cultural affairs for a good 10 years, I suppose longer than that, but being well-known for that long. He was one of the people, along with Helen Pluckrose and others, who published a sequence of papers in radical journals that were... not genuine, let's put it that way.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
You think the administrators can stay ahead of the bots?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I don't know. No, that's another problem, right, is that the system transforms itself so rapidly that it's very difficult to regulate it.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I don't know. Maybe it should be a branch of the military.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, we've already talked to some of the groups that I'm working with Women 18 to 34 have political opinions that are way off center compared to everyone else. Plus they're dreadfully miserable.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Right. Well, they get 80% of their news from TikTok. And TikTok is a bought farm fundamentally.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And the algorithms are designed to... produce exactly the kind of upsetting pathology that characterizes female voters between the ages of 18 to 34.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And to identify the parasitic predators and keep them at bay.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Plus, you're irritated that your identity has been targeted for 30 years. Yeah, of course.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
One of the things people can watch, for everybody who's watching and listening, is beware of anything that's motivated by resentment. You know, the mere fact that you have had difficulties that are somewhat arbitrary, first of all, doesn't distinguish you from the main run of the human race.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
But if the motivation stems out of resentment, the probability that something horrible has got a hold of your soul is extremely high.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
You know, that's the story of Cain, eh?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Cain's sacrifices are not rewarded. he invites this spirit of resentment in to occupy his soul and becomes not only murderous, but the progenitor of genocide and the precursor to the flood, right? And the media, it's so interesting, James, because So Cain's sacrifices are rejected and it's a little ambiguous as to why. And then he goes to complain to God.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And God says, basically he says, you think you're miserable because you're failing. It's like, you're not. There's lots of things you could do about failing. If you did well, you would be accepted, right? What you've done is you have allowed something terribly tempting that crouched on your doorstep to enter your house and have its way with you.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And that's why you're bitter, resentful, and murderous. It has nothing to do with your failure. It's this additional variable, which is, because the thing is, everyone, in a sense, this is true of heroes in mythology, everyone starts out lowly. Everyone starts out dispossessed. Everyone starts out oppressed.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And there's angles of your identity that you can construe as oppressor-oppressed narrative with no problem. If you decide that you've been treated unfairly and now you have a right to resentment and revenge, then, well, then you're the monster that breeds genocide.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
There's a Luciferian— And so what does he do, though?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
His successful brother.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
That's what happens in the Tower of Babel.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
That's right. That's exactly right. Remember, words lose their meaning and no one can understand. That's right. Nobody can understand each other.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
These people that have a longer perspective and a deeper body of work, it's hard because... Well, that's a crucial... So that touches on Douglas's point too, is that to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's right. One of the things... Institutions are corrupt, but due diligence matters. Right, right.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
What has this person who's saying these things done and to whose benefit is what they're saying? So you have these pretenders. I think this is... Maybe we can end with this at this section. I think what we'll do... maybe on the Daily Wire side, is talk about the anti-Semitic trope, but I'd like to introduce that for a bit. I don't understand it exactly.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I don't understand why the woke right, for example, is particularly capitalizing on anti-Semitism. Do you just think that that's a particularly daring and attention-seeking approach? Transgression? I mean, are they proclaiming that they'll violate something sacred because that's how brave they are?
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Well, we'll continue this on the Daily Wire side, and that way we can attract the maximum number of commentators who say that the reason we saved the discussion of anti-Semitism for the Daily Wire section is because I'm under the thumb of Ben Shapiro and the Zionists.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
I see. Okay. Well, apparently we're in the same club.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
All right. Good talking to you, sir. Thanks very much for coming in today. Thank you to all of you who are watching and listening and to the film crew here in Scottsdale for making this completely preposterous conversation possible and helping us broadcast the word to be awake and be careful. who you're listening to and why you're listening and what spirit possesses you while you're listening.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And beware of resentment, boys and girls, that everyone in hell is resentful. So, good to talk to you, sir.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Okay, so let's lay down some theses and tell me what you think of them. So the first is that about 4% to 5% of the population, maybe more, has dark tetrad cluster B traits to some significant degree. And so that was histrionic, narcissistic, antisocial, and psychopathic. That's the cluster B cluster. Whether those are psychopathologies, like illnesses, that's a matter of dispute.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
They're certainly forms of severe... social misbehavior, manipulative social misbehavior. And people who fall into those categories will use cries of victimization to parasitize. So they're parasitizing on empathy, that's one hallmark. They have disordered interpersonal relationships, often very intense. They're predatory, particularly the antisocial types.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
That's more straight, repetitive criminals. Very stable pattern of behavior. So let's say 4% to 5%. It's probably increased because of the net. That would be my guess because it's not well regulated on the net because most of our evolved mechanisms for dealing with such people don't work.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Especially, we could talk about anonymity, because I can understand why people defend it, but by the same token, it allows you to escape from your well-deserved reputation.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
And that was very scandalous. It was part of an attempt to expose the pathology that had set into certain aspects of the academic institutions. And it's become much more widespread now. James has got himself in trouble in recent months, once again, for popularizing the phrase woke right by accusing students
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
It's particularly true because it's literally cost-free. Yeah. Right. So you might imagine that any storehouse of value is likely to be parasitized to the degree that you can invade it for no cost.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Okay, so this is what I think happened to the universities, right? Is that they're whale carcasses, and they've been invaded by parasites. And the whale carcass idea is a very old one. It's a huge storehouse of value, right? So since World War II, the West was on a pretty productive trajectory, and we generated massive storehouses of value in many, many places.
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
544. When the Right Goes Too Far | Dr. James Lindsay
Those would be financial storehouses, but reputational storehouses even more, that's even more germane. Like Harvard has both. It did have both, right? 53 billion dollars plus a stellar reputation.