Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

He said something that I found extremely interesting.

There's a scene in Dostoevsky's great book, The Brothers Karamazov, which is a classic scene.

The book features the brothers, obviously, two of whom are Ivan and Alyosha.

And Alyosha is a monastic novitiate, so he's a religious man.

And his brother Ivan is a charming, materialistic atheist who can really wrap his brother up in verbal arguments with no problem.

One of the things that makes this book so utterly remarkable is that Ivan really has everything going for him on the arrogant intellect side.

But Dostoevsky shows in the dramatization and characterization in the novel that Alyosha is the better man.

And what he's trying to indicate there is that whatever constitutes the deepest form of ethic is not necessarily the same thing that makes you the most effective verbal adversary.

And also to make the point that just winning the argument doesn't mean you're right.

And that's something to really remember with people.

It's really something to remember with your wife or your husband.

But I'm dead serious about that, you know.

The fact that you might be able to defeat your wife in an argument or vice versa does not mean that you were right.

And if you're wrong and you win, that's a really bad thing.

Because then you're wrong and you think you're right.

And if you were unbearable before, you're going to be a lot more unbearable after that.

And so one of the reasons you really want to listen to your partner and maybe even help them make their point is, you know, just so you could investigate the off probability that someone as wonderful as you still has something to learn.

And, you know, the thing is, if you're stupid and you learn why, even though it's painful, the advantage is that you don't have to be stupid again in the future.

And that's a big advantage, you know, and it's a really big advantage for your wife.

So...