The part of me that lurks underneath isn't finished grappling with this French journalist acting the tough, hard-bitten reporter

In this occasional series, Jordan Peterson writes from his international speaking tour for his book, 12 Rules for Life, where he’s speaking to sold out crowds throughout North America, Europe and Australia.

So it’s 2:39 a.m. in Oslo, Norway. I woke up in a too-hot hotel room out of a fitful nightmare, which I can only partially remember. I haven’t had a dream that I could recall even that clearly in a very long period of time. The last one was about traveling and speaking and not getting enough to eat. That was about six months ago. It occurred just before I embarked on what has now been a nine-month, 85-city world tour. I am on a very restricted diet, eating only beef and water, as a consequence of what appears to be a rather intractable auto-immune disease. I was concerned at some deep unconscious level about what might go wrong if I set out to talk with 250,000 people: If I could not eat, then I could not think and then things would not go well. Hence the nightmare. It was a warning of what might go wrong (and has not).

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In this dream I was speaking to a young man. He was very garrulous and irritating; he was unkempt, poorly put together, and he simply would not shut up. Everything he said was designed to provoke and to test. He finally pushed me beyond my limit of tolerance. I grabbed him, physically, and threw him against the wall. It was like wrestling with dough.

In my dream, I wrestled my opponent to the ground. He was still talking, mindlessly, mechanically, rapidly, nonstop. I bent his wrists to force his knuckles into his mouth. His arms bent like rubber and, even though I managed the task, he did not stop babbling. I woke up. 2:39 in Oslo. I’m not in good spirits.

Last night I was interviewed by a young journalist from France. He had flown in with a camerawoman from Paris. He had been trying to have what might have been — but wasn’t — a discussion with me for several months, flying at one point to Rochester, New York to attend one of my lectures, but failing to produce the appropriate paperwork for my tour manager. He wanted to talk to me about the degenerating state of modern masculinity — the alienation felt by what appears to be an increasing number of young men — and what particular attraction what I have been saying on YouTube and on my podcasts and in my book might have for such people. A part of him really wanted to know, and that was how we opened the discussion.

I told him that the dominant narrative in our culture is predicated on the assumption that the West is a tyrannical patriarchy; that all its accomplishments are a consequence of the exploitation of the dispossessed; and that the only true way to a desirable position is through the expression of power. I told him that young men are therefore faced with a Devil’s choice: if they are ambitious and competent (or even not ambitious or competent) then they will be treated, not least by themselves, as if they are expressing precisely the traits that produced this terrible tyranny, and are no better than the infinite oppressors of the past. This happens because it has become acceptable in our time to put forward a version of history, the present and the future that is based on a deep hatred for men (or, even worse, a deep hatred for competence). This is a very enervating, demotivating, discouraging story, as it takes what is best about the best young men — their desire for competence, contribution, cooperation, competition and success — and turns it into something indictable.

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This is the reason for the despair of young men. I explained that to the French journalist, but he could not listen. He had brought a list of pre-prepared questions, “hard questions,” as he considered them, and did not have the confidence in his own desperation and curiosity to pursue the question that was actually guiding him. He considered himself a liberal, meaning someone attracted by the more radical end of the left, and the story I was telling him was simply not comprehensible: not without the demolition of his entire manner of looking at the world. So he did not have the ears to hear, and actually repeated the question three more times. I gave the same answer each time, to no avail.

We did not have a discussion. Instead, he acted out his version of the tough, hard-bitten reporter, the asker of the aforementioned “hard questions,” which were descriptions of episodes gleaned from my adventures and misadventures over the last two years, which he laid at my feet in an attempt to demonstrate to me the moral unacceptability of my ways.

Why had I discussed “enforced monogamy” with a reporter from the New York Times? Why had I tweeted the Facebook page of a Communist activist from Ryerson who had posted flyers accusing me of being a public menace by the dozens in my neighbourhood? Wasn’t all the money I was making from my book and tour merely evidence that I had found a weak spot in desperate young men and exploiting them shamelessly?

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We didn’t discuss the reasons why millions of people have read my book, and had their lives changed for the better; we didn’t discuss the strange fact that thousands of people in cities all over the world attend my lectures. We didn’t even discuss the plight of young men — even though he was clearly someone who shared that plight. I don’t think I conducted myself particularly well.

After we had wrapped up, we spoke a bit more off camera. He told me that he truly believed in a world of privilege for white males of a certain class — a class he belonged to. I told him that he therefore bore guilt for which there was no possibility of expiation. I told him that instead of guilt he could decide to take responsibility for his relative good fortune. He could do good with what he had been granted, and multiply the talents, so to speak, that were awarded to him at his birth. I told him that how much money I was making was not the issue (and certainly not something I am ashamed about) but that what I did with the money was the relevant point. I told him that I planned to put my fortune, such as it is, to the best use that I can imagine, personally, for my family, and for the broader community, if I can manage that, and that I could not think of a better adventure than that.

But we caught none of that on tape, and I am not optimistic about the future of the interview, once edited and shaped, as it surely will be.

Afterward, very stressed, I returned to my hotel room. It was about 8:30 in the evening. My wife Tammy was sleeping, trying to shake a persistent cold. She asked me how it went. I said, “terrible.” I hadn’t spent two hours talking to a person. The person wasn’t there, or was barely there (even though the journalist had the makings, I would say, of a fine young man). I couldn’t reach him. Instead, I had a very irritating discussion with an ideologically possessed puppet and that was both too familiar and too unpleasant. I had a shower, and we went for a steak, and we tried to put the episode behind us, as we must, under such conditions, when the next city and the next audience beckons, the very next day. But the part of me that lurks underneath, dreaming, still had something to say.



Jordan B. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist and the author of the multi-million copy bestseller 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. His blog and podcasts can be found at jordanbpeterson.com