YOUTUBE VIDEOS: You can find the 2016 Maps of Meaning and Personality Lectures, as well more than two hundred of my previous talks, going back to 1996, on my YouTube channel: Jordan Peterson Videos

The very existence of self-deception remains subject to debate, despite its apparently “normative” nature, and the immense effort devoted towards its explication. The consequences of self-deception, assuming its existence, appear no less ill-specified: classical theories of morality and personality place it at the very core of the process that generates psychopathology, while the increasingly mainstream view of social psychology appears to be that self-deception – at least in “optimal” doses – makes people happier, empathic, creative and more productive.

When an issue remains contentious, despite diligent efforts to address it, it is very likely that it has been poorly conceptualized – very likely that the spoken and unspoken presuppositions that underlie its current formulation are ill-defined or simply wrong.

We will, in consequence, lay out these presuppositions, alter them where necessary, and reformulate the idea of self-deception, using information derived from cybernetic theory and modern neuropsychology, buttressed by knowledge of relevant narrative, mythological, and philosophical thinking.