Jordan Peterson on Mass Psychosis and Marxism | Oz Talk with Jordan Peterson
In this video, Dr. Oz and Jordan Peterson explore the topic of mass psychosis. Jordan Peterson touches upon the collective virtue of following what the masses are saying and doing. He expresses that although you should serve your community, what if your community is wrong? This could be dangerous. If so, then you need the capacity of malevolence to say, “No.”
Also, Jordan Peterson presents the question, “When does obedience become pathological?” He explains that you need to be mindful of when the collective asks something of you that violates your conscious. This can only happen if you have had a dialogue with your conscious for a while.
Later, Dr. Oz mentions that many people feel they are part of a herd and might not do as much questioning as they would have done maybe a decade ago. Jordan Peterson attributes this to the way systems are constructed and how social and economic structures also come into play. When people say that Marxism could be the solution that could eradicate the problem of inequality, Jordan Peterson feels that Marxism fails to contend with the depth of the problem of inequality. He says that it is a natural and even a physical phenomenon because advantage breeds advantage. You get to a point in life where everything you do may bring more money. You may know more people, you may have more resources, and more people may know you. But by the same token, disadvantage breeds disadvantage.
Also, Jordan Peterson presents the question, “When does obedience become pathological?” He explains that you need to be mindful of when the collective asks something of you that violates your conscious. This can only happen if you have had a dialogue with your conscious for a while.
Later, Dr. Oz mentions that many people feel they are part of a herd and might not do as much questioning as they would have done maybe a decade ago. Jordan Peterson attributes this to the way systems are constructed and how social and economic structures also come into play. When people say that Marxism could be the solution that could eradicate the problem of inequality, Jordan Peterson feels that Marxism fails to contend with the depth of the problem of inequality. He says that it is a natural and even a physical phenomenon because advantage breeds advantage. You get to a point in life where everything you do may bring more money. You may know more people, you may have more resources, and more people may know you. But by the same token, disadvantage breeds disadvantage.
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00:00 I suspect everybody who can hear our voice right now
00:02 Realizes they could be in Auschwitz-Gard. This Milgram experiment, famous the electroshock experiment
00:08 Maybe you guys play that to everybody. I think reflective of the fact that it's exceedingly rare
00:13 Probably that we cannot get into that groupthink mentality, the mass psychosis. Well, look, you know
00:19 That's part of the danger of the collective, right?
00:22 Is that well you should serve your community and you should subordinate yourself to your community
00:27 Well, yes, but what if your community is wrong?
00:30 well, then you have to have the gall and
00:34 That would be associated with the capacity for malevolence because to have that much gall you need that capacity for malevolence to say no
00:43 But that's very difficult now and that's allied with a virtue right the virtue is that we're consensus building creatures
00:50 We're communitarian. We tend to go along with the crowd which most of the time is the right thing to do
00:56 It's a virtue, but that is definitely also a danger and you know, you think well
01:02 We're how do you know when that danger is manifesting itself?
01:04 and I would say well that's when the collective demands of you to do something that violates your conscience and
01:09 But to do that property that means you've also had to have a dialogue with your conscience for a long time in the Pinocchio movies
01:16 There's something very sophisticated about the Disney movie that little cricket JC
01:21 And those initials are not
01:24 Chance my goodness. I didn't think about that till now. Yes, Jiminy Cricket was a slang
01:29 swearword
01:32 Alternative for Jesus Christ. Yes. So yes and why and you think so a bug is Jesus Christ. It's like yeah, cuz it bugs you
01:40 It's like it's that still small voice right that says hmm, maybe not
01:45 Okay, but but so interesting you see in the movie the cricket and even though he's Christ weirdly enough
01:54 He has to learn to as the movie progresses
01:57 there's a dialogue between Pinocchio and the conscience and that's partly because
02:00 Your conscience in some ways is a generic voice and it has to enter into a dialogue with you to become a
02:07 particularized voice for you
02:09 and so you have to consult it and sharpen it by paying attention to it and
02:13 Interacting with it and you can do that in part by partly by feeling so when I'm speaking
02:19 I'm feeling my words like is that a solid word? You know is is that okay?
02:23 Is that or am I feeling fake about that word? That's that's a big thing
02:28 Is that word sir? I trying to impress someone with that word or I'm just trying to say what?
02:32 What manifests itself to me at the moment as whatever truth I can manage
02:38 dialogue with your conscience and something to practice and
02:42 So that's part of what helps us cope with evil within and it also tells us when we need to stand up against what society is
02:49 Doing it's like no, I can't say that. I mean in my country
02:53 There was a law a few years ago that was passed that mandated speech
02:56 There was certain forms of discourse that I was obliged to use. I thought I don't care what your reason is
03:02 I don't care what your reason is. I'm not saying what you want me to say. I'm going to say what I
03:09 Can step on and that will support me and then I also thought well when the government is telling me what to say
03:17 Then they've gone out of their bailiwick
03:21 and
03:23 So and what I didn't do it because I was brave. I don't think that's the reason at all
03:27 It was because I felt the consequences of not doing it would be worse
03:31 so
03:33 It's partly being what I hope why you know afraid of the right thing
03:36 and so in that conscience that guides you that's also the force that revitalizes society because society becomes
03:43 obsolete with time and it tends towards corruption
03:47 You know as the leftists constantly point out well and people on the right as well who are afraid of big government
03:52 You know groups tend to some degree towards corruption and they ossify if they don't change across time
03:59 and so the conscience that tells you when to resist the consensus is also the
04:04 manifestation of the transformative force that keeps the collective alive and
04:08 so
04:09 Well, you better have allegiance to that above all else because everything fails
04:13 If if everyone doesn't have allegiance to that then everything turns into stone and we all perish of thirst
04:19 So and that's not that's not some I could say I was going to say that's not some fairy tale
04:25 So yes, it is every fairy tale. Exactly. Yes, it's every fairy tale
04:29 But ignore it at your peril
04:32 Well when you first read the Milbank experiment and realized that you could get I don't know if it's everybody
04:38 But I think everybody in the study actually electro shocked
04:40 the victim the pretend victim
04:43 Way up past the point of reality. Yes. So in in this experiment, basically they got
04:50 Students subjects to kill the person that they were. Yeah
04:54 They didn't realize it but they were being told was it opposite them because they did something wrong
05:00 Yeah, even if it wasn't something that was that the person's fault. Yeah. Well, it was a manipulative experiment in some sense a because
05:06 look
05:08 universities were trusted and
05:10 The authorities within universities were trusted and the universities within the political system were essentially trusted
05:18 And that was all inside a polity that was actually functioning pretty well
05:21 So people had reason to be trusted then the psychologist put this weird unexpected twist in it and said
05:27 Well us trustworthy people are going to demand of you something. That's you know
05:32 Unconscionable and that's a hell of a lot for people to contend with in the moment, right?
05:39 Because they have to in some sense comprehend a level of manipulativeness. That's almost beyond comprehension
05:45 They have to almost instantaneously and then the psychologists also dragged them along sort of step by step
05:50 So it's it's a hell of a thing to ask people to resist
05:53 especially when there was reason for trust and you could contrast that say with the Nazi era the
05:59 Stalinist era where people had every reason to distrust and thousands of examples of that across time and so
06:08 That's a criticism of the experiment the appreciation of it was yeah, but look what you can get people to do
06:14 Right. So, you know, there's lessons on both sides of that for psychologists and also for well for all of us
06:20 Obedience, you know when disobedience become pathological
06:24 well
06:24 I think the answer to that is well when what is demanded of you violates your conscience assuming that you have a
06:30 Relatively pristine relationship with that conscience. We seem moving towards an era when people are
06:36 They feel more like they're in a herd the herd mentality
06:40 that has allowed people to do things without a without much questioning that they probably wouldn't have done even a decade ago and
06:48 To my to my mind comes the arc the broader acceptance that Marxism
06:53 communism
06:56 Socialism might provide a better alternative to entrepreneurism
06:59 Something that was so foreign that you know, you probably would have been prosecuted not persecuted prosecuted if you've done it 50 years ago
07:06 Now it's being widely taught in schools. Is that true?
07:08 how would that happen so quickly and and how does it people get comfortable with
07:14 Ideas that are clearly destructive to the ones they're in what makes them so miserable
07:19 They would accept that or some of it is they do see and just what what is perceived injustice
07:24 I mean there is inequality and the problem of inequality
07:28 Let's say with regards to economic distribution is a profound problem
07:32 And they're part of the reason that I don't appreciate the Marxist take there's many many reasons. It's a profoundly
07:39 What would you say doesn't work at all to say the least it actually doesn't take the problem of inequality seriously enough
07:48 How so well, it's a real problem
07:51 I mean this proclivity for more and more to be
07:55 To end up in the hands of fewer and fewer people that seems to be true of every system
08:00 And so it's a big problem. Well, look look what happens when you play Monopoly
08:03 What happens you the winner gets everything and everyone else loses, right?
08:09 And so you can even see that manifesting itself in small-scale systems
08:13 And so we're always battling in some sense human beings always battle against this
08:18 unbelievably deep
08:20 Proclivity physicists have even modeled the distribution of money using physical equations to account for the proclivity
08:27 for
08:29 All to be in the hands of one
08:32 The systems tend towards that across time now the problem of course is that communist systems also have the same problem
08:40 right because if you look say in the Stalinist era or in for through the entire history of the Soviet Union
08:46 It wasn't like there was there was a tiny minority of people at the top who had everything just like in a capitalist system
08:52 And so when you say well Marxism would eradicate the problem of equality
08:57 What you're failing to contend with is the depth of the problem of inequality
09:01 It's something that it's it's something like it's it's like a natural phenomenon even a physical phenomenon. And so
09:08 We have to take it seriously because what it means is that there's going to be
09:12 Privation at the bottom the poor will be with us always well why well, that's this problem of inequality
09:19 And it's because as you get let's say money getting more is easier
09:25 You know more people you have more reach more people know you you get to a point where everything you do turns into money and
09:32 so
09:34 Advantage breeds advantage and then by the same token disadvantage breeds disadvantage
09:39 Right and so instead of going up like this and down like this you go up like this and down like this
09:45 And this is okay
09:47 if that's you doing it and we're all doing that collectively to some degree because we're
09:51 We're all getting richer very very rapidly collectively speaking, but this is a not so good thing at all man
09:58 You know when things go wrong
10:00 Well, you get hurt you get hit you're a little weaker
10:02 Just as susceptible to a blow maybe more you get another blow. It's like bang bang bang bang
10:09 Well, the limit of that is you're dead
10:11 and so
10:13 This is a very serious problem and the problem with the Marxist solution is that it doesn't address the problem
10:19 It doesn't take the problem seriously enough, and we don't know how to solve the problem. It's very hard problem to solve