504. Fired for Honesty and Competence: One Genuine Teacher's Story | Warren Smith

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast – Episode 504: "Fired for Honesty and Competence: One Genuine Teacher's Story | Warren Smith"

Introduction In Episode 504 of The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, host Dr. Jordan B. Peterson engages in a profound conversation with Warren Smith, a dedicated high school teacher who found himself at the center of a cultural and professional storm after a classroom discussion video went viral. This detailed summary captures the essence of their dialogue, highlighting key themes such as free speech in education, the impact of viral media, and the challenges of teaching in a behaviorally challenged school environment.

1. Background: Warren Smith's Teaching Career Warren Smith began his teaching journey after graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in Video Production in 2019. Initially employed at a public high school in Massachusetts, Smith's career took an unexpected turn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading him to a specialized institution catering to students with behavioral challenges.

Notable Quote:

• Warren Smith [03:39]: "I found myself in this unlikely position... I enjoyed it."

2. The Viral Video: Classroom Discussion on J.K. Rowling Smith recorded a classroom discussion where he employed critical thinking to address a student's claim that J.K. Rowling held transphobic views. The calm and professional manner in which Smith navigated the contentious topic resonated with viewers, leading to the video’s virality after being shared by Elon Musk.

Notable Quotes:

• Warren Smith [00:38]: "Hey, you've heard. So what? Can you give me an example?"
• Jordan Peterson [00:53]: "The calm demeanor, the intelligent questioning of the student, really the professional way that he handled the discussion... was remarkable."

3. Aftermath: Consequences of Going Viral The viral success of the video had immediate repercussions for Smith. He was promptly fired from his teaching position and faced further scrutiny during an interview with Piers Morgan. Smith likens his abrupt termination to being "deleted" from a video game after four years of dedication.

Notable Quotes:

• Warren Smith [02:25]: "I have devoted four years of my life to this school. And yesterday it was like being a character in a video game and just being deleted."
• Jordan Peterson [02:37]: "The consequences of saying what you think when the situation is set up to reward you for maintaining your silence."

4. Institutional Challenges: Teaching in a Behaviorally Challenged School Smith delves into the complexities of his role in a specialized school, where the teacher-to-student ratio was exceptionally high to manage aggressive and behavioral issues. Despite his lack of prior experience with such students, Smith thrived by integrating creative projects like video editing and Photoshop to engage the students constructively.

Notable Quotes:

• Warren Smith [09:13]: "I interviewed well. I think they saw potential."
• Jordan Peterson [14:19]: "There was a lot of freedom to that. But the challenge is that it allows them to come in at their convenience if they..."

5. The Piers Morgan Interview: Navigating Media Exposure Following the viral video, Smith was invited to appear on Piers Morgan’s show. Embracing the opportunity, he chose to participate without seeking prior permission, embodying the principle that "it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission." The interview was brief but significant, solidifying his presence in the public eye.

Notable Quotes:

• Warren Smith [49:17]: "Because I have regretted things in my life before... I would rather try and run with this ball as far as I can take it..."
• Jordan Peterson [60:39]: "If you're going to step outside of the bounds of normal propriety, doesn't hurt to have a plan..."

6. Institutional Responses and Free Speech Smith discusses the school's administrative response to his actions, highlighting the rigid policies that allowed his termination despite his adherence to existing guidelines. He emphasizes the broader implications for free speech within educational institutions, suggesting that bureaucratic fears often stifle genuine discourse and entrepreneurial teaching methods.

Notable Quotes:

• Warren Smith [73:55]: "I think they needed it good enough. I thought they were just not going to renew my contract over the summer."
• Jordan Peterson [73:25]: "The dean has narrate in your own home what you do with YouTube. How does that correlate to the dean's business or the university's business?"

7. Personal Reflections and Insights Throughout the conversation, both Smith and Peterson reflect on the nature of risk, regret, and personal growth. Smith shares his past regrets about not pursuing certain opportunities in filmmaking, drawing parallels to his decision to embrace the viral moment despite potential fallout. Peterson reinforces the idea that taking calculated risks is essential for meaningful success and personal fulfillment.

Notable Quotes:

• Warren Smith [59:27]: "The pain of regret is a unique form of pain."
• Jordan Peterson [59:36]: "It's a kind of self betrayal... That's what the door opened."

8. Conclusions: The Balance Between Safety and Opportunity The episode culminates in a discussion about the delicate balance between adhering to institutional rules and pursuing innovative, risk-taking approaches in education. Smith's experience serves as a case study for the broader societal tension between conformity and individuality, highlighting the necessity of fostering environments where critical thinking and honest discourse are encouraged rather than punished.

Notable Quotes:

• Jordan Peterson [81:03]: "You have to deeply understand that no risk is first of all not desirable. You actually don't want a risk-free life..."
• Warren Smith [80:15]: "I need to run with this opportunity, grow if I can, with this platform in case something happens."

Final Thoughts Episode 504 offers listeners an in-depth look into the challenges faced by educators advocating for free speech and critical thinking within restrictive institutional frameworks. Warren Smith's journey underscores the importance of maintaining integrity and openness in teaching, even in the face of adversity and systemic opposition. Dr. Jordan B. Peterson's thoughtful questioning provides a platform for exploring these vital issues, encouraging listeners to reflect on the broader implications for education and personal agency in contemporary society.

Transcript

[Jordan Peterson]

Hello, everybody. I had the opportunity to sit down in person today with Warren Smith. Warren was a teacher and he recorded himself having a discussion with a student about a rather contentious topic. Turned out to be J.K. rowling's reactions to the trans propaganda insanity that plagues our culture in 15 different ways.

[Student]

Do you still like her work despite her bigoted opinions?

[Warren Smith]

So let's get specific, though, and let's define bigoted opinions. What opinions are bigoted?

[Student]

She has had a history of being extremely transphobic. I've heard.

[Warren Smith]

Hey, you've heard. So what? Can you give me an example?

[Student]

In 2019, she said, live your best life in peace and security, but force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real.

[Warren Smith]

So you find that bigoted? What do you find about it?

[Jordan Peterson]

Was the video, which was remarkable, I would say, for the good sense that Warren brought to it. The calm demeanor, the intelligent questioning of the student, really the professional way that he handled the discussion, which is now so rare among those who purport to be teachers, that the mere fact of its professionalism was remarkable in and of itself. Enough so that it went viral.

[Warren Smith]

Do you find that transphobic yourself?

[Student]

I don't really have an opinion on it, but I'm just going with what a lot of other people have said.

[Warren Smith]

So let's pause it. Let's not go with what other people are saying. Let's try and learn how to critically think. So let's analyze the tweet ourselves. So that statement, do you see anything problematic?

[Jordan Peterson]

Was shared by Elon Musk among many other people, and as you might imagine, that produced an explosive effect on Warren's life.

[Warren Smith]

So it happened yesterday. I was fired from my full time teaching position.

[Jordan Peterson]

That was followed up by a Piers Morgan interview, which I guess was the secondary explosion in the two explosions that rocked his life.

[Warren Smith]

I am absolutely surprised by this, completely. I never expected this at all. This came out accidentally. Just we have interactions like this on a daily basis. This one just happened to be captured.

[Jordan Peterson]

On camera, which was also quite distressing, as you might expect, given his level of commitment to his teaching profession.

[Warren Smith]

I have devoted four years of my life to this school. And yesterday it was like being a character in a video game and just being deleted.

[Jordan Peterson]

I wanted to talk to Warren because I really liked the video that he made. I thought it was remarkable for its sanity, especially given the time. And I was very curious about everything that had happened to him in consequence of the viral explosion of what he had done as a teacher. And so we sat down for an hour and a Half to talk all that through. The consequences of saying what you think when the situation is set up to reward you for maintaining your silence. Join us for that discussion. Hello, Mr. Smith, thank you for coming in today.

[Warren Smith]

It's an honor. Thank you.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, no problem. Yeah, I, I probably came across you the way most people did and I, I guess that was with a video that went viral that Musk shared, eh. Lots of people who are watching and listening won't know anything about you. So why don't we start from the beginning. What, what was it that brought you to public attention and tell us the story about your teaching career.

[Warren Smith]

Well, public attention, it was that video that you're talking about. But the beginning. I mean I've been thinking about this a lot because I've had time to reflect on it more. After that video there was, it was a strange experience because suddenly you have one five minute video and suddenly you have this perceived value. But I mean I was the exact same person as before that video. Now I mean it was not for me. It was life changing though something. So I have people, some people wanting to talk to me, which was people that I have genuinely admired. Like, I mean this is a bit kind of the. But Dave Rubin just opportunities that I never, just never expected. And so I've been reflecting on those conversations because I often, I found myself kind of feeling like I was trying to live up to something from that video. So there's this idea of what suddenly I was labeled this kind of like this critical thinking, Socratic method guy. And it. I wasn't intentionally doing that at all. I have no background in Socratic method or critical thinking. I was just doing what I thought was sensible in the moment.

[Jordan Peterson]

You don't necessarily know who you are. You know, that's. That's the thing. And it wasn't exactly chance that made the video go viral. Right. You obviously touched on a nerve and in a, in a manner that people admired. Tell the story of the video and talk about your work too. You were working, you were working as a high school teacher when you released that video. Tell, tell people the story of the video and how it came to be and why it was recorded to begin with.

[Warren Smith]

Sure, sure. So I, after graduate school I found myself as a public school teacher right up before COVID the year leading into Covid, just a rate teaching what I majored in. And my plans were always to be a college professor and I teach some courses, but I'm not tenure track or anything. And perhaps one day I. But I found myself in this unlikely Position. And I enjoyed it. Teaching the same subject matter. Video technology. What we're doing right here, two high school kids.

[Jordan Peterson]

What was your. Now you had a mfa? Yes. And what was the specialty?

[Warren Smith]

Video production.

[Jordan Peterson]

In video production. And. And when did you graduate with a master's degree?

[Warren Smith]

19. 20. 19.

[Jordan Peterson]

2019. And then you were looking. What kind of jobs were you looking for in education. In education. And you landed a job as a high school teacher.

[Warren Smith]

High school teacher. Just by pure, kind of just chance. And I. You really enjoyed it. Covid hits. Everything goes ape crazy. The school shuts down. They make cuts because of the teachers union. All first year hires are gone. So that kind of left a taste in my mouth about unions. One of my first experiences with unions. And so I started looking for another job and I found a school that specialized in kids with behavioral challenges. And this is kind of what I was alluding to at the beginning. There are things that I've not. I've wanted to talk about in these kind of interviews that happen or when someone wants to discuss this, they want to discuss the video. And I find myself. You've spoken about. When you feel your words making you not what you could be or weaker, you can feel it.

[Jordan Peterson]

I decided that I would start practicing not saying things that would make me weak. And what happened was that I had to stop saying almost everything that I was saying.

[Warren Smith]

And that's how you practice with that. Have you to say that you had an impact on my life, which is why this is surreal. To say you had an impact on my life would be an understatement. And we can get into that. That was in graduate school.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay.

[Warren Smith]

But I was feeling that in those conversations, trying to live up to something in a way, I mean, it was. You're kind of saying that what people want to hear. Not trying to sound intelligent, but something along, something like that. And I never expected anything like this to happen. But I did tell myself if I ever by some miracle had the chance to speak to you, I would allow myself permission to allow my words to have that vulnerability and to go to that place that I have not allowed myself to go to, because I think there is value there. But the reason I bring that because that is kind of. I've never spoken about the reality of the school where I was teaching.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, okay. Okay, well, let's go down that path.

[Warren Smith]

So these are kids with behavioral challenges that could not. Other schools could not handle them.

[Jordan Peterson]

So they put them all together.

[Warren Smith]

It's a last line of defense, sort of. So they're specialized. It's funded through public school system. So a student is so challenging. It could be for any reason. Some are involved with gangs, substance abuse challenges. Some are bullies. Some are the bullied for whatever reason that school can't. They're just not equipped. They pay. I think it's $50,000 ahead. Something along those lines to send them to the school which is governed by a board and an executive director. And here I am.

[Jordan Peterson]

And you were hired at that school.

[Warren Smith]

With COVID going on.

[Jordan Peterson]

Did you have any experience at all dealing with behaviorally challenged kids?

[Warren Smith]

No.

[Jordan Peterson]

So why'd they hire you?

[Warren Smith]

I interviewed well, I'm going to be. I'm going to strive to be as honest as I can throughout this. So I interviewed well. Yeah, I think they saw potential. They were. I think they were looking for young teachers that could weather that kind of storm.

[Jordan Peterson]

Were they mostly boys in the school?

[Warren Smith]

Yes.

[Jordan Peterson]

What proportion would say 80%?

[Warren Smith]

Yeah.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah. Well, that's what you'd expect if you brought behaviorally challenged kids together because they're much more. They'd be much more likely to be boys. How old?

[Warren Smith]

High school age, Whether there are some middle school. It was interesting the way the building is divided to where a subset of middle school specialized with one group. But because of COVID it was divided up into pods because they were worried about cross contamination of COVID So there was 10 students approximately to one site. And I was assigned to one site as the multimedia teacher teaching the same thing I've always taught and there was no crossover. And then there was three teachers assigned to one site to manage those 10 students. Which ratio of teacher to student is quite high. That's what that their needs necessitate.

[Jordan Peterson]

How long did you teach at that school?

[Warren Smith]

Up until losing my job. So four years.

[Jordan Peterson]

Four years. Okay, so you stuck it out too.

[Warren Smith]

Well, I remember when the first. In the first speech they gave the principal that hired me, I really was. I'm very fond of. And the assistant principal, they are no longer there. They were dismissed a year prior to me. But they are the ones that hired me. So when you ask why'd they hire you? He's the only person that could answer that. I remember he. I was in the interview these. And this assistant principal walks in and he's like dressed. There was really no dress code because he. And he walks in and he's like, blow my mind in eight seconds. And then I forget what I said. And then he just walked out and didn't say a singular word. And I left thinking I just blew that interview. But I Got the job. So anyways, we're were there on the first day and he's like, look, guys, if you're still teaching at this school in four years, something's probably wrong with you. Or you have some sadomasochistic or you just have some. I think he was alluding to that. There's some reason you have that, like this is not your typical pathway for educators. He's trying to illustrate the reality that most times they get traditional educators that realize where they are and it's too late at that point, and then they just vanish and they're like, I mean, they last a week if that. We've had teachers come in and last a day, one day and just get in their car and leave.

[Jordan Peterson]

What happens to them?

[Warren Smith]

They just. They're like, this is chaos. This is. I can't. I can't survive this for a year. But we're walking around with walkie talkies so that you can respond quickly. We're trained in safety care so that you can go hands on if needed. I mean, fights breaking out. It's not juvie, but it's one step away from juvie, though. You also have students that are not headed to juvie, but they're the ones that get bullied or for whatever reason. They have an IEP plan.

[Jordan Peterson]

And what's that?

[Warren Smith]

An individualized education plan. Yeah, I have dyslexia, though. Some students would have dyslexia to a degree where they need. It was. It was a special education school and it's designed with. So that we can accommodate everything. Right. And so the students that are hyper aggressive are put in one. There's going to be flaws to this logically are put in one quadrant. One site, they were divided into sites 1, 2, 3, 4, whatnot. So that there's no. You can't put the bullies with the bullied.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right.

[Warren Smith]

But then you have hyper aggressive people. Bunch of nails. Yeah, A lot of fights. Right. Of course, that's the site I was on.

[Jordan Peterson]

So let's just get this timeline exactly right. So you got your master's degree in 2000 at the end of 2019. And then you had, you had a teaching job in a relatively rig, just.

[Warren Smith]

Run of the mill high school.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right. And Covid put an end to that. And then as Covid lifted, you found a job in this school that was for behaviorally challenged kids. And it was a very mixed bag of behaviorally challenged kids, which is also very interesting. Administrative decision. I mean, the idea that you would put all the kids with all the Problems in the same school is a strange idea. It's not like problems constitutes a category. Yeah, it's not a category at all. And then while you alluded to this as well, it isn't the least bit evident from the evidence that putting aggressive kids together is anything but a really bad idea. Right. There's. There's immense clinical literature demonstrating exactly that. And you said you ended up with the aggressive kids. Okay. But you also pointed out that you taught there for four years, which.

[Warren Smith]

So it changed, it transferred, the landscape transformed.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay.

[Warren Smith]

Those first two years were the most chaotic. Perhaps that had something to do with COVID So, because during. So during. I arrived during COVID suddenly there's a kind of an outbreak at the school. I remember driving into the parking lot one morning. Half the staff are coming out of the parking lot, getting into the cars, and they're like, they're telling us to leave. So I'm on site one. For whatever reason, all the teachers were sent home on site one, except me. Now, there was no students in the building, though, for three or four weeks this went on. And so I was teaching remotely in my classroom on my computer. And I kind of expanded the curriculum to, like, help. They needed me to fill in with other things. I remember that distinctly. And so then we get through that that might have happened. It was like every few months there was an outbreak on this site, and they're gone. And so, you know, and you can't walk through these doors for contamination and covet ends. And over the course of the next two years, it changed. Because originally, multimedia, I was able to grow the program to where I was able to work with the entire building. It was no longer just limited to one site, which was remarkable because in upstairs, they have students with severe physical challenges, down syndrome, challenges such as that. And that requires a completely different specialty, no doubt, and a different type of staff and professionalism even, because you can't afford a mistake. It's life or death, isn't it?

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[Warren Smith]

And I began to work with those students as well. And you're always going to have inner politics, office place politics and whatnot and certain clicks form. And I mentioned the principal and assistant principal both just got fired in the middle of the day, same day. And they put out a reason. They're like, oh, they just, they keep it vague. And it was clearly, it was kind of a. In the first year the school tried to unionize. There was a movement to unionize and that principal that hired me was very against it and I voted against it because my previous experience with the unions, I was starting to wake up to the reality of the drawbacks. And I understand the motivation behind unions, but. So there was. My point is the interplace politics. And it took them out. But I was able to. This new principal arose who was a very nice guy. There was originally two assistant principals and one was the kind of the guy who, in my mind, I'm almost positive, kind of led that formation of what caused them to leave. And he ascended in power, became the only assistant principal and his good Buddy, who was 30 years old at the time, became the principal, which is pretty young to be a principal, but. And he was a very nice guy though.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

And for whatever reason, I got moved across the street into a separate building though, which I actually liked because it gave me more room to grow. And so the students would. When the teachers I had, all the students would rotate. The teachers would bring them across the street. I had this great lab, multimedia lab with a 3D printer. We were investing in new equipment, camera technology, Photoshop. I had a. I had like 11 imacs running premiere Pro and Photoshop.

[Jordan Peterson]

And how are the kids responding to this? Well, you're. You're describing a program. It sounds to me like you're describing a program that was successful and that grew. Is that the case? Did. And. And the kids, were they responding well to what you were teaching?

[Warren Smith]

I think that it was really interesting to notice the difference. The students downstairs, behavioral versus physical challenges. The students upstairs were the ones that resonated the most with Photoshop. Video editing. There was an enthusiasm that. So a student with autism. Something about some of these skills. They just love. You get them going on video editing.

[Jordan Peterson]

That's very detail oriented.

[Warren Smith]

They. Yeah. And so I had. I just loved working with those students. And I didn't get to do that until my last two years. So. But it was the first two years with those other students. I still think I was making progress with them, like bringing in digital. I had. As a teacher, you're not supposed to have favorites, but this. I. The student that I was probably the most fond of who ended up getting kicked out over something that he was just a brilliant illustrator. He could draw like you're just incredible. And came from nothing. And most of these kids, it was the. The. I think the core issue was just there was no parents. Parents. I mean, we'd have open house and no one would show up.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right. So they were on their own.

[Warren Smith]

Yeah. And that student in particular, I found something that resonated with him. We invested in like a critter drawing tablet, and he accelerated with that. But the problem came in the form. I noticed when they would say, he. He's drawing illustrations of samurai in combat. What good is that going to do him? We want him to do projects that are relevant to the school. But then they would give me no criteria of or set plans. There was no curriculum in place. I developed it all myself, which I wasn't. There's pros and cons to that. There's a lot of freedom to that. But the challenge is that it allows them to come in at their convenience if they.

[Jordan Peterson]

And who was they?

[Warren Smith]

Leadership. Which I never had an issue with. I never had an issue until I published that video.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay, so. Well, so let's talk about that. Tell everybody about what the. What the video was. We'll clip it into this so that people can see it, obviously. But describe why was it that you were posting videos and how did this particular one come about?

[Warren Smith]

So these guys want to talk about J.K. rowling. So what's going on with that? What do you want to know?

[Student]

She's had a pretty controversial past. I just want to know, like, what are your thoughts on it? And, like, do you still like her work despite her bigoted opinions?

[Warren Smith]

So let's get specific, though, and let's define bigoted opinions.

[Student]

She has had a history of being extremely transphobic. I've heard.

[Warren Smith]

You've heard. So what? Can you give me an example?

[Student]

So one of these tweets that she came up with in 2019, she said, dress however you please, call yourself whatever you like, sleep with any consenting adult who will have you live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for starting that? For stating that sex. Sex is real.

[Warren Smith]

So you find that bigoted?

[Student]

I don't really have an opinion on it, but I'm just going with what a lot of other people have said.

[Warren Smith]

So let's pause it. Let's not go with what other people are saying. Let's try and learn how to critically think. So let's analyze the tweet ourselves. So that statement, do you see anything problematic?

[Student]

Force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real.

[Warren Smith]

So when I hear that, I'm interpreting that as meaning if a woman says that, you know, saying that there's a difference between men and female and then being attacked as transphobic, I think that's what she's saying. By attacking someone for stating that sex.

[Student]

Is real, that is exactly what she is saying.

[Warren Smith]

Is that transphobic to you?

[Student]

So, to me, no.

[Warren Smith]

So is there anything you disagree with in that tweet?

[Student]

In that tweet, I can't really see anything that I myself disagree with.

[Warren Smith]

So now that we're looking at it, like, oh, there's not much difference between me or her. Do you have. Why do you. Do you think it's fair that there's a. That she's being attacked by a large group of people and people are calling her. Like you said at the beginning of this conversation, you said, given the fact that J.K. rowling is transphobic, how do you feel about Harry Potter now? Retroactively looking at that statement, do you think that that was the best way to phrase.

[Student]

No, I feel like an idiot now?

[Warren Smith]

It's okay, though. But this is why we do this, to learn to learn how to think. I discovered 2017 a video of a professor. Low quality video in this classroom that looked like mine. You're standing in front of the classroom talking about archetypes of Harry Potter. It was you. And I was like, that's cool. And this is 2017. That was the first video I saw of you. And I went down the rabbit hole.

[Jordan Peterson]

27 and all that.

[Warren Smith]

Classics, but that. And I said to my. I'm going to try this. Because I was teaching students about filmmaking and movies and I was teaching a journalism class. And I was like, this is. This ties in directly. And I just. I loved this style. I recognized. I was like, teaching is a performance. There's a performance art element to this because you have to be engaging to be able to stand in front of a classroom and get them engaged. There's an artistic element to that that I'm not quite sure how to articulate that it might not be right.

[Jordan Peterson]

No, you did. It's a performance.

[Warren Smith]

But that's what I saw in your video. So I went in. It was probably a few weeks later. And I. We have all the cameras.

[Jordan Peterson]

So.

[Warren Smith]

And I was teaching a student how to use. I said, okay, now you know how to use the camera. Let's try and record this lecture. I saw this thing on YouTube.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

And I essentially ran through archetypes in Harry Potter and they loved it. And that video is on YouTube. People can watch it. No one watched it at the time, but it's up there. And that's years ago, maybe five years ago. That's how it started. So I started and I was like, this is a great. I agree with you that YouTube is a Gutenberg revolution. That we cannot comprehend what it means. It is massive potential and it's exciting. So I fell in love with that aspect of it. Started to. Because there's teaching portfolios. What better way. What better thing to have in a teaching portfolio than your teaching, than a recording of you actually teaching? They ask you to have artifacts, provide artifacts of your teaching. Here's a video of me teaching. Beat that. It's like. So that was the thinking. And I had. And also in multimedia, we would do reviews of movies like the Queen's Gambit. Did you know it was just a way to get students to practice articulating themselves. Public speaking, when you don't have a room full of people for them to practice in front of a camera is not a bad substitute because it allows them to watch it back, hear their voice, which at first no one likes. It makes. Causes you to cringe. It's Very interesting response.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right, Right.

[Warren Smith]

But you can learn so much from watching and those repetitions and doing it again and again. And they loved it. Some of the students just really loved it. So to bring us to that video, they asked me to do a newscast. They're like, we want to try a new idea. Can you do a newscast for the school once a week? Which is what I was doing in that public school. We would. But that was a legit newscast that would go out live to every classroom once a week on Friday. They had all this technology to do it, and they would upload everything to social media. That's why I have a Twitter. That was the only reason I even had a Twitter account at the time.

[Jordan Peterson]

That was the original school.

[Warren Smith]

The original school, public school. I can even say that it was Neshoba Regional High School in Massachusetts. So if you go to my Twitter feed, the very. Only first tweets, they're all just Nishoba student broadcasts because. And the head of my department would ask me to just share them. I thought that was just normal.

[Jordan Peterson]

Mm.

[Warren Smith]

And there was no. Students loved it.

[Jordan Peterson]

And so how much recording of your teaching were you doing in your classes in the.

[Warren Smith]

Not much.

[Jordan Peterson]

In the second school?

[Warren Smith]

Not too much. I mean, I would not. I would. It was more projects like the Queen's Gambit Review. I had a colleague, the music teacher had a passion for camera technology as well, and he was my closest collaborator because we were voc teachers, vocational teachers, meaning we worked with the whole building. We were the only ones that everyone else worked with just their sites. There was, like, a culinary teacher, landscaping, and they were always experimenting with the vocations, but music and multimedia always remained consistent.

[Jordan Peterson]

How big a school?

[Warren Smith]

Only downstairs. 50 students. Upstairs, about 50 students.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay. And how many teachers?

[Warren Smith]

Well, the ratio, you said it was.

[Jordan Peterson]

Three to one about a.

[Warren Smith]

That's what they strive for, but they're constantly battling understaffing because teachers just vanish often.

[Jordan Peterson]

Had you done a lot of videos in the buildup to the video that you. That. That got so much attention.

[Warren Smith]

I had been posting little things like. Just like, I was mentioning, like, reviews and things, but no one was watching them, and no one cared. It wasn't. You know, and working with the music teacher, we would do, like, the mathematics of the Fibonacci sequence in music, things which are still up there. So if you're curious to dig into that, you can. If anyone's watching this. But. But to answer your question about how this video came about. So they asked me to do a news broadcast. We're not equipped to do that, but we tried anyways. And they're like, we want this kid to, to be the person on camera and just go through. This is what happened in the school this week. So we go in the room, we go to set it up, and he's getting stage fright, camera shy. He's just. And I think it's very important in teaching to lead by example. So let's just treat, let's just do a warmup. I'll sit on camera, you operate it. Let's just have a conversation, treat it like a podcast. Real quick. Let's do like a five minute warmup. Just ask me something that you want to, that would interest you. Okay. He hits record. All right. So how have your views on J.K. rowling changed given her bigoted opinions? Or how your views on Harry potter changed given J.K. rowling's bigoted opinions?

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[Warren Smith]

Well, first we need to address that and then just walk through it. And I thought that's interesting, you know, and maybe I'll try something new with this YouTube thing. And I just uploaded it. I was like, that's interesting enough to post. I didn't think anyone would watch it.

[Jordan Peterson]

Walk us through your response. What did you know about? You mentioned watching the Harry Potter, an analysis of Harry Potter I had done.

[Warren Smith]

And let's walk through it so well, first we need to address. Is she bigoted? That's the glaring presupposition.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right, right, right.

[Warren Smith]

So what do you.

[Jordan Peterson]

Basically, that constitutes a loaded question. Right.

[Warren Smith]

So what are you basing that upon? Well, you know, I've heard that she has. She's tweets. Okay. Do you have any, like, I can show you the tweets if you want. Sure. Let's take a look, dig some tweets out. We read the tweets. Okay, so do you find that what is. What about that is transphobic. And I don't remember the exact tweet. We clarify it. And then he goes, oh, but she did apologize as well for this other thing. There's this other piece of evidence. Okay, let's take a look. Same process. Then we. So I point out, okay, so there's really no much different. There's not much difference between you and her. You understand that she's. That she's stating that it's important to her, her experience as a woman. She has no issue with someone identifying how they want to identify. But that's not going to change. That shouldn't impact her experience and her. The reality that she's a woman and what that means in reality. No, I agree with that. Okay, so now looking back at the beginning of this conversation, that claim you made, when you say call her bigoted, do you think that was a fair thing to say? No. Now I feel stupid. That's okay. That's why we do this. And often I would have interesting conversations when they arose, going back to the idea of. And there was some blowback about that, of why are you having conversations? Your job is to teach students how to set up cameras and shoot videos and do photo editing and 3D printing and using this technology. But as we just pointed out, there's extreme. If the goal is to use this technology with students in the way that is going to most benefit them. Well, that. That should be.

[Jordan Peterson]

Use of the technology isn't independent of the content, especially if you're doing video.

[Warren Smith]

Recording and there's so much utility in you can. Teaching students how to think, how to articulate themselves, how to. And often they have questions about things in the world. I've had students ask me, what's a Republican versus a Democrat? And you're like, you're a senior in high school. We need to. Let's talk about it. And then we can kill two birds with one stone. And then we'll have stuff to edit, you know, and it's things that interest you. So if we're gonna. We need footage to edit, might as well make it interesting. And if we can make it, if we can talk about something that actually matters in the world and you can learn something from it. Well, why not? Like what?

[Jordan Peterson]

You can't learn to edit footage without having something interesting that you're interested in because there's nothing to edit.

[Warren Smith]

And, and you could just film music videos and things. But I, I see more utility and if a student has. Wants to discuss something like that. I see. No, that was my reasoning behind it.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, that's especially relevant with regards to editing, because you want to clip and cut so that you get to the gist of the matter. And that means there has to be something there to focus on.

[Warren Smith]

So if you're watching, if a student is watch, they shoot a music video and they're watching themselves playback dancing and they're editing that. Okay. But when you watch yourself speaking, debating, or just you're learning those oratory skills, you're getting over public speaking fright. There's more utility, I believe, than simply there's nothing wrong if a student wants to do like something like a music video.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, you could do something creative too, but even then it's got to have a point.

[Warren Smith]

Why not encapsulate as much as possible if our objective is to use what we have to help students as best we can?

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, obviously also the technique that you were using, so to speak, insofar as it's a technique, is asking pertinent questions. There isn't any difference between that and teaching people how to think, because if you're thinking, you're asking yourself pertinent questions, and you're certainly not going to learn to do that without an example. The whole point of being a teacher is to, or at least one of the main points of being a teacher is to teach people how to ask themselves pertinent questions and to model that. So why do you think so? It's in. So it's interesting that it was the conversation about J.K. rowling that went viral, and she certainly caused an endless stream of political upset in the UK and turned into a quite a stunning advocate for free speech. And she has in fact focused on this trans issue, which is likely the most bizarre issue that's ever dominated the political space as far as I can tell. And I guess one of the things that your video demonstrated was the pertinence of that issue to students who have questionable reasons for being concerned about it to begin with. Like, why do you think that this particular student was possessed by the belief that transphobia was a thing to begin with because that's also a bastardization of words in. In the most manipulative possible way. To take a clinical terminology phobia and then to append it to objection to anything that the person who's objecting or what would you say? I can object to something. If someone's irritated about that, they're going to medicalize my objection and describe it as a pathology. That's what happens when you use the term phobia. It's unbelievably manipulative. And I would say the radical leftists are stunningly good at that manipulation of language. But now you have a student who is objecting to J.K. rowling on the basis of transphobia, and you're asking questions about it. Now, is that part of what also got you. It's obviously one of the things that made this go viral. But was it also one of the things that got you in trouble?

[Warren Smith]

Well, there's no way for me to know exactly. I think that in a. I think there's a. As you know, most things in life are far more complex than a singular explanation. I think that a lot of it was the virality itself. Given that we're a school where there are some loose practices, there's been things like the two principles just being removed. There was a tax of scandal, like, a few years prior to my arrival because we have the way grades are assigned. Often it's the site sitting there. It's like, okay, what's Jimmy going to get in your class? Give him like a 73. And there's no record. There's no reasoning to it. And that's literally how it occurs. So why did they offer me $9,000 to shut up or why to sign this? And, like, why do you need an NDA? It's so. It's.

[Jordan Peterson]

There's so there was worry about potential public attention. Well, you can understand. I mean, the school that you're operating in is insanely complex. There's absolutely no way to run a school like that that isn't full of trouble, obviously, because the whole school is built on trouble. And so I can imagine that the people who are running the school would be nervous about that, because I can't possibly see that there's any way that you could do it. Right, right. I mean, that's a good point. Well, you mentioned that teachers come for one day and they leave or they come for a week. It's just, it's. It's designed. It's a system designed to collate chaos and to try to produce some sort of order. But it seems to me to be entirely impossible. Pretty much no matter what you do, you're going to do something wrong. I mean, how the hell could you possibly avoid it?

[Warren Smith]

That's.

[Jordan Peterson]

Every single one of those kids is a pit fall. And I don't mean that in the. In the what? That's not a criticism. It's just a reality while the system's designed so that every single kid that comes there is trouble on stilts. And so. And then you're also going to have the case that many of the teachers who are going to apply are going to be people who are applying to that school because it's a last ditch possibility.

[Warren Smith]

And so I often. Yeah, you out in. I wondered that. Sometimes I'm like, why am I here? I mean, the health insurance is awful. It's like pay is not why. Why choose? That's why people leave. But, but there's a lot of good people there that aren't. It's not like this is the bottom of the barrel teachers that can't. There are some of those. It's like, dude, what are you doing?

[Jordan Peterson]

Right? There'd be some of those.

[Warren Smith]

Yes, but there are also many good people that are doing it because there's something fulfilling about it that I miss, to be honest, there's. I miss it.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, I, I think what drew my attention to your video and also what made me want to talk to you is because I think the reason that that video went viral and drew the attention of the people whose attention it did draw was because you were obviously very sane and careful in an insane situation discussing something utterly preposterous. And it was all that contrast that made it fascinating. I mean, the fact that that issue even arose in a school is ridiculous under anything approximating normal times. And yet you handled it carefully and thoughtfully. And you did it in a way that was obviously of educational benefit to the students. And that none of that should be surprising, actually, like the manner in which you addressed it. But it's also the fact that that same response to that question is surprising in the education system that made it go viral. And so because we're so accustomed to seeing crazily woke, ideologically possessed, ranting narcissists acting as teachers, ideologically addling children when they ask questions that they should have no concern about whatsoever. Like, it just strikes me as utterly Preposterous that a 15 year old kid would think that it was necessary for him to accuse J.K. rowling of transphobia.

[Warren Smith]

17.

[Jordan Peterson]

17, okay, so that's that that's just an indication of the state of the school system in general.

[Warren Smith]

I don't think he was even accusing her. I think he was just repeating what he thought was reality.

[Jordan Peterson]

Of course. Of course, of course. Exactly. Well, you said that as you investigated with, you know, some relatively elementary but also eminently sane questions that revealed itself very quickly. He was just spouting the cliches of the moment. Right, the radical cliches of the moment. And was he doing that because he thought he should? Like what, what was your impression of the reasons for his questions?

[Warren Smith]

He genuinely believed that that was what the truth was. He thought that was reality. He articulates that he's. I've heard many classmates state this, so it must be true in the same way you hear this often with people. I just made a critique video of Bari Weiss doing this. I was a little hard on her, on Joe Rogan, when she's saying it's the same pattern and she's applying this to Tulsi Gabbard and. Right. Presses her on it slightly and it dissolves. And we all are capable of doing, we all do do this in our lives. I'm not above it, but.

[Jordan Peterson]

No one's above it. No one's above it. We radically seek, we seek to establish consensus rapidly and radically. And if there's no challenge to the consensus, that's good because it means that we're unified, but it also means that we can build a false consensus, and that happens continually. And I mean, that's one of the dangers of so called populism is that it's, it's a false consensus. Right? It's a consensus of the moment. It's got no staying power. It can't iterate across time. The antidote to populist consensus is something like alignment with eternal tradition because it stops the proclivity for rapid consensus from pathologizing. I mean, it's actually a good thing, all things considered, because if human beings couldn't reach agreement on most things rapidly, all we would ever do is fight. But the danger, of course, is a false consensus. And that's obviously what you were questioning. And, you know, you did it, you did it in an extremely thoughtful manner. Okay, so you recorded that. Your students edited it. How did it, how did it end up edited? And, and, and I also, I.

[Warren Smith]

There was one edit when he takes out his phone because he's like looking for the, for the tweet for. Oh, yeah, okay, maybe a minute. And so I cut that out and uploaded it to. Yeah, my YouTube channel. That I was. I had been uploading everything in the past.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right. So this was just standard practice on YouTube. You have to be very careful about what you upload to YouTube, as I found out in 2016. Right. Because it's an unbelievably powerful technology and you never know what's going to happen. So as you. As you also found out. And so, okay, so you uploaded this, and I presume you thought nothing of it. Okay, what happened? Lay out the story.

[Warren Smith]

It started getting a few views, and then it got 13,000 views. The music teacher I was telling you about who had been on this journey with me, in a way, we were exploring this technology, even making videos where there was no students on our free time. Like, the Fibonacci sequence in music was just two of us. He texts me, he says he's got 13, 000 views. Oh, that. For me, that's. Whoa.

[Jordan Peterson]

And over what period of time?

[Warren Smith]

Maybe this is probably like a week.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay, two weeks. Okay. Okay. Right.

[Warren Smith]

That afternoon, I get a text from my brother, and he says, elon Musk tweeted a video of you.

[Jordan Peterson]

Oh, yeah. I thought, there's the kiss of death.

[Warren Smith]

Right. And I didn't. I hadn't opened my Twitter account since that Neshoba school, so I couldn't log in. I didn't have my password and figured it out, and I was like, let me. Anyway, oh, whoa. Okay, that was then. Two days later. Well, then I go to school the next day.

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[Warren Smith]

Don't say a word. I'm like, I'm just gonna not say anything. Maybe no one saw it. You know, I don't really comprehend what's going on with it. When you're in It. It doesn't. Principal calls me in his office. Yeah. Not talking about it is not gonna work. Like everybody's seen the video. He was, he was on the fence of how to feel about it because yeah, he was obviously worried as anyone would be about his responsibilities and getting in trouble with the higher ups. Is this against the policy we have. He's had. We have releases. I have the releases where there's no student. Student on camera. We have an audio release. It's.

[Jordan Peterson]

And you'd been doing this anyways.

[Warren Smith]

I've been doing this for a while. Like, but is that. What do we. But this is different.

[Jordan Peterson]

Like.

[Warren Smith]

And I think it's totally understandable to be. To be a little shocked. We're in new territory here.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, right.

[Warren Smith]

Pierce Morgan's team reaches out. Would you like to come on Pierce Morgan tomorrow?

[Jordan Peterson]

Uh huh.

[Warren Smith]

Well, I'm at a crossroads. It's like do I. Do I run with this as far as there's two options. Let it pass over, go back to my life or I recognize maybe.

[Jordan Peterson]

Maybe go back to your life or.

[Warren Smith]

I recognize that this is a once in a lifetime, potentially. I don't know what it means, where it could go, if it's. Could be an opportunity. There's only one way to find out and that's to run with it. Well, if I say I know this much from my life and regret, if I say no to this going on Pierce Morgan, which could go badly, I might regret this. But I know I will regret it forever if I.

[Jordan Peterson]

How did you know that? Why did you conclude that?

[Warren Smith]

Because I have regretted things in my life before I know that regret. It's worse to try something and to fail in the pursuit of that. I would rather try and run with this ball as far as I can, take it as far as I can till I get tackled than to refuse to pick it up.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, well, you know, there is clinical evidence for that. If you ask people, older people, to look back on their life and to list their regrets, it's much more common for them to have serious regrets about chances they didn't take than failures that they, that they experienced. Thing about failure is a weird thing, you know, because my experience in life has been that nothing I ever actually did failed. I didn't necessarily. It didn't necessarily produce the result that I intended when I intended it. But if it was a genuine effort and I followed through on it, there was some benefit that emerged in consequence of that that justified the effort. And sometimes that was quite a long time later. And I think that Kind of stands to reason in a sense too, because the alternative explanation would be that you could try to do something difficult. Well. And see it through and there'd be zero impact of that. Well, that makes no sense. You're going to learn something. You're, you're. Maybe what you learn is how you could have done it better or how you could do it better, but you're going to learn something. Okay, so you. What kind of regrets had you had in the past, if you don't mind? Maybe you can share some of those, maybe not.

[Warren Smith]

But what came to mind, my original plan was movies. All I wanted to do growing up was make movies. There was nothing more exciting than seeing people be able to alter time and space. It's like they were using the fabric of reality to create worlds which are real. When you're watching it, you've explored this idea and the logical course of action. What else would I possibly want to do than that? There was nothing more exciting. And I was undergrad, one of the top film schools in the country, UNC School of the Arts. And I excelled. And I hit. I was nailing these opportunities and I was like. It kind of got to my head. I found short film after short film. Suddenly it's in a pattern that had not going to la like writing and producing a feature film right out of the gate using that momentum with this team of like the students that have come together and become this like pirate band almost that move from. And we raised $25,000 to make this feature film. And as we're going to camp out and everyone's going to work for free and film it on the farm where I grew up so we can get all the locations for free. And it would cost at least like a half a million dollars in production value if you were to do a one on one comparison. Because everyone's working for free. Yeah. And it, it, it. I feel like I blew it a lot. I feel like I blew a lot of opportunities and I'm trying to think of any specifics, but in general I don't. I did come to the realization that LA is not somewhere. LA is not where I want to live. Hollywood is not a game in which I want to participate in for the long term. So I knew I wanted to get out of that. I didn't know what I would do. I went freelance videography and eventually graduate school. So it took me to graduate school and I left la. But those students, the colleagues, the friends. Making a movie is challenging. There's a lot of it presses, relationships and this is a. It's a deeper idea of why that is. Because often I think there's some people are subconscious, they just want it to be over. Because when you're making a movie it takes like a year and then you have the editor and he's editing for, you know, that's the part that takes a year of the production itself, a month or two or whatnot. But then it's just like, this has to be over. And there's so much pressure and then that causes people to kind of dissolve under the pressure. And it's like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We're never going to have all these people come together and work for free.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay, so you saw the same thing beckoning there with the Piers Morgan opportunity. Obviously that you. And it is the case, I mean, and this is the case in life, is that not now? And then something. Many impossible things come together and a door opens and if you don't walk through it, then the probability that those impossible things will come together again is zero. And so. Okay, so you decided to go on piers mortgage. So what happened?

[Warren Smith]

It was just. It was just me for a 15 minute interview.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay.

[Warren Smith]

End of a segment.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

This van. So I'm in Massachusetts in this little town in the woods.

[Jordan Peterson]

This.

[Warren Smith]

I didn't know what to expect. I was like, is a crew coming? Like, what's going on? A guy in a van pulls up.

[Jordan Peterson]

Oh yeah. You had to talk directly to the camera, did you?

[Warren Smith]

He's like, here, I'm gonna mic you up. I don't know what's going on. No instructions. He's like, I jump in the back of a van right after school. So I'm at school talking to the music teacher. I'm like, dude, they want me to go on Pierce Morgan. Like, do you think I'll get in trouble if I do this? And he's like, you gotta do it. And I was like, I gotta do it.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right, right.

[Warren Smith]

And I said the same thing I said to you. And he said, just don't. It's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Because I knew that if I were to ask for permission and they were to say no, I'd be in a predicament now.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right.

[Warren Smith]

I'm not gonna turn that down because I know what that feeling would be. But.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, it's also not the least bit obvious that you're required to ask for permission. Besides that this is something that everybody who's watching and listening should understand the answer to. If you go to an authority, especially A bureaucratic authority, and you ask for permission. Why wouldn't they say no? All there is in it for them is risk and perhaps jealousy and fear. So why would. Of course they're going to say no. Why wouldn't they say no? And so then you think, well, how do you deal with that? The answer is, well, you're a free agent. What, what's the, what's the indication that you're required to ask for permission? You know, in fact, if it's not illegal or if you're not violating your, you know, an explicit and really, I mean, explicit contract, it's like, don't ask. It's hard enough to convince yourself that you should do it, much less convince someone else who's also not going to benefit from it in the least. You know, the other thing to understand, too, is that entrepreneurial motivation is relatively rare. It's only about one person in 50 who wants to start their own business. I really learned this when I started selling to corporations and dealing with middle management people. The fundamental motivation of 95% of people in middle management is never to do anything that makes them get noticed for any reason, good or bad. They want to do their job. They want to do it in complete and utter invisibility. And if an entrepreneurial opportunity comes along, they say, that's risky. No. And you might say, yeah, well, you know, there's the mints. Potential payoff, rather low probability, immense potential payoff. That's the entrepreneurial game. And their attitude is, I don't want to be this marked zebra that the lions cut out of the herd. You know that story. So you know that. You know the zebra story. I'll just tell it for people who might not have heard it. So zebras in principle are camouflaged, but it's kind of a weird idea because they live on the veldt and they're black and white striped and you can seriously see a zebra. So the question is, what's the camouflage? And the answer seems to be that it's against the herd camouflage because there's no single zebras. There's herds of zebras. And so when the zebras are milling about together in a herd, because the black and white stripes are edges, if you look away and then you look again, you can't tell what zebra you were looking at. Now, the reason that's relevant is because lions can't organize themselves to hunt a zebra unless they can identify one. Okay, so you don't want to be an identifiable zebra. So biologists discovered this because they were studying Zebras and trying to figure out how to watch a given zebra so they could figure out what it was up to, but they'd lose track. So they would either clip their ears with a plastic clip or put a dab of paint on their haunches. And as soon as they did that, the lions killed them. The lions could mark out the zebra and organize their hunt. And then that was a dead zebra. And you know, you hear that in the natural world that lions often cull the herd and they take the weak and the unfit. It's like, no, they take the identifiable zebra. And the instinct of many, many people is do not be the identifiable prey animal. Right. And so if you're going to ask for permission, even permission from yourself in an odd way, the default answer is clearly no. And so, and obviously so, and so you're going to have to step outside the herd. Now the question with human beings is, is there advantages in stepping outside the herd? And the advantage is, well, you get notice and that's not so good if there are predators around. But it's also the pathway to extreme success, which has massive potential payoffs. Now I'm not saying that everybody should pursue that or that everybody should want it, but that's the, that's the landscape of risk. So you decided you'd already learned enough in your life to know that you don't casually throw away spectacular opportunities. Yeah. Right.

[Warren Smith]

The pain of regret is a unique form of pain.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yes. Yeah, well, it's a kind of self betrayal. Right. Because you had the chance, you had the opportunity.

[Warren Smith]

Yes.

[Jordan Peterson]

That's what the door opened.

[Warren Smith]

That's what I was trying to put my finger on.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

Earlier. And it, and I had no one to blame but myself on how like that's seriously turned on and that's what eats you.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, right. Definitely, definitely. Well, it's, it's, it's bad enough when someone else gets in your way, but when you get in your way, it's like, well, how do you.

[Warren Smith]

Far worse.

[Jordan Peterson]

Definitely, definitely. You know, it's also useful to know too that I think this is extremely useful, is that you have to deeply understand that no risk is first of all not desirable. You actually don't want a risk free life. You want the risks you voluntarily take. And maybe you want high stakes risks you voluntarily take. But even more fundamentally, there is no risk pathway. You're screwed no matter what you do. And that's terrible, but it's also freeing. And so once you know that there's no safety, well then you can take the most Interesting risk. And why not? And then maybe you don't need safety. Okay, so you decided to go on Pierce Morgan.

[Warren Smith]

That ties directly into what happened on Pierce Morgan. Okay, so 15 minutes. And he asked the usual questions you would expect around.

[Jordan Peterson]

How was he with you?

[Warren Smith]

He was really nice. He was very charismatic, likable, kind, and very.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, he's a funny guy. He is. He's kind of like Simon Cowell in a way. You know, you can see in America's Got. I mean, they both worked on America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent. You can see if Cowell likes somebody, he's really on their side. If he doesn't like them, he's really not on their side. And Morgan is like that. And he's also the sort of guy who. He'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you start playing games, then you're in serious trouble. So he obviously started by giving you the benefit of the doubt. He was probably, you know, reasonably pleased with the video that he had seen and thought, you know, that he would be inviting to begin with. So that worked out well. Okay, so.

[Warren Smith]

And he asked a question. The last question was interesting is the one that stands out in my mind. And he was in all your hair because he watched the video. He was producers. Someone went to the YouTube channel in the research, and I was like, give me something to. They found the me talking about archetypes in Harry Potter. Ah, that I got from you.

[Jordan Peterson]

Oh, yes, I see, I see.

[Warren Smith]

And he goes, so he thought it was some Harry Potter scholar or something. He goes, so given all your Harry Potter studies, what would the best piece of life advice be? And from all your Harry Potter studies, voluntarily enter the unknown, which is what you were just talking about. It might be the unknown beneath the surface of Hogwarts. It might be facing the serpent. That could turn you to stone when you see it, like fear. But you must do so voluntarily in order to save Jenny. And it's the voluntary aspect of that which is just classic. Everyone echoes that. They're like, okay, yeah, well, it's a.

[Jordan Peterson]

Very good thing to know.

[Warren Smith]

But it's true.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, well, it's also surprising because it belies the. What would you say? The. The merely objective sense of the real. A situation is the same no matter how you encounter it. That's an objectivist perspective. It's. No. A situation is radically different depending on how you encounter it. Kicking and screaming is very different than voluntarily, even if the stressor is the same. And there doesn't seem to be any particular limit to that. Which is why, of course, all the heroic quest archetypal narratives are voluntary confrontation with truly terrible things. Otherwise the quest has no real deep significance. Okay, so the Piers Morgan interview that went well, that was a success. What was the consequence of that?

[Warren Smith]

The next day I go back into school, they call me back into the principal's office and they say, dude, you went on Piers Morgan. Like, can you at least check in with us before you do Pierce Morgan? Those exact words that was present.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right, right.

[Warren Smith]

At least check with us.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, but, but you know that what.

[Warren Smith]

You just articulated was masterful. And that's the best logical read that you could provide on that situation.

[Jordan Peterson]

I think all bureaucratic entities will always say no to anything they have questions.

[Warren Smith]

Obviously benefit to them.

[Jordan Peterson]

There's only risk. Right. There's only downside. Of course, yeah. This is partly why I think research has been almost completely stifled in universities. You cannot do risk free research, period. It's not possible. You can't just do the next safe thing. It's too obvious. First of all, and there's no excitement in the discovery. It has to be a risk and the risk has to be real. And we don't want to be too cynical about this either. You know, it's not obviously the role of bureaucracies to take risks. Right. It's the role of bureaucracies to set policies and strategies and to abide by the rules and move forward. Well, you see that in Harry Potter too there. Because there's a weird dynamic constantly in the Harry Potter stories that Rowling is, she was great at this because Harry's band, like, they're academically oriented and they're upwards driving, but they're always rule breakers. Right. And the, the grand wizard at the top of the ladder, he put all the rules that govern the educational institution in place and knows what they are, but is perfectly happy that Harry and his, you know, band of ethical miscreants break rules.

[Warren Smith]

Yeah, and he knows about it almost. They insinuate that he knows what they're doing.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right, exactly. Lets it go anyways. Yeah, well, that's that constant paradox. It's really the paradox of. It's really the paradox of something like liberal versus conservative. You know, the conservatives fundamentally, I hate to call the conservatives the bureaucrats because in our weird political world things have all got flipped around. But generally speaking, the conservative types are much more rule oriented and much less entrepreneurial. And so, but there's, there's a, there's a dance between those two that's absolutely necessary and there's no getting rid of the conflict because most of the time you should follow the rules, but some of the time you definitely shouldn't. And wisdom is the ability to. And daring. That's the ability to tell the difference. Well, so you went on Piers Morgan. And so I don't blame your administrator for objecting, although, you know, what you would have hoped for is something like a little elbow saying, you know, you shouldn't have done that. Good work. Well, there was. Oh, good.

[Warren Smith]

There was that. Well, the assistant principal who ascended and led that whole coup and brought. There was something different about his response. But the principal, the 30 year old principal who was always very helpful to me and like.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

Helping me to get. Or you know, like Warren, you should get your license in phonetics and so you can have this new special ed license. My first year, he was kind of this. He a guiding hand before he suddenly had this power and there was that at the end and he was like, I would have done the same thing.

[Jordan Peterson]

Oh, yeah, good. Literally said, good, good, good. So that's the nod and the wink. Yeah, yeah. Every institution that's going to function needs that. Right. Because you need the people who impose the rules and the structure, but they need to always be able to say, well, yeah, there is a reason for not following the procedure in that particular case.

[Warren Smith]

And he said, I gotta. I need to run this up the flagpole. I'm gonna need to call. This is just getting. I don't know how to respond to this, Piers. Maureen. I don't know. This isn't in the playbook. This isn't.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, right, Right.

[Warren Smith]

So they arrange for a meeting with the executive director and her team of lawyers. There's a board that runs this school. She answers to them, I guess. She's never president. She used to kind of have her office over in Air Mine, but I hadn't seen her at all this that past year. She just said. And so she. There was a meeting with her. Yeah, there was. I went into a room with that principal, the one who. And it was a zoom call, I think. No, it's just audio. And her lawyers were sitting next to her and they just said, well, technically you didn't break any rules. So you're. Congratulations. Good luck to you. I hope you don't make a mistake.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right.

[Warren Smith]

I hate to lose you. And I thought, fair enough. I'll take responsibility for anything I say and do. And. And me and that music teacher were like home free. But that's. It was. It felt like that should be the Response?

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, well, that was. That's a pretty good response. I mean, it's not surprising that they looked into it. Yeah, I mean, one of the things, too, that's worth thinking about too, is that when you're called to account for yourself, when you break a rule, for example, and you upset the normal course of the routine, it's not such a bad idea to present the people who are now cast into doubt and confusion with a plan. So, for example, I had the same experience as you did, essentially, when I put up the first videos that brought me to public attention surrounding Bill C16. It was just. It was really the same sort of experiment that you ran. I'd been. I'd put up a lot of my lectures on YouTube and they'd got a moderate amount of attention and a reasonable amount for the time, because I started putting them, I think, in 2013, on YouTube, which was very early in YouTube development, but they hadn't attracted anything like viral attention. And then this idiot virtue signaling Bill was put into law by our idiot virtue signaling Prime Minister. And I made three videos objecting to that and some university policies. That was purely experimental because I was still playing with the technology and wondering what use it was and seeing if I could lay out a structured argument as well. I edited it quite a bit, actually. That one.

[Warren Smith]

Interesting.

[Jordan Peterson]

And. And that went viral. And then I was called into the principal's office, so to speak, at the university, which kind of surprised me to begin with, but not exactly, because they didn't know what to do with this. And unsurprisingly, I mean, whether the dean, for example, had any right to have to say anything whatsoever with what I was doing with YouTube in my home in my free time is a completely different issue. But I suggested to them that the University of Toronto could do the daring thing and have a debate on free speech. And so that was a concrete plan. Right. And they were looking for something to do. They didn't know what to do. And. And that is what they did, and for better or for worse, and that was much better than many of the things that they could have done. Now, it still worked out that it became impossible, really, for me to keep my position there, although I did for about a year. But. But it's also. It is also the case to know that if you're going to step outside of the bounds of normal propriety, doesn't hurt to have a plan, especially for the people that you confuse, because they also don't know what to do and they're going to hunker down and they're going to dissociate themselves from you if you are deemed to be a risk, especially a contamination risk. And so in the topics you were discussing, especially on the rolling side, would have that element because of course, to the degree that the propaganda surrounding the idea of transphobia is effective, you can easily be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. But you weren't, you weren't. That didn't exactly happen in this school.

[Warren Smith]

So you said something interesting about, and I agree that the university, the dean has narrate in your own home what you do with YouTube. How does that correlate to the dean's business or the university's business? What's interesting is that when you go into the handbook, which after all this occurred, I went and kind of looked poked into, it's written that they have every involvement at this school into whatever a teacher says politically on social media, if they say. And there's no clear objective definition of what, where that lies.

[Jordan Peterson]

Of course, of course. So they just reserve to themselves the right. Yeah. The college of psychologists has basically done exactly the same thing in, in Canada, the people that I'm in trouble for in relationship to my license. It's like, yeah, there are rules apparently about the way I can conduct myself, but the only way you find out what those rules are is by being accused of breaking them. It's not like they're written down because of course they can't be Right. And so that's also, that's also a terrible thing because. And this is something that's happening in our culture very rapidly and apparently it's something that de Tocqueville prophesied back in the mid-1800s that if totalitarianism came to democracies, it would come in the form of essentially mid level bureaucracies, invisibly making everything daring, illegal. Right. And so, and those open ended policies are precisely the sort of thing that they're like, they're like comprehensive traps. So they could have actually gone after you.

[Warren Smith]

Oh yeah. It was a unique contract to begin with and I remember signing that when I first agreed on to that school. It said you could be fired for any, any reason, no reason at any time.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

And that's not a reality at your average high school. So that stood out to me. I thought, interesting. Okay, well this is a new world. This is an unusual world that I don't.

[Jordan Peterson]

So yeah, well you could see also though you could actually understand, I would say, the reasons for a contract like that at a school like that.

[Warren Smith]

Sure.

[Jordan Peterson]

Because so many possible things could go wrong that the rules arguably would have to be more comprehensive to cover any possible occurrence. Okay, so what happens after Piers Morgan.

[Warren Smith]

If things were different? No one ever spoke to me about it again, the video, or I was continued to make YouTube videos is what I should point out.

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay, okay. So you did continue to make and post them. Did they also attract more attention after that?

[Warren Smith]

Now that I. I'm still doing the YouTube channel and it's. It's grown. It's not so it wasn't like it was now. It's not huge, but it. It was decent and yeah, it was fun. Most importantly, it was me and the music teacher. We were like, okay, we have this opportunity. He didn't want any part of it. It was his personality type. If you had offered him the chance to swap places with me, I. I really think he would have declined it. Ah, it's just too much. Too much exposure with that. You're in the unknown and it's on you when you're entering this. Anyway, but every Friday after school, we set up a little studio downstairs in my house. And every Friday after school, we would just sit down, record something, talk about whatever we wanted to talk about for an hour, and then edit it in an hour and post it. So that's the voice you hear in those early. If you ever look at those, that's the voice you hear off camera. And he didn't want to show his face, which is understandable. And all those perspectives in there are his genuine perspectives. And he's very liberal. So it was interesting. It was an interesting dynamic. It was like this classic. It was so stereotypical, people thought it was fake. They were like, this is a clearly staged. Which I take as a compliment. It's like, really, you think the only way we could achieve this outcome would be to script it? Well, that means we're doing something right. So we were making these and things just at the school. I noticed I stopped being invited to certain things. There was like a wedding. I wasn't invited to, like, my whole site. One team was. And there was. Everyone goes out for drinks on Friday. There's the bar nearby and the hero.

[Jordan Peterson]

You know, heroes in classic stories often become contaminated by the unknown. So even in the Lord of the Rings stories, the fact that Frodo and Bilbo both know Gandalf makes them somewhat socially unpopular in the Shire. Right. Even though they're associated. Well, they're associated with magic power. And you might think that's all status. It's like, it's not all status. It makes the people who want to operate only within the confines of the shire, let's say very nervous. And rightly so, because that is a disruptive force. And so even when Bilbo. Yeah. Comes back from his initial adventure, he's regarded with suspicion for the rest of his life. Admiration, yes, but also suspicion. And from the more conservative forces, you might say.

[Warren Smith]

That's a good point.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Warren Smith]

Well, that's how it felt. Yeah.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah. Well, you can also understand that biologically, if with the zebra analog, in a way, it's like you don't want to be too close to the target of the predators, you know, and this is a deep biological instinct, you know, that the reason that fish exist in schools and herbivores exist in herds is because if you're with a bunch of other animals of your type and a predator attacks, the probability that it will be you is proportionate to how well you hide in the herd, obviously. So to the degree that you live life as a prey animal, then you're going to hide in the herd. Now, the question you might ask yourself is do you want to live life as a prey animal? And human beings really have that choice because we're very strange creatures, we're predators, but we're also prey animals and you can take either of those pathways forward.

[Warren Smith]

And it was interesting because this opportunity came along where I was presented with the decision, do I leave the herd, go into the unknown journey and see where it takes me, or do I go back to the safety?

[Jordan Peterson]

Okay, so you said now that there was some social consequence afterwards but that things more or less went back to normal. What, what happened with the students. And then eventually your job at the school did disappear. So walk us through, walk us through the aftermath of this, like, flurry of attention.

[Warren Smith]

The students, I think that the staff went to great lengths to insulate the students. That, that student, that was the voice in the video, he loved it. He was aware of it. And I went in that meeting with the lawyers, I was like, look, so and so I'd be happy to talk to his. Like, I think he's going to be fine with it. Like, no one expected this, but he's a good kid. They were like, no, we don't want you anywhere near this. Like, we'll talk to the parents. And the parents were fine with it. He already had the releases.

[Jordan Peterson]

It was, yeah, that's good. So you had dotted your eyes and crossed your T's with regards to student involvement.

[Warren Smith]

So, long story short, I A few months later I had, well, I had another conversation with that student around communism. We were continuously doing what we had always been doing with the video production. But I was feeling more and more like I gotta be careful. And the music teacher was telling me, he's like look man, I, you gotta, you've got a lot of eyes on you. And it made logical sense that they would, they were. That they were looking for any slip up, anything that I, I got the sense that they wanted to get rid. It would have been easier to get rid of me when that video came out, but there was so much attention around it that it would have put them at risk to do so.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right.

[Warren Smith]

I don't know. I'm not saying that there was a plan to wait and let that blow over and then be. But I think they needed it good enough. I thought they were just not going to renew my contract over the summer, which is usually what they do. It's very common.

[Jordan Peterson]

And you thought that might happen?

[Warren Smith]

I thought with 90% certainty that that's what would happen. It just be. It would make sense as you said, it would be the logical sense thing to do. It's in their best interest. There's no good to come up having one of your teachers out there with a, a growing audience that small but growing audience saying certain things that or exams.

[Jordan Peterson]

It could be troublesome. It.

[Warren Smith]

There's no benefit to that.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, yeah, the funny thing too is there's no benefit from a pure analysis of risk. But you know, your, your what you did with those videos definitely in my estimation anyways brought credit to the school. So you know, with more imagination, what you accomplished could have been very useful to the school.

[Warren Smith]

With more imagination that would require them to go public though, which they were not going to do. They don't want that spotlight that would require people to know what.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, well, but that harkens back to something that we discussed is that the default presumption for the vast majority of people is no amount of success justifies risk. Right. And then people ask themselves well why am I not successful? It's like, well, because your threshold for risk is 0 and 0. 0 isn't a threshold of risk that's associated with success. So if your presumption is I'll only be successful if I take no risks, that's the bargain, then you've foregone success. And the thing about that, that's perverse is that that's a risk because we actually don't know how much success we need in order to reconcile ourselves to Life. Life is very difficult. And so you might need a fair bit of actual success and opportunity to offset the difficulty. Otherwise it's bitterness and regret, which is not a good pathway. So, you know, you're. I made excuses for the administrators at your school, let's say, for being taken aback and said that it was understandable of them to assume that you were going to merely abide in a predictable way by the rules. But had they been more entrepreneurial and more open to the idea of opportunity, then the school itself could have benefited dramatically from what you had accomplished. But that's also, you know, that also would mean that in the best of all possible worlds that, you know, you might have been able to present them with a plan to make that easy for them. Right.

[Warren Smith]

So I did see huge potential in that. Suddenly the students. But there's a lot of down potential downside and risk to this too. And the students suddenly have the ability to create content that can reach a large audience.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right.

[Warren Smith]

I mean, I haven't thought this out in a clear plan, but it was an opportunity.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, it's an opportunity to have a much more realistic video editing program. Oh, it's like, well, now we're going to make things that people will watch.

[Warren Smith]

If this had occurred at that first high school, Neshova, we were already putting things on Twitter. Yeah, they would have. I remember the head of my department, we would have. Who knows what we could have done with this.

[Jordan Peterson]

Right. So you think he would have run with it? Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what happened.

[Warren Smith]

Yeah, I can.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah. What happened with your job? Like you said, you know, you thought that the most likely consequence would be that they just wouldn't renew your contract. And when did you come to that conclusion? And how did you reconcile yourself to that?

[Warren Smith]

I need to run with this opportunity, grow if I can, with this platform in case something happens. It seems like that's a really bad. Logically that sounds like a really bad backup plan. I'm going to make a YouTube channel. But it is something. And it's. Again, I would have been a fool not to run with that ball as far as I could take it.

[Jordan Peterson]

Well, especially with your broader ambitions, you know, because you were interested in the.

[Warren Smith]

Broader sense in connecting with an audience filmmaker as well. It's like suddenly, I mean, who knows what I could do with this?

[Jordan Peterson]

Right?

[Warren Smith]

So. But to put a button on this, what happened? I uploaded. I did the same thing. I uploaded a video with a different student who hadn't seen that video. And I thought, because it was just from another conversation, but it was identical. The pattern was so identical. I thought this might be worth sharing. Yeah, it's identical to the last one. So what could go wrong? He was a new student. So I was like, we need to get permission from your parents if you want to have. After it was done, I was like, look, we could upload this. It's identical. Oh, I need permission from your parents, like written confirmation. I need your permission because you're new. So we don't have the releases. And so we got that upload it told the music teacher, and he was like, you know, just because we'd been. Now we'd been going back and forth on what. What to do with the channel because we knew people wanted that kind of, you know, that's what the audience wanted to see. Real students.

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah, right.

[Warren Smith]

But I was. And I had toyed with it. I alluded to the communist conversation with that other student. And so I had posted that previously. Two weeks go by, I. E. In the middle of the day, I get called into a meeting and they say, we've decided to part ways because you uploaded a video to YouTube against policy. We told you not to do that. I said, you told me not to do that. You congratulated me. I was like, how is it? Okay. The first time I could tell, though, when I walked in the room, their mind was already made up. It didn't matter what I said, so I didn't really say much. And I said, are you alluding to this student? I spoke to the parents and I said, have you spoken to his parents?

[Jordan Peterson]

Yeah.

[Warren Smith]

And they said, no, we're happy to do an investigation or reach out to him if that's what you'd like, or you can just agree to leave now. And they said, could you check with his parents? Like, it seems like a factor to take in. So I said, for sure, we'll just do the investigation. They're like, okay, go home and. And HR will be in touch in three days. But I couldn't touch anything. They took my computer, everything, and I was, like, escorted like a criminal out.

[Jordan Peterson]

All right, well, look, I think I'm going To end the YouTube side with that, but I think what we'll do on the Daily Wire side is delve into that in a little bit more detail. It'd be interesting to continue the conversation about, well, why your school made that decision, what possible role HR might have played and how these things could be managed in general. Because while people who are watching and listening are going to be interested in, well, what strategy should you adopt if you dare to take risks within the confines of an organization and find yourself running afoul of the authorities. And I want to know, like, exactly how you thought this through. So for everybody who's watching and listening, you can join us on the Daily Wire side for the remainder of this conversation. And for now, Warren, thank you very much. Thank you for coming in today. So, you know, part of your story is what happens when you mess with an incredibly powerful technology, right? Because you're. You're living your normal life and you're playing.

[Warren Smith]

That is the interesting.

[Jordan Peterson]

Oh, definitely. It's like, look the hell out, because this is a global communication platform that you're publishing on. And so how do you deal with that? Well, no one knows. No one knows. Hence the discussion. So thank you very much for that. And to everybody watching, listening, the film crew here in Manhattan today, thank you guys very much for setting this up. And ran very smoothly, technically, and that's always good. And join us on the Daily Wire side, everyone, for the continuation of this discussion. Bye.