← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
Jordan Peterson on Pathological Masculinity, Alarming Political Gender Gap Among Young Voters, and Snow White | Ep. 1035
01:40:32
Megyn Kelly is joined by Jordan Peterson, co-founder of Peterson Academy and author of "We Who Wrestle with God," to discuss the insane leftist policies that drove men and boys away from the Democratic party, how they’re still missing the point even after Trump’s landslide win, how it is "too little too late" for schools and universities to salvage their reputation, the decline of the Ivy League status, how young people are the more politically divided by gender than ever before, how Dems don’t understand why there's this split and still think everything is about abortion, Andrew Tate’s “pathological masculinity" and the wrong messenger to men and boys, why Dems are misguided about what makes Trump popular, what Olivia Wilde got wrong about him in the character based on him in “Don’t Worry Darling,” what Peterson learned about Chris Pine after the movie came out, how Disney dropped the ball on Snow White, challenges young women face in the dating world, the issue with the mentality...
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- [00:02]
Jordan B. Peterson
Here at the Almond Joy Factory, where tropical vibes abound, we use soft, fresh.
- [00:06]
Megyn Kelly
Tasting coconut, the crunchiest almonds, and delicious chocolate candy.
- [00:11]
Jordan B. Peterson
Ah. But do you know what our most important ingredient is? Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
- [00:20]
Megyn Kelly
Almond Joy's got nuts and something even way better than that. Yes, Almond Joy is made with almonds and Jo. Oh, my God. It's the coolest thing ever. Hey, guys, have you heard of Goldbelly? Well, check this out. It's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic famous foods from restaurants across the country, anywhere nationwide. I've never found a more perfect gift than food. They ship Chicago deep dish pizza, New York bagels, Maine lobster rolls, and even Ina Garten's famous cakes. Seriously. So if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your Life, head to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code gift. Welcome to the Megan Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Oh, we've got a treat for you today with a guest who has not been on this show in nearly three years. He's only been here one other time, way back in April of 2021. Episode 84. I mean, that's a long time ago. We weren't even on video. It was just an audio interview by phone. Jordan B. Peterson is a fascinating thinker and a leading intellectual of our time. And there may not be a greater voice over the past decade speaking out about the crisis with men and boys and more. Plus, his home country is about to become our 51st state, so that's exciting. He's Canadian. Most recently. I mean, he's sold 14 million books in the past couple of years. It's pretty impressive. But most recently, he authored we who Wrestle with God, Perceptions of the Divine. And he's also the host of the Daily Wires, the Jordan B. Peterson podcast, and founder of Peterson Academy, which I have to tell you, I've spent a fair amount of time nosing around on and clicking on videos and is well worth it. And then I subscribed. I started buying stuff. Don't go there unless you really want to get attached and you have some time to devote to it. As President Trump is settling into his new administration. One of the top Democrats in Congress aiming to undermine the Trump agenda is Senator Dick Durbin. And according to our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition, Senator Durbin has a new scheme, a government Takeover of your credit card. Today, Americans have thousands of choices in credit cards, but they say Senator Durbin's plan will result in less competition and less security. And that means more risk for your credit and your identity. Learn more@guardyourcard.org and consider telling your senators to stop Dick Durbin's government takeover of your credit card before it's too late. Jordan, great to have you back.
- [03:17]
Jordan B. Peterson
It's really good to see you.
- [03:18]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, so, yeah, I love Peterson Academy. It's very smart. It's, it's a place for someone to educate themselves. You know, the people who are rejecting possibly going to Brown University in today's day and age can instead go to Peterson Academy and learn lessons that actually really will help them improve their lives. What's, what's the goal of it? Let me just start there. And who's it for?
- [03:39]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, the goal was to bring university education into the 21st century and more specifically, to find the best professors in the world and to bring them to everyone at the lowest possible price. And I'm in a fortunate position because I have interviewed and met thousands of people and I have a very large connection among academics and thinkers in general and a reasonable reputation among them. And so if I talk to them about Peterson Academy and invite them to lecture about whatever they would love to lecture about, they're very likely to do that. And we have an extremely efficient team. So we like to joke that we're 10 times the quality at 1 20th the price. And I actually think that's about right because at the typical large university, regardless of its reputation, the bulk of the lectures are not top, great, top rate. I'd say maybe 10% of them are, and all of ours are top 1%. And so you can learn a tremendous amount. We have a very good social network there, too. It's free of bots and trolls and the sorts of people who make normal social media interaction quite the insanity provoking ordeal. And our social media site, the Quad, is very positive and upward aiming and people seem to enjoy it a lot.
- [05:08]
Megyn Kelly
Well, it's a great idea. I love that you're doing it. And really, as is typical for your voice in the national conversation, helping people, really helping people. I've got to kick it off here because what happened was yesterday I went on the Adam Carolla show and he wanted to discuss, I don't think we ever actually got to it, but he wanted to discuss this article he drew my attention to from NBC News, dated March 24, and the headline of the piece is the Plight of Boys and men, once sidelined by Democrats, is now a priority. And the sub headline is, in recent months, three Democratic governors have announced initiatives geared toward helping boys and men. And when I saw initiatives, my note on the page was, duh. No, right. Like to me, I'll tell you what they're doing. But you're the expert and you tell me because you've been speaking out about the plight of boys and men a lot longer than NBC News has been paying attention to it. You tell me whether they're getting it. I'll give you a couple of examples. So it just happens to be at least two of the three are presidential hopefuls on the Dem side. The third is Ned Lamont of Connecticut, my adopted home state, who is very clueless. But the other two are Wes Moore of Maryland, who's said to be on the short list, very charismatic black governor who is more centrist, or so they'd have us believe in his approach to governing. And then there's Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. So here's what they're doing. Okay. Moore says the well being of our young men and boys has not been a societal priority. True. Then he says, hold on, let me find it. That he's going to create programs to help in particular boys from the inner city and encourage them to pursue jobs in education and health care, to help boys with the juvenile justice system, and to make sure he solicits input from boys and men on how those initiatives are designed. To me, this seems like he's focused on inner city boys and helping them overcome poverty and so on. Okay. Then there's Gretchen Whitmer, who shared plans on how she's going to boost young men's enrollment in higher education and skills training. And then there's Ned Lamont of Connecticut, who announced what he called a DEI initiative, which he thinks, quote, folks on both sides of the aisle may appreciate to get more men into teaching. You're going to tell me what my reaction to this was. You've shot and you've missed. They need to spend more time at Peterson Academy. But you tell me whether this is the answer.
- [08:05]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, it's a little late in the game to be concerned about the sorts of things that I would say the progressives have actually produced. I mean, we've had four generations, say 60 years at least, of targeted demoralization of young men and, well, men in general. Boys, young men and men in general, because boys play preferences are verboten in schools, which is why so many of them are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, which as Far as I'm concerned, is a category that rarely even exists and is radically over prescribed. Boys on average are more active than girls and they're less agreeable. So they're more of a. You could say they're more of a discipline problem. Depends on what you're trying to discipline them to do. And so they're discriminated against as boys in the education system, and then as young men, they're taught that all of their ambition, their competitiveness, let's say, is nothing but a manifestation of the forces that have oppressed women for millennia and also are contributing to the industrial desecration of the planet, that marriage is a patriarchal, oppressive institution, and that what, propagating the human race in general as a responsible man is the worst thing you can do for the future. I don't really see that a few scattered half witnesses DEI programs aimed at rectifying the consequences of this idiot propagandizing are going to have the least bit of difference. They're certainly not going to get more men in the teaching system. That shift has sailed long ago. There is no faculty more corrupt than the faculties of education. And conservatives have been asleep, unconscionably asleep, for 60 years while the faculties of education promoted the worst of all possible idiot academic doctrines, whole word learning, social emotional learning, self esteem training, you name it. There's a stupid idea. Oh, multiple intelligences, practical intelligence, all these complete travesties of psychological theory, all adopted by the faculties of education. The worst students generally become teachers. They have the worst professors. They are awarded for their pathological efforts. 50% of the state budgets, right? I don't know if you know that figure, But K through 12 education eats up 50% of the state's budgets. And it all goes to teachers who come through the faculties of education because they have a hammerlock on certification which the Republicans and the conservatives are still not paying any attention to. And so you're not going to fix that problem? Well, first of all, the Democrats aren't interested in fixing it at all. Because to call them in bed with the teachers unions and the faculties of education is to say almost nothing about how deeply in bed they are. No, it's. Now, the Democrats know perfectly well that they've lost the male vote and certainly the young male vote. Young men are more conservative than any generation has been in. Well, in the, in the, in. In the memorable past, in living memory, let's say. And that's going to happen with young women eventually too, because young women lag young men, right? Because young women like Men that are about five years older, four years older, on average. So comparing young men and young women at any given time with regards to their political beliefs isn't reasonable from a psychological perspective. So the.
- [12:11]
Megyn Kelly
No, yeah, keep going.
- [12:12]
Jordan B. Peterson
Wow. It's terrible. What, what's been done to young men is terrible, and we're seeing the results of that. Well, that's partly why they're turning so radically all across the world, by the way, young men are becoming more conservative and more religious, interestingly enough. Yeah.
- [12:30]
Megyn Kelly
So the Democrats are paying attention to this now because Trump won because they, they ignored this group. More than ignored them, they disparaged them, they demeaned them, they ignored them. They just, they were just completely undermining of any male empowerment whatsoever. To, to the contrary, they seemed determined to disempower them in every way to make my sons and everyone else's pay some toll for the perceived sins perceived by the left of their great, great grandfathers. And now they're, now they're panicked because they like winning elections. Go ahead.
- [13:12]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, post George Floyd, the big corporations decided that they were going to go all in on the DEI front, and they just stopped hiring or promoting young men, Caucasian men in particular. And so why your sons, for example, or my son, for that matter, should be paying the price for whatever hypothetical sins his ancestors hypothetically committed is. Well, that's all part of the leftist notion that people should be categorized by group and that the way you attain equity in the equity, you know, equality of outcome in the current milieu is by being prejudiced against people by, in consequence of their race and gender. Yeah, well, thankfully, a lot of that's coming to an end. Although, let's make no mistake about it, it's not come to an end in the universities. I mean, you know, that.
- [14:04]
Megyn Kelly
Or K through 12.
- [14:06]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, yeah, well, that, that's just done, like. And again, like, I put a fair bit of responsibility for this at the feet of the Republicans. It's like, have you guys be. You guys. I don't mean you specifically, Megan, obviously, but yeah, they've been asleep at the wheel for four generations. And even now, the Trump administration is taking aim at the Department of Education federally. But, you know, that's a tiny proportion of the actual trouble. The real trouble's at the state level, and I can't see how the school system could be set up any worse. It's unbelievably expensive. It does a terrible job at making kids literate and numerate. It's, it's radically propagandistic. In the most insane possible ways. I mean, the idea that we should be teaching our children to be confused about their sexual and gender identities, period. But let alone in elementary and junior high schools, you couldn't do anything, you literally can't do anything to confuse children more deeply than to confuse them about whether or not they're male or female.
- [15:24]
Megyn Kelly
Yes. And just, I mean, the audience has heard this, but just as a reminder, we pulled our children, our two boys and our daughter. She was at a different school. We pulled our children from their New York City private schools because of this radicalism. When our eldest was in third grade at literally one of the best and most respected private schools in the country and an all boys school where they're supposed to have some knowledge and expertise in educating boys in the third grade. Without telling the parents, they unleashed a several week long educational program on these boys, on trans issues, featuring men running around in tutus, suggesting if you like the color purple, you might potentially secretly be a girl. And then made the little boys, all these boys in third grade raise their hands and, and say on a scale of 1 through 5, how certain they were that they were boys. And they, I, I can't remember whether it was the five or the fist that's, that just suggested, I'm just confused about what you're saying here. Like, I don't understand what you're asking me. And all these little kids chose that option because they didn't even have any understanding of what was being introduced to them. And this was a school, Jordan, where all the parents who go there most are really wanting little Junior to get into Harvard or Yale or Stanford. And so these parents typically do not push back because the name of the game is to be well liked by the administration and the people who have Junior's future in their hands. And even this group after that was outraged and revolted and stood up to say, what are you doing? They were actually teaching the children that there could be a hundred genders, but at least three or four, I mean, I heard that with my own ears from a teacher. So I, I, I think what you're saying for people out there who are thinking, no, they can't, no, it's absolutely true. We lived it. And you're right, this, this, to me, it was child abuse. We pulled them because they were being abused by these teachers.
- [17:33]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, you see, your story just highlights how deep the problem is because you're in private school and it's a high end private school and still the same thing is happening. And so that's an indicative of how. That's indicative of how deep the rod is. And the problem that the parents that you described still have is they think it's 1995 and that Harvard and the other Ivy League schools are what they were. I taught at Harvard, let's say in 1995. I was there from 92 to 98 and it was the most effective and admirable institution I'd ever been associated with. By a lot it was. The students were super bright. A third of them were so smart they'd catch on to anything you told them on first exposure. And the bottom third, who probably were geniuses at some other subject, they'd catch on with a little work. The senior faculty were great. The junior faculty were top rate and hardworking. It was really a good place. And it had a well deserved reputation which it had built up over decades by strenuously selecting only virtually only on the basis of merit. There was also some selection in terms of family history, but that didn't, overall, that didn't produce a decrement in student quality. And since 2010, there were some signs of rot in the 1990s because some of the departments like English had already become pretty politically correct. And I had my run ins with the department of English when I was at Harvard. Minor things, but helling. But by about 2010, that whole reality just, it just doesn't exist anymore. That's partly why we built Peterson Academy, because my sense. I've also been involved with Ralston College in Georgia. We are attempting there to build another bricks and mortar institution and that's been quite successful. We've graduated three top rate master's classes at Ralston College. So but it's, it's very, it's a very expensive enterprise. Whereas online the price is, well, for Peterson Academy tuition is $600 a year. And so now we're not accredited yet. And that's partly because the accreditation agencies are also captured by the woke mob. And so part of what your parents have to do is they have to understand that it's not 1995 and that you're not doing your children a service by sending them to especially the boys. Well, I wouldn't even say that. It might even be worse for the girls now. And we could get into that if you'd like, because I didn't purposely focus my attention on boys. It's just that when I started my YouTube channel, 80% of YouTube viewers and listeners are male. And so I picked up a big male audience. But it's not like the girls are in better shape. I would say arguably on the psychological side, they're in worse shape. It's more than 50% of young women 18 to 34 who profess liberal political proclivity also self report at least one diagnosed mental illness. And rates of depression and anxiety in that population, 18 to 34 year old young women, have skyrocketed. And we should also point out that the entire progressive enterprise would collapse if young women weren't being propagandized in a massive manner, not only by the universities, but by bad actors at the international level on platforms like TikTok, which like what, what's happening to young women on Tick Tock is absolutely reprehensible. I've documented that with some of the people I'm working with. And yeah, it's, and it's, it's terrible. Well, obviously you can't demoralize young men without simultaneously terribly affecting young women because what's harmful to one sex is going to be immediately harmful to the other. And so all this hand waving on the part of the Democrats is it's too little too late. And it's also, I'm certain that they don't have the wherewithal to do this properly because virtually everything they've set their foundations on is rotten to the core. As you can tell, everyone knows. That's why. What are the Democrats running at now in terms of popularity in the US something like 27%.
- [22:19]
Megyn Kelly
With their own party. Their own party is at that level, never mind with, you know, net voters.
- [22:25]
Jordan B. Peterson
The right. Right.
- [22:26]
Megyn Kelly
I reached out to a couple of friends of mine who are on the left and my one friend, or at least formerly of the left, my one friend has a son who is now 16 and who was like she was very left, a committed Democrat. And he's been raised in New York City surrounded by other Democrats and gone through the school systems there which are replete with Democrats. And he and many of his friends now are Trump supporting MAGA hat wearing Republicans. And so I asked her after I saw this article in NBC and I knew you were going to come on today, I, I said try to explain in a nutshell what did it, how did he have this dramatic transformation? Because I've known them, I saw him go from this leftist to this MAGA hat wearing kid. And she summed it up by saying, actually I pulled it. But she summed it up as follows. She said the main communication between government and young people is education. If the curriculum is that white voices don't matter anymore, that's alienating to every White boy out there. She said, my son feels that they have blamed straight white men for everything. He is not allowed to read white male authors at school there. And it reminded me, Jordan, of a story my one friend told me about his sister who was a visiting professor at Smith College where she came in. They asked her to come be a visiting professor. She was from Yale and she taught English. And she got reported almost immediately to the dean of her group. Why? Not because her syllabus for the students had a bunch of white males on there, but because she had any. Because there was a white male on the syllabus. Westmore and Ned Lamont and Gretchen Whitmer will never acknowledge any of this, nor, God forbid, say that it's a potential problem.
- [24:42]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well, that, that's more indication of just how deep the rot goes. I, I seriously can't see, and I don't say this with any satisfaction, you know, I really like McGill University in Montreal. I had a great graduate education there. I had a great advisor, and I love teaching at Harvard. And I really enjoyed the University of Toronto for the 20 years I was there before everything fell apart in about 2017. And I'm not the least bit happy to be pointing my finger at these institutions and say that they've not only lost their way, but that they're perverting and all of our young people and all of our institutions and that they're clearly not salvageable. And I know why they're not salvageable. So the first reason is that they became absurdly administratively top heavy. And that happened pretty much from the 60s onward, where all the extra money that was devoted to education essentially went not to students and certainly not to professors or researchers, but to an ever expanding administration. And that probably peaked around in terms of just administration. That probably peaked around 2010. And then the woke mob took over the administration and, and so now that's who runs the universities. And you can get them to forego their DEI and equity terminology, but all they'll do is camouflage their same machinations under different headings. They already think this way. Those are fundamental differences. They're not surface. They're not going to retool their epistemological commitments. They're not going to become different philosophically. They're not going to learn their lesson. And then on the faculty side, especially in the last 10 years, say, when you literally couldn't get hired at a university, well, first of all, if you were male and Caucasian, you just take that off the table. But also, if you didn't write a diversity statement that indicated your submission to or fervent advocacy of the radical progressive ideology. And I know where allegiance to it, absolutely. In the University of California system, which was a great system for a long time, especially on the scientific side, 80% of candidates were knocked out of the running for beginning positions as assistant professors in the scientific realms because their diversity statements were inadequate. This was before their research dossiers were evaluated. Now you just can't imagine, unless you're a scientist, you can't imagine what that means. The only thing that matters with regards to the prediction of your ability as a researcher, and this is statistically speaking, the best predictor of your future success as a researcher is the number of publications you had as a graduate student, because that's actually a direct index of how well you did your job. And so to take that off the table in favor of racial categories and political belief means that the scientific endeavor is just, it's dead in the water at the universities, it's meaningless.
- [28:31]
Megyn Kelly
This also happened, just FYI speaking out of our, of our New York City experience. One of the top schools in New York, Brierly, that's an all girls school which is just a funnel to the Ivies. And it's one of those schools where many, many parents in New York would give, give anything to get their child in there. I mean the tuition now is probably nearing 70 grand a year where the same thing you had to as a family, applying your daughter to the school, affirm your commitment to DEI and offer one of these DEI values and how they're incorporated into your family statements on applying to the school. So they were screening out anybody, they didn't want anybody. And I think it's still in place at Brearley who, who didn't bend the knee fully and completely to DEI and then have specific examples of how it was being incorporated into their child rearing at home. Keep going.
- [29:30]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well, so the reason the Ivy League diploma became so valuable is that from about 1960 onward the universities made a concerted effort to, to select essentially on the basis of intellectual capacity, general cognitive ability. And that's a measure that differs widely between people as everyone who's ever gone to school knows. You know perfectly well that in the average class of 30 kids, there's three kids that are outstanding academic performers and there's three kids who just can't be taught even the basics without a tremendous amount of extra effort. Everyone knows that. And what the universities as a whole did, especially after World War II, but it really got going in the 60s was radically select on the basis of intelligence. And what that meant was that an Ivy League degree was a stamp of extreme intellectual competence. And that's why the brand value went through the roof. Now, the effect of intelligence on performance isn't linear, it's exponential, right? And so if you can select selectively for extremely intelligent people, you get a non linear return on your in terms of enhanced productivity in consequence of doing that. And so the universities did that, especially with the, the SATs and the GREs and the LSATs and the MCATs, which, although there's a lot of noise around this, are fundamentally intelligence tests. And so now if you can stamp your graduates with the assurance that they're in the 99th percentile for intelligence, then it makes perfect sense for every employer worth his salt to line up to hire them. Okay? But now what happened was the universities produced a brand that was of unbelievable economic value because of their selection technologies. And then that got gamed by the progressives and the radicals, so they can destroy the universities by filling them with progressives, let's say, who are selected for reasons other than their intellectual prowess, to put it mildly. And there'll be some lag before everybody figures out that the degrees have lost their value. Now that's already starting to happen. A lot of the tech companies are moving toward their own selection because the universities are no longer viable as screening institutions. So. But these parents you talk about, like, like I said, especially in places like New York that are still democratic to the core, they still think it's 1995 and it's not even 2000 anymore. Like it's seriously not 1995. Things have changed a lot and they're going to change more. We hope with Peterson Academy that we can keep our students on the cutting edge of learning and that will leverage all the new learning technologies to make that possible and be able to do that, as I said, radically, radically less expensively. And we already have 50,000 students who've taken us up on the offer. And so I can't, I really can't. See, Megan, I'm really dead serious about this. You know, like I said, I was involved, am involved with Ralston College. I've had conversations with the University of Austin folks. If the universities were salvageable, that would be a lovely thing. But here's a thought. The universities are rotting everywhere. Everywhere. Okay, so one diagnosis is the reason they're rotting is because they're dead. Like their time is over.
- [33:27]
Megyn Kelly
That's not reversible.
- [33:28]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, I've watched companies fail like big companies Tech companies, research institutions, all sorts of different large organizations. And it's very hard to stem the tide once it turns. Very hard. And if your organization is only making one mistake that might be fatal. But I think the universities are making like I made a list once, I think they're making 10 mistakes.
- [33:56]
Megyn Kelly
Well, can you believe, like I'm thinking about Ned Lamont in Connecticut. So he thinks if he, if he greases the wheels for more boys to become teachers that this is going to be the solution. Now it would be great to have more male role models for boys in K through 12 education. I think everybody can see the value of that. But what does he ignore? He ignores the fact that we live in Connecticut where there are a significant number of large cities, where there is a large black population and in over 70% of black homes they are missing a father. There is no father figure, the father has split and there's no one who stepped in to fill the gap. Why don't you start there? Ned Lamont, he would never speak of that, Jordan. Right. He's not going to talk about the crisis in boys missing strong male role models and start in the black community which actually would help those young boys on their own get into elite academic institutions much more than saying I'm going to grease the pipeline for them to become teachers.
- [35:04]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well you know there are schools that have managed to teach non selected inner city kids extraordinarily effectively. There's a school in the UK called the Michaela School run by Katherine Burblesing which has done a job that's so good you just can't believe it. And so there are educational, there are educational initiatives that can work and can work for minorities. Katherine Burble Singh's school is minority dominated. The students are selected from low tiers in the economic hierarchy. And she graduates more students into Russell Group universities that includes Oxford and Cambridge and, and the universe. Well, let's stick with Oxford and Cambridge to begin with. She graduates a higher percentage of her students into Russell Group universities than any other school in the uk, including Eton. And so the kinds of initiatives that are being proposed can work. But one of the comical things about Katherine Purple Singh is that the UK press and the teachers hate her because she's conservative to the bone. She used to be a lefty and her school is extremely disciplined and top down organized. And so it's a model of education that the progressives not only wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole no matter how good the demonstrated effects even for minorities, but that her approach is Absolute anathema to them now and then. With regard to your broader comment. So it's increasingly normative in the black community for children to be raised in a father absent home, and that's been spiraling toward the majority since the early 1960s. But we should also note that the black population is only ahead of the game in that curve. Like the Hispanic population curves for fatherlessness are the same as the blacks, except 10 years later. And the same is true on the Caucasian front. Now, that's not true for the wealthy, by the way, the wealthy, they still get married. Right. And the Democrats won't address this fundamental issue, obviously, because they would have to drop everything they stand for in order to even admit that fathers are necessary. And that's also appalling beyond comprehension because there's almost no facts that are more thoroughly documented in the developmental psychology literature than the detrimental effects on children, boys and girls alike, of fatherlessness. So girls without a father hit puberty one year earlier. And that's just an indication of the magnitude, even of the physiological consequences of not having a man around. Girls mature sexually faster, so they can attract a man even though they're still. No, they're still children in their psychological development. And boys without a father at the age of 12 already have telomeres that are much shorter than their peers with fathers. And telomeres are part of the genetic structure that determines how long you'll lay you'll live. So they're so stressed that they're already fated for an early death. And so, and you know, so then now you want to address the fatherlessness issue. Okay, well, now you have to admit that marriage is not only not an oppressive patriarchal institution, which is one of the most idiotic claims you could ever possibly make, but that it's a net good for men, women and children alike and that any attempts to decenter it are cataclysmic. It's like the Democrats aren't going to go there, that's for sure.
- [38:59]
Megyn Kelly
That's the thing. Like their entire worldview would have to be made over. And what we're seeing instead as they flail is these pathetic attempts to slap band aids on this. And by the way, Westmore in Maryland, a black man is also not addressing the fatherlessness piece of this. He won't speak honestly about this problem at all. But the, the problem for men goes well beyond the racial issue. And black families and Hispanic families, it goes well beyond. And that's, that's where we're, you know, where we are in this conversation. We're having today. But it is interesting to me to watch them throw darts at the board to try to figure out what is it, because we pulled this sound bite over to show what the problem is. They don't, they don't care about the boys. They care about winning elections. That's what they care about. And there was a very interesting discussion by Ezra Klein of the New York Times and his guest on the gender divide and why Trump won the last election. Listen here.
- [39:56]
Jordan B. Peterson
Okay.
- [39:57]
Megyn Kelly
Describe it. This chart in some ways convinced me to do this podcast. Oh, thank you.
- [40:00]
Jordan B. Peterson
This chart shocks me.
- [40:02]
Megyn Kelly
I agree. This is to me the scariest chart in this entire presentation. And again, something I'm very surprised by. And so what you can see is that for voters over 30, the gender gap was fairly stable at around 10%, which is roughly where it's been in American politics.
- [40:19]
Jordan B. Peterson
And voters over 75, it's even lower.
- [40:21]
Megyn Kelly
But what's crazy is if you look at people who are under the age of 30, the gender gap has exploded. If you look at 18 year olds, 18 year old men were 23 percentage points more likely to support Donald Trump than 18 year old women, which is just completely unprecedented in American politics.
- [40:39]
Jordan B. Peterson
Is that abortion?
- [40:40]
Megyn Kelly
I think it's too early to say exactly what the cause is. What's interesting is that this is happening in other countries as well.
- [40:47]
Jordan B. Peterson
There is a sense of Democratic Party's becoming much more pro women party and in some ways sort of anti young men. And that, that just had a huge effect on young men's political opinions.
- [41:04]
Megyn Kelly
Of course, his guest there, David Shore, is he, that's where his mind goes on being shown these numbers of the gender gap and why young men overwhelmingly are moving to the Republican Party. It's abortion. That's, that is their number one issue on the left. It must define everything as opposed to taking a hard look at what they, their side has been doing to young men for, yes, decades. But the peak over the past 10 years has just driven these young men to, to extreme measures. I mean, some are suicidal. The deaths of despair have gone up to tens of thousands per year. Scott Galloway, who's writing a book on this, he, he, he said we've lost more men, young men to deaths of despair, some 400,000 over the past few years than we lost in, in one of the world wars like we're, that's, it's all about abortion in the mind of the left. That's how we have to fix it somehow.
- [42:00]
Jordan B. Peterson
Jordan well, it's also, that's also a profoundly stupid theory Even from a conceptual perspective, because there's no reason a priori to assume that access to abortion, I mean if it, if it appeals to young women who want to keep the sexual revolution going with no cost, hypothetically, why wouldn't it appeal to young men? For exactly the same reasons, like it's just a stupid idea, but it shows you how bereft men, the democrat theorists are on the ideational side to jump to that conclusion immediately. And you know what, what they don't understand, really, there's a long list things they don't understand. But in the black community, let's say with regard to black young men, is that by not concentrating on marriage. So at this, at this group I put together in London called the alliance for Responsible Citizenship, we trying to put together a visionary form of conservatism and classic liberalism, let's say, because conservatives aren't very good on the vision front generally, because their attitude is we should just keep doing what we're doing that works. And that's not exactly a vision. Things are so unstable now that even the conservatives have to put forward a vision. And one of the biggest fights we had within our organization was a fight in relationship to how are we going to conceptualize support for the future families. And we settled on long term, stable, committed, heterosexual, child centered marriages, knowing that there has to be a, a domain of tolerance around that center ideal because people get divorced and there are single mothers and there are gay people and you know, and there are widows and, and there are orphans. I mean, just because there's an ideal doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to the margin, let's say. But the ideal has to stay intact. Now you might say, well, why is that a saleable message to young people? You see, I know why, because I've been selling that message to young people for 15 years and very successfully. So I know what I'm talking about. What you want to tell young men is that they have something crucially important to do that's exciting and difficult and meaningful. And they find that in the voluntary adoption of responsibility, they don't find that in idiot hedonism or in the struggle for power. They find it in their willingness to make themselves into somebody who might be attractive to a young woman, let's say, who has her head screwed on straight enough to understand that there isn't a greater privilege that she'll have in her life if she's fortunate than to become a mother. You know, now maybe half of women in The west at 30 have no child. Half of those women will never have a child. They won't find a mate. They won't have a child. And 90% of them will be very upset about that. And so by deprioritizing marriage, we're doing young people such a terrible disservice. It's like, let's think about young black men. It's like, okay, they're not going to get married. So then, first of all, why the hell should they grow up like young men grow up? We know this. We've known this as psychologists for decades. Young men quit their adolescent hijinks somewhere in their mid-20s if they gain stable employment and find a mate. And the reason they do that is because they think, well, why the hell not just drink and carouse around if no one's depending on me? And that's a reasonable question. I'm not saying that's a particularly mature attitude, but it takes some. You need something resting on your shoulders to motivate you to take the leap into sacrificial responsibility. But the thing about sacrificial responsibility, that's what I've outlined in this new book of mine, by the way, is that it lends meaning to your life, real meaning, the kind of meaning that sustains you through suffering. It's like, well, why not be Peter Pan and hang out forever with Tinkerbell the porn fairy and be king of the Lost Boys? And the answer to that is because you miss your life and you have nothing to go for you, nothing to rely on when times of trouble come to visit you. Grow the hell up now. Well, what. What is the left tail, young man? Well, if you grew up and adopted responsibility, you'd just be oppressing your wife because marriage isn't oppressive, patriarchal institution. You know, even though married women with children are by far the happiest women.
- [47:01]
Megyn Kelly
The happiest.
- [47:02]
Jordan B. Peterson
Surprise, surprise.
- [47:03]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's right. That just. That was just reaffirmed in a poll that came out last week by far, that their happiness endorsed the other.
- [47:09]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well, and married religious people have the most sex. So there's a comical, comical statistic for you. That's the. That's the culmination of 60 years of sexual revolution. The hedonists don't have anybody. They're in the basement having their way with the pornographic screen. And the married religious couples are happy and sexually fulfilled. Well, that isn't what anybody predicted in 1963. So everything's upside down, Megan. Everything's upside down. And young men have figured it out. And I know that because I See thousands of them, everywhere, all over the world, all the time. And I'll tell you that people who come to my shows now, they look a hell of a lot better than they did five years ago. They're standing.
- [48:02]
Megyn Kelly
Is that right?
- [48:02]
Jordan B. Peterson
They've got a partner, they've got a child. They tell me what they've done. They're thrilled about it. Enough of this bloody Democrats, this idiot progressivism. You just have no idea how many people that's ruined. And we haven't even started to talk about what it's done to young women. Christ, they're so deluded. You know, whenever someone makes a clip of me talking about the fact that young women need to make finding a husband and having a child a priority in their 20s, probably their early 20s, and then they can concentrate on their career if they're inclined to, for the next 30 years of their life. Just plenty to be a slave to a corporate entity. You know, I don't make clips like that and put them online. But people clip my lectures and, you know, maybe they'll make a little three minute piece where I'll say something like that. And it's inevitably the case that the comments fill up with comments from young women that are so vitriolic that they just make your hair curl about, you know, this horrible old white man who's telling them what to do with their bodies, which is so idiotic because I'm trying to warn them. I had lots of women in my clinical practice who ended up alone and childless in their 30s and then got desperate about it, you know, because you get desperate about it. And let me tell you, that's not fun.
- [49:39]
Megyn Kelly
Well, and the other thing is these women can take the advice or leave the advice, but it speaks to a lot of people. And why is it their prerogative? Why. Why do they need to tell you that you're some. You're. You're a woman hater? Because this is how you see the world. This is what your expertise has driven you to conclude. This is what interviewing and counseling all these patients has led you. I mean, it's a valid viewpoint that they can take for what it's worth or reject, but not. Then comes the names calling and the mudslinging. And we're gonna get into that in a minute because I'm very interested in. First of all, I'm gonna show the audience what some of these Democrats are now trying to do. And I believe it's a direct effort to recruit young men. In addition to this effort we've discussed, there's Another one underway. And then we're gonna talk more about the blowback that Jordan has received just for saying these things. This is his POV and it's very well informed. But it has not come without a personal and professional price for Jordan Peterson, who stays with me for the full show. Don't go away. There's a lot of talk about government debt, but after four years of inflation, another real crisis is personal debt. Some people are working harder than ever and still drowning in credit card debt and overdue bills. But there's Done With Debt Now. Done With Debt has unique escape strategies to help end your debt fast so you can keep more of your hard earned money. Done With Debt does not try to sell you a loan or bankruptcy. Their tough negotiators will go one on one with your credit card and loan companies with one goal, to drastically reduce your bills, eliminate interest and erase penalties. Most clients wind up with more money in their pocket month one. And they don't stop until they break you free from debt permanently. Take a few minutes and visit donewithdebt.com speak with one of their debt strategists for free. But listen up, some of their solutions are time sensitive, so you got to move quickly. Go to donewithdt.com that's done with debt.com we talked about this Democratic governor plan, at least in three instances, of somehow recruiting young, young men back to the Democrat party. The those in power over in the US Senate, for example, seem to have a different approach in mind. Uh, and all I can guess is that this is their idea of the masculinity that they have erased from their own party. They think this is how to restore it. You tell me whether you agree and whether this is effective. Take a look.
- [52:13]
Jordan B. Peterson
Hey there, Chris Murphy. Murphy, it's been a very long, long day today. Full of a lot of bullshit, a lot of threats to democracy. Tonight I want to talk about Signalgate and what a colossal fuck up this is in terms of our national security, which should divert people from the number one issue we have against these bastards. Sorry, these people.
- [52:39]
Megyn Kelly
So two us, well, three US Senators and one of whom is the minority leader. More and more, you know, off color words, I, I'm a big fan of swearing. As my audience knows, it only works if it comes organically. To you. This did not seem organic at all. Chuck Schumer seemed uncomfortable actually saying it there. But I. My own belief, Jordan, is that this is their belief of how to win young men back.
- [53:07]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, that, that's a topic well worth delving into. Partly because it would also enable us to talk a little bit about what's happening hypothetically on what is hypothetically described as the right. So I guess you might. There's a number of people who have influenced young men in a more conservative direction, and I'm one of them, and Ben Shapiro is another, and Andrew Tate is a third. And I warned people back in 2016 that if they kept making men weak, that there would be a consequence of that, because weak men do very terrible things. They turn, for example, for their models to people like Andrew Tate. Now, the reason I'm bringing that up in relationship to the clips that you showed me is because you put together three clips that are predicated on the assumption that masculinity has this kind of brisk, pushy. I don't give a damn if I swear on national TV because I'm so tough kind of men to it. And it's very easy for weak men to assume that power is the defining characteristic of a respectable man, like an actually masculine man. And that's what Andrew Tate, at least in part, purports to sell his audience. So now Andrew Tate is very bad actor, to say the least. He's a pimp, an electronic pimp. And I think pimps are possibly the lowest form of male life because they are parasitic on women. And that's about as bad as you can get. If you're a man, maybe you can get lower because you could be parasitic on children, but being parasitic on women, that's pretty bad. And he's taught his followers how to be this, you know, playboy Lothario type of love him and leave them, do it my way or hit the goddamn highway sort of attitude. And, you know, if you've been demoralized your entire life and you haven't been attractive to women, and you're not doing well in your career, and you're very disoriented, and you've had no role models at all, then someone who has all the trappings of surface success, like Andrew Tate, and who's very good at flaunting it, can look like just the medicine you need. And to give the devil his due, you know, I can understand why men who have nothing would at least want to have something. And I can see that Andrew Tate offers that to them. And that is not any advocacy for Andrew Tate, as I've already made my view of him very clear. Now, the left likes to think that Andrew Tate and me, for example, are gateways to the alt right and that somehow we're the same and we're not the same at all. And what I'm offering young men is a pathway to adulthood through responsibility, not through the exercise of power. Now, if you're powerful and you're strong and you're forthright and you're articulate, then you can harness all that power into your responsibility, and that can make you an even better man. But if you weaken men, they will 100%. They'll become nihilistic, they'll become hedonistic, and they'll worship power. And Andrew Tate is exactly the face of power worship. And you can bloody well expect to see a lot more of that coming down the pipes. And if the Democrats are daft enough to turn to a power representation of masculinity because they're too foolish to understand the relationship, let's say, between responsibility and proper masculinity, then they. They deserve exactly what's coming to them. And what will come to them is no increase whatsoever in their approval rating among young men, because anyone with a clue can see through what they're doing in 15 seconds flat. But they'll also do nothing but promote people like Andrew Tate, and then we'll have serious trouble, that's for sure.
- [57:29]
Megyn Kelly
You know, it's. It's interesting because I listened to a bunch of leftists talk about this issue in recent weeks, because I'm curious to see what they think the problem is. And many, many, if not all, blame President Trump. They think he's, you know, a bully. He swears occasionally he's not nice to people. They think, they think he's bad to women. And then the Elon gets dumped in there for good measure, too, as same on all those fronts. And once again, Jordan, I think they've totally misunderstood what it is about Trump and for that matter, Elon that is drawing young men to them. I don't think it has anything to do with Trump and his behavior toward women 30 years ago. And I don't think it's Trump's occasional dropping of a swear, although I do think that makes him seem much more relatable to especially the working class. You know, that's how folks talk, that. That's how I talk too, frankly. But I think it makes him more relatable, as opposed to a Mitt Romney who is just perfectly buttoned up and smoothed out. And, you know, there's not. There's less to sort of grab onto, less grit. Elon is incredibly successful, which I think everyone can respect, but he's not out there. I don't know, maybe he's a little pugilistic these days because he's in it and he's getting punched so often. But can you speak to that? Why. Why do you think the left thinks that what's happening on the right, with respect to some admiration for Andrew Tate, etc, is really the fault of Donald Trump? That's how they interpret it, that these toxically masculine guys are the product of Trumpism?
- [59:07]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, it's partly because the left doesn't have a vision of responsible masculinity. So it's either, you know, soy boy or bully. That's their whole theory of masculinity. And if you're. You shouldn't be a bully, because that's the worst. And actually, that's not the worst. If you think bully is the worst, you know very little about worst. There's abysses of hell that make bully look like paradise. And the Democrats, the progressives, are very naive in their conceptualization of malevolence and evil. Like, they tend to think that bad people are victims. It's like, that's because they. In their world, bad people don't exist. And in my world, bad people exist, and I know what they're like. And bully is a pretty desirable form of bad person compared to the real monsters. And the Democrats just have no clue of that at all. And so they don't know what sort of man boy would admire if he was set on the right path because, well, for example, they think marriage is a patriarchal, oppressive institution. And so a man who's willing to offer himself as a husband and a father, well, he's just another bloody oppressor, isn't he?
- [60:21]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, from that standpoint, they should love Elon, given his.
- [60:25]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well, you know, failure to marry.
- [60:28]
Megyn Kelly
And have a bunch of kids.
- [60:29]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, it is one of the paradoxical things about Elon, too. Like, he's a very weird conservative. So he's not a conservative. And neither is no Trump, obviously.
- [60:37]
Megyn Kelly
Neither is Trump.
- [60:39]
Jordan B. Peterson
No. And also, by the way, the divide in our society is no longer between left and right. Those categories don't even. They don't even make any sense anymore as far as I'm concerned. I mean, one of the Democrats whose video you posted earlier pointed out that, you know, increasingly, the Democrats are the side of. Are the party of women. And that's part of what's happening is actually. We're actually seeing a sex divide in terms of political affiliation. But more, it's not because the women are becoming left and the men becoming right. It's because the left is now feminine and the right is now Masculine and the political distinctions have become virtually undetectable and irrelevant. The old categories don't work now. And it isn't only that the left has become feminine and the right has become masculine, but that's a big part of what's driving the strangeness of, of today's political discourse, because it's also the case that the Democrats have become pathologically feminine. And that's not the same thing as becoming feminine. No, the Democrats will say, well, the, the, the Republicans have become pathologically masculine. And there is a danger of that. Like Andrew Tate's the Face of Pathological Masculinity. And you can see that to some degree in Trump because he likes to throw his weight around and he's actually very good at it. But fundamentally, like, first of all, you can look at his family. I mean, they're a pretty high functioning bunch. There's no Hunter Biden in the Trump tribe, you know, and he seems to get along pretty well with his wife and she seems to be a pretty classy character and she stays in her lane. And I don't mean that in any misogynist way.
- [62:22]
Megyn Kelly
I mean that she's got in their deal.
- [62:24]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, yeah, well. And she's got enough humility to play her role well and to be apparently satisfied and grateful for that by all appearances. And so, you know, Trump is a blustery character and he's definitely got that kind of throw your shoulders around masculinity that is attractive to people who confuse power with masculinity. But he's also, there's a lot more to Trump than that. I mean, he's got a vicious, vicious sense of humor. He's got a tremendous amount of energy, and he's been successful at like five impossible things just like musk. And you can throw that away as you would if you felt that all forms of capitalist success are just another manifestation of oppressive patriarchy. But, you know, that's a pretty idiot theory, unless you're a progressive leftist.
- [63:15]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I, I, I think you're exactly right on that. So you've been saying all these things for years now, many years. And you know, if it may be, if Wes Moore and Gretchen Whitmer and Adam Schiff and Chris Murphy and Chuck Schumer had listened to you back in 15, 16, maybe their party wouldn't be in this predicament. I don't know. Because you're saying it's really a worldwide phenomenon. It's caused by leftism, though. I think that's at its core what it's been caused by. And I don't see leftism, more leftism being the cure for it. But maybe some awakeness on the part of the left, not wokeness, but some awakeness on what they've done to young men is a positive in any event. I don't know that they're capable of getting there because one of the controversies that you suffered through as a result of speaking these truths was a Hollywood actress and director, Olivia Wilde made a whole movie about this alleged toxic masculinity and it starred a fake. You. Chris Pine played a character who she admitted was based in on Olivia Wilde's view of Jordan Peterson. And she was extremely nasty talking about you. She. She went on in her PR tour promoting her movie. Don't Worry Darling was the name of it, saying you're an insane person who is, quote, a pseudo intellectual hero to the incel community. Incel for the listening audience. I think you know this, but it's. It stands for involuntarily celibate young men who are not having any sexual relations whatsoever. And the. The despair that comes with that is rejected. It's really just they're painted as basically white supremacist alt right people who gravitate onto meaningless pseudo intellectuals in Olivia Wilde's view. And so there. Here's just a clip from her movie of Chris Pine playing what we now know as a Jordan Peterson type. And then we'll pick it up from there.
- [65:15]
Jordan B. Peterson
Dean, what is the enemy of progress? Chaos. Yes. Oof. Nasty word. Chaos. Merciless foe at chaos. Energy unfocused. Innovation hindered. Hope strangled. Greatness disguised. I see greatness in each one of you. I know exactly who you are. What are we doing?
- [65:49]
Megyn Kelly
Changing the world.
- [65:50]
Jordan B. Peterson
What are we doing? Changing the world. That's right.
- [65:54]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, that was absolutely atrocious acting and directing and presentation, but the attack on you was obvious. And of course they make you seem like some faux preacher type and like a cult leader from the 1950s instead of what you're actually doing. And there was an extraordinary moment where you went on with our pal Piers Morgan after this and he asked you about it and it was very moving. But I wanna play the clip. Here it is. Sock 12.
- [66:24]
Jordan B. Peterson
I'll ask you just quickly. The film director Olivia Wilde has a new movie out which she says is based on you. This insane man, this pseudo intellectual hero to the incel community. Incel being these weirdo loner men who are despicable in many ways. Is that you? Are you the intellectual hero to these people? Sure, why not? You Know, people have been after me for a long time by. Because I've been speaking to disaffected young men. Now, what a terrible thing to do that is. I thought the marginalized were supposed to have a voice. It's making you emotional.
- [67:12]
Megyn Kelly
Talk about that.
- [67:13]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, God, you know, it's very difficult to understand how demoralized people are, and certainly many young men are in that category.
- [67:27]
Megyn Kelly
Why did that make you so emotional, Jordan? What is it you've seen that Olivia Wilde hasn't?
- [67:36]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, I'd like to say something in defense of Chris Pine momentarily. I heard through the Grapevine, by the way, that he had no idea that that character was based on me until after he finished the movie. And he started paying some attention to what I was saying and actually found out that he agreed with my stance. So now I'm not absolutely certain that's true, but I heard it from a very reliable source. So if I've got that wrong, my apologies, but I'd like to set the record clear if I do have it right. Well, that clip's very interesting, eh, because it indicates the misapprehension of, first of all, what I think. Like, it was interesting that the screenplay focused on chaos, for example, because it is the case that chaos and possibility tend to be symbolized with the feminine. And that's not my doing. That's the basis of literary symbolism and psychological symbolism for thousands and thousands of years. And it's partly because the feminine is a useful symbolic marker for possibility because females bring new life forms into the world. And so chaos isn't the enemy of order, it's the dance partner of order in the transformation that leads to progress across time. So she just didn't get that right at all. Like, not even a bit. And that's indicative of the shallowness of her analysis. You know, there is the an element to me that's like a 1950s preacher, you know, and. And that's fair enough. I mean, I've been teaching people religious stories for 40 years, and I gather large audiences, and the lectures are emotional and they're motivational. And so I can see why people who think they're my enemy are set back on their heels by that because they don't know what to make of it. And that's not surprising because isn't it really quite remarkable that young men will come and listen to lectures about the Bible, for example, like, what the hell? There's no logic to having that be a market, or that they're happy to be lectured to about responsibility, like, it really is a mystery. And it's not surprising that artistic types on the left would try to figure out what the hell's going on. But the sad thing is, is they just got it so cataclysmically wrong. So, you know, it isn't. It isn't me or the soy boys, boys and girls. It's me or Andrew Tate. So you can take your pick. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend the Worshipers of Power. If you want to see toxic masculinity, like, you ain't seen nothing yet. And if you think it's married men who are, like, working that are toxically masculine, then look, here's an example. So, you know, Disney just nose planted remarkably with Snow White. And so in the original Grimm's Fairy Tale, which is a very, very old story, right? Because Grimm gathered these stories. We have no idea how old they are. There is indication that some of our folktales are 15,000 years old. They're really old. And you can't mess with them because they have a logic. Okay, so now you might ask yourself, well, why does Snow White have to run away from the Evil Queen? Who's the Evil Queen? Well, in the Grimm's Fairy Tale, the Evil Queen puts Snow White in a bodice that's so tight she can't breathe. So that pathologizes her sexuality. And then she gives her a comb that makes her. That poisons her because that's the temptation towards narcissism. And then she feeds her a poisoned apple, which is exactly what the harpy ideologues are doing to young women to destabilize their identity and to push them off the reproductive tract. And so track. Both of those interpretations work, by the way. And so that's the Evil Queen. Okay, now, when Snow White runs away from the Evil Queen, where does she go to get her act together? Well, she goes to live among the dwarfs. And who are the dwarfs? They're hard working, orderly, responsible, ordinary men who keep a clean house. And she learns to be appreciative of their ability to protect her from the Evil Queen. And so she grows up and then she can find a prince. Right. And that, like, these are the sorts of stories that I'm telling people. And when I tell them, they understand because the stories make sense. Like everything I said there is immediately comprehensible. Right, you think? Oh, yes, obviously. Right. Well, it's not so obvious. Not. Well, apparently controversial enough so that Disney would rewrite the entire story and spend a quarter of a billion dollars plus 150 billion on marketing to make a dull mess, right, and sink their damn company. And that's, well, that's just an indication, one indication of how absolutely messed up we are now. That movie, I went and saw it, it could have been a lot worse than it was. They reverted back to the dwarfs, and not exactly accurately, but it was still basically a feminist revolutionary screed. And even that could have been interesting, although it wasn't. And the Evil Queen wasn't particularly evil, but the Evil Queen that's teaching women right now is particularly evil. And she's already made one quarter of them. She's already knocked one quarter of them off the reproductive pathway. One in four. One in four. And so that's a complete catastrophe. And so, you know, Olivia Wilde, she's, you know, you can understand it to some degree. She's trying to figure out, I imagine, how to balance career and public presence with family and more classic femininity. And that's a hard thing to get, right? It isn't clear that we have figured that out exactly. We certainly don't teach young women well. And she's trying to figure out, you know, what the hell I. Why I'm attractive and am I the same sort of creature as Andrew Tate and am I like Trump or the worst of Trump? These are hard things to sort out, but. But the way they were sorted out wasn't helpful. And her movie was successful because it was wrong. She didn't get story right. The real story is a lot more interesting, you know, because one of the mysteries she could have delved into is like, why the hell are people, young men, letting me tell them stories about the Old Testament? Like, how the hell did that happen? And why is there a religious revival sweeping across the west in partial consequence? Like, that's a mystery. And you can say, well, that's because Peterson is a, you know, power hungry misogynist. But I'm actually not power hungry and I'm not a misogynist. So that's a stupid story. And anybody who listens to me, who actually listens for more than like 10 minutes figures that out immediately. So she just didn't. She wasn't guided by curiosity, she was guided by ideological pre commitment, just like Disney. And that doesn't work when you're telling stories. They're dull.
- [75:18]
Megyn Kelly
The, the portrayal of, you know, the fake Jordan in that movie was the least of what has happened to you since the last time you were on. Incredibly, it was not that long ago. It was in 2022 that you were suspended from X this is now unthinkable with Elon in charge, but I do believe there's a purpose to it all. I really do. You were suspended from X due to a post about Ellen Page, who now goes by Elliot Page. And now she says she's a he, but she's a she. And you, you tweeted out during Pride Month, which made it actually controversial. Remember when Pride was a sin and Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician and they. You got in trouble. You got. You're suspended from X during that time, which was then Twitter and you said, the suspension will not be lifted unless I delete the hateful tweet and I would rather die then do that. That was one. And then you also posted about this woman who was on Sports Illustrated in Sports Illustrated in her bathing suit, who is morbidly obese. This is May of 2022, and you said, I'm going to leave X at this point because I've received an endless flood of insults because you saw this picture and said, sorry, not beautiful. And no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that. That one you did later delete. But there was so much. I don't think so. Oh, no. Okay, maybe my information is wrong, but my point is simply you. You are not allowed to have those opinions. Jordan, you can't say that Elliot is still really Ellen and. No. And not a woman any longer. And you can't say that a morbidly obese woman in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is, in your opinion, not beautiful. And by implicit implication that you prefer the old approach to Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models, which in which you speak on Both fronts for 99.9% of the world that's willing to be honest.
- [77:35]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, well, with regard to Paige, you know, like, I think what's happened to her is just an absolute bloody catastrophe. Like, I. I think it's terrible. Like, seriously terrible. And I would regard her as a victim and accept that she paraded it. And the problem with that is that once you parade your self destructive proclivity as a virtue, you're no longer a victim, you're a perpetrator. And so that was the dividing line for me. Like, she must have been stunningly, unimaginably unhappy to have gone through what she went through. And I can only imagine what, how she got there. And I think that the physicians and the counselors who enabled her in that, I believe they should be put in prison for the rest of their life. And I think it's absolutely unconscionable so that's really sad. I used to watch Paige when she was a young woman on the Trailer Park Boys in Canada, which is this, like, off color, hilarious Canadian sitcom. And she was so charming and so.
- [78:45]
Megyn Kelly
She was great in Juno.
- [78:47]
Jordan B. Peterson
Oh, yeah, yeah. She's such an attractive person, and I can't imagine how much pain she must have had to do that. But you don't get to tell young women to do it. You don't. Sorry, that's just not acceptable. And then with regards to the swimsuit model, like, it has nothing to do with what I find attractive. Well, it does insofar as what people find attractive has a universal element, which has been well documented by biologists. Symmetry, for example. But the thing is, everything about that photo was a lie. It was a lie to manipulate the consumer because it was so radical. It was a lie because it's Sports Illustrated. And to be an athlete, you have to be physically fit and morbidly obese and physically fit are opposites and beautiful. Well, you could argue that Sports Illustrated should have never gone into the swimsuit model business, but they did. And it means that to accept that photograph as a valid statement of the truth, you have to dispense with the idea of beauty and athleticism. And I'm not doing that because beauty has value and so does athleticism. Now, that doesn't mean that someone who's obese, who's eaten way too many carbohydrates because they've been deluded by their government for 40 years, is not worthy of a certain degree of sympathy. I certainly regard obesity as a disease. I don't think it's a problem of willpower. I think that's a big mistake. I think that the Department of Agriculture gerrymandering of the food pyramid for marketing purposes pathologized the whole society in an absolutely appalling manner. But that doesn't mean that obese women on Sports Illustrated get to be regarded as beautiful. No, but.
- [80:54]
Megyn Kelly
But here, here's the thing about that that's so infuriating. So this woman, her name is Yumi New. She's allowed to pose in a public magazine. She's very well aware that in her hopes, millions of people will see this photo and comment on it. But her, in her mind, the bargain, and in the mind of the left, the bargain can only include positive feedback, compliments, and anybody who doesn't feel that way about it and is honest about it is a villain. But meanwhile, you were not commenting and probably didn't even know who this Yumi New was prior to her choice to put her body into a bikini. And on the pages of Sports Illustrated, you weren't picking on her. You weren't just sitting around thinking, like, how can I criticize some random obese person? She asked you to comment on her. She asked you to. That's why she was in a magazine. But under their rules, which are not the Jordan Peterson rules for life, you are not allowed to be honest. If honesty is anything other than absolute praise.
- [82:02]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, that's. We talked earlier a little bit about the shift in the political world to the toxic, toxically feminine. And the toxically feminine has a definition. It's uncritical acceptance. Right now we can take that apart, and we should. So it's really complicated because when you're the mother of a newborn, the right ethos for you to adopt is uncritical acceptance. Because for the first nine months of a child's life, before the child can crawl, let's say, and, you know, can get around by its own, on its own, the right attitude to have to that child is that everything it wants, it should be given, and everything it needs is not only good, not only fine and acceptable, but good. So it's complete uncritical acceptance. And so women have to have that capacity. And it is a core part of what's admirable about femininity. But that doesn't mean that it's the sine qua non of morality. Like, you also need judgment. And like, it's been known forever that the highest divinity, let's say God, for all intents and purposes, rules with two hands, mercy and justice. And mercy without justice is a devouring force. And justice without mercy is. Is totalitarian catastrophe. You have to balance them. And the progressive left is all merciful. And the problem with that is that that's the stance of the devouring mother. Everything you do is okay, dear. It's like Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, the former prime minister. Any man who says he's a woman is a woman. Okay, there's radical acceptance. All right, Nicola, how about the serial killing sadistic rapists? Oh, they're victims. It's like, first of all, most people who are victims don't become serial killing sadistic rapists. So the causal pathway isn't clear. And second, if you have one of those people under your bed and you think they're a victim, you're going to find out very quickly that you live in a world designed for dead fools. And so.
- [84:28]
Megyn Kelly
Well said. Well said.
- [84:29]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, there's tolerance, you know, fair enough. And Maybe we should even err on the side of tolerance. But when it comes to the monsters, we need to draw a line. And you see, men, real men, do that. So, for example, one of the things I talk about in my book, we who wrestle with God, is the symbolic image of the shepherd in the Old Testament. So, you know, Moses is a shepherd and Abel is a shepherd and King David is a shepherd. And eventually Christ is associated with the shepherds. And there's a reason for that, like a real reason. So a shepherd is an ordinary man, an ordinary good man, kind of like the dwarfs that we talked about in Snow White. And why is a shepherd a good man? Well, in biblical times, shepherds had to fight off wolves and lions, and they did that relatively unarmed. You know, David, for example, killed lions with a slingshot. Think about that. And so to be a shepherd, you had to be able to keep the lions and the wolves at bay. So the predatory monsters, and yet you had to care for the most vulnerable, and that would be the lambs. Okay, so that's what you want in a man. You want someone who can see the monsters and keep them at bay, you know, and, but who can also care for the vulnerable. Now, you know, if you're a chest beating, power worshiping, monstrous man yourself, while you might be pretty good at keeping the other monsters at bay, the kind of psychopathic, quasi criminal types of men who aren't cowardly or dependent, you know, they at least have that going for them, but they're not very good at providing comfort and shelter to the, to the truly dependent. Right? So that's where they fall apart. And so men have to do both. And that's what I'm being trying to tell men. And this is also the sorts of things that the Democrats and the progressives just don't understand.
- [86:34]
Megyn Kelly
Now the problem not going to be fixed by. Let's make more of them teachers. I got to take a quick break because I got to get this ad in and then we've got to, we got to touch on women and what all this is doing to women in particular. When we come back with Jordan. Don't go away. Are rising costs or scaling challenges holding you back? Are you having trouble taking your business to the next level? Financial Yield Solutions Inc. Or FYSI, provides tailored solutions for businesses generating 1 million to $10 million annually. From tax planning, advertising, retirement strategies to scaling operations, FYSI helps businesses thrive. For those considering selling their business, FYSI guides them through a winning exit strategy with confidence. With 500 billion raised for AI technology. Under the Trump administration, businesses cannot afford to be left behind. FYSI can even help you explore AI integration to lower costs, enhance efficiency and and increase profits in today's rapidly evolving tech climate. With over 14 years of experience, FYSI specializes in addressing the exact challenges business owners face. Book your free business review today to transform your operations, grow your profits, and secure your future. Visit fysi.com megan or call 800-877-4000. Success starts with FYSI Megan Kelly I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius xm. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today, you can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey, and your truly Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the SiriusXM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.
- [88:42]
Jordan B. Peterson
Go to SiriusXM.com MKShow to subscribe and.
- [88:47]
Megyn Kelly
Get three months free.
- [88:48]
Jordan B. Peterson
Free. That's SiriusXM.com and get three months free offer details apply.
- [89:00]
Megyn Kelly
So, Jordan, how does all of this affect women who need men?
- [89:06]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, I think the most striking statistic that I know of is, well, the two. The striking statistics are the two we already discussed, the radical rise in unhappiness among unmarried young women who have liberal proclivities and the fact that 50% of women in the west now who are 30 don't have a child, and that half of those will never have a child despite wanting one. That's. It's so dreadful. Like, you just take those women, you know, let's just think about them for a minute. So that means that half of women at 30 who don't have a child, half of them will search for a mate and try to have a child, let's say through their 30s, and then that won't work. And so then they'll hit 40 and they'll be alone for 50 years. Right. And the thing is, you know, as you get older, the people that you have gathered around you, your family become increasingly important to you and increasingly necessary. And what you do when you mature is that you start attending to other people more than you attend to yourself. That's the definition of maturity. Now, you know that as a mother, and you also know that that's a relief, right? It's that you find your purpose in that.
- [90:35]
Megyn Kelly
And that's right.
- [90:37]
Jordan B. Peterson
You know, when the lefties, they talk about marriage as a patriarchal, oppressive institution and you know, you can be unlucky, and some women are, they find a man whose mode of relation is power and they end up subjugated, although they generally play their own part in that, because women aren't that easy to subjugate, all things considered.
- [90:57]
Megyn Kelly
No, they say you teach people how to treat you.
- [91:00]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yes, well, like, women have their mechanisms and they're very effective, let's put it that way. But you see that the problem with the progressive liberal types is they think that being mentally healthy is a matter of getting your individual psyche in order. And that's not right. Being mentally healthy is a matter of arranging the hierarchy around you that you belong to in a harmonious manner, so that there's you and your relationship with yourself, but then there's you and your relationship with your husband, and then the relationship between both of you and your children, and then the relationship between your families and other families in your town, and then with relation with regard to your state and your nation, and then with regards to the natural world and to whatever's beyond that, say, in the landscape of divinity and happiness, resilience, meaning, purpose, are all a consequence of organizing that hierarchy properly and finding your place within it. It's not an individualistic pursuit, you know. And even the Scottish liberals, let's say of the Enlightenment, who established liberal individuality, did that with the presumption that they were operating within a radically Christian framework and society. So what they did was they took the existence of that hierarchy for granted and then said, well, if you organize that property, then you can be a fully functioning individual. It's like, fair enough. But when all that collapses and half and an increasing majority of young people are headed for a relationship less and childless future, then none of those liberal presuppositions hold. And so that makes everyone. Well, it deprives their life of the meaning that comes in social service, you know. And look, human beings are unbelievably social. You know, you can take psychopathic murderers and you can punish them by depriving them of other people. That's how social we are, right? So think about that.
- [93:28]
Megyn Kelly
That's a good point.
- [93:30]
Jordan B. Peterson
Yeah, right. So you can't be happy alone. Besides, you shouldn't be striving to be happy anyways, because happy is a side effect, not a name but even if it was a name, which it isn't, there's no happiness alone. I mean, what. There's nothing happier than a friendless teenager. I mean, who believes that? No one breathing believes that. That's the stupidest thing you could believe. Like, teenagers are desperate to belong, you know, and you can parody that and say, well, if your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you? And, you know, there's limits to how much you should sacrifice your soul to be part of the group. But by the same token, like what other people think of you and how they relate to you, not only does that matter, it should matter. And so the whole progressive theory of the human being is. It's flawed in a manner that makes its enactment produce nothing but resentful pathology and misery.
- [94:42]
Megyn Kelly
Let me ask you this, I've been dying to ask you this. I speak with a lot of young conservative women regularly and one of the. And they are very aware of everything you've said. They are. They've got their eye on the biological clock in a way the previous generation did not. They understand the risks of waiting too long to choose a partner. All of that. They, they do get it. But a lot of them still, they want a career of their own. They're, they're just, they're driven professionally in that way. And what they ask me, Jordan, is, should I just settle? Should I just settle? You know, I'm 29 now. I have a career that I like. I haven't met the right guy yet, but there are guys who are interested in me. So should I just settle now for somebody who I'm really not that into?
- [95:28]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, the first thing I would ask is that, who exactly? Who's settling in that equation? Like, it's quite the narcissistic proclamation that it's clearly you who's settling, you know, and that might even be more true if you're 29, because you're competing with a lot of 24 year olds by that point. And they put a lot less biological pressure on a potential mate. Like, look, when I was out touring three nights in a row, the same question came up. Because I do a Q and A at the end of my lectures, and this is in the last round of tours, and one of the questions was, how do I find the person that's right for me? And I didn't answer it the first night. There was something about the question I didn't like. And then it came up two more nights in a row and was voted up by the audience. And the third night I thought Oh, I know why I'm. I tried stumbling through an answer and it didn't work. And then the third night, I thought, oh, I know what the problem is here. That's the wrong question. Because the right question is, how do I make myself into the sort of person that's so attractive to other people, that potential mates are lining up for me? That's a way different question than how do I find the person that's right for me? Like, first of all, who are you?
- [96:42]
Megyn Kelly
I like that.
- [96:43]
Jordan B. Peterson
And what's so special about you that. What the. How do you know that the right person wouldn't take one look at you and run away screaming if they had any sense? Like, seriously, you know, you're settling, Are you? You know, if you use that language, even the first thing you might ask yourself is, why do you start with such a high opinion of yourself and such a low opinion of the people who are pursuing you? Now, look, I understand that it's necessary to be attracted to a potential partner, you know, and that women have the right and the duty to be picky. They should find a man who's going to be not a child and who's going to be very helpful to them in all ways, particularly when they have children, who's going to be a good father and so hooray to women for being picky. But that's not the same thing as starting out narcissistic. You know, we talked about Snow White. Before she could find a prince, she had to learn to be of service to the dwarves. Like, that's worth thinking about. Now you might think, well, why should we pay attention to a fairy tale? It's like, well, how about because people remembered it for 15,000 years and that Disney just spent a quarter of a billion dollars trying to retell it and failed. And so. And then with regards to the order of affairs in a woman's life, look, I calculated recently that even an attractive woman, like radically attractive woman, let's say, who often has her own problems, by the way, because she tends to scare men away, a lucky woman has five potential partners in her life. Five. You get five chances. That's it. Now think about this. Let's just think that through, right? Because it's a terrifying way to think. So imagine that you're primarily looking at, say, from the time you're 16 at the lowest end to say, 30, like, because after that it's starting to get harder because the clock is ticking so desperately. One in three couples at 30 already have fertility problems, by the way, which is Defined as difficulty conceiving within a year, even though the attempts are being made. Okay, so let's say you got 14 years, something like that. Now, how long does it take to find someone and then figure out who they are? Especially if they're strangers, you know, before you're going to decide to marry someone, likely you're going to want to know them for a year, something like that. And so that's five years right there with five people. But that also assumes that you go from one relationship to another with no intervening space so you're not suffering too much. For example, example when a potentially promising relationship collapses or you don't get sick or something doesn't waylay you in your professional career. So imagine two years per relationship. That's 10 years for five. That's assuming that people want to be around you. So I don't know if you're settling. It's. I get the picture. You don't want to lie to someone and tell them that you find them attractive in all possible ways when you don't. But maybe you could start the bloody process with a little more humility.
- [100:01]
Megyn Kelly
You know, I like the way you started that. What. What shouldn't the goal be to make yourself so attractive in just in heart and soul, not to mention on the outside. That does require some effort. That they're lining up. That they're lining up there. And if that's not happening, why. Why is it, you know, it's my favorite poem. You'll find the fault lies in you. Right. Make an examination. You'll find the fault lies in you. It's called yourself to blame and it's empowering. It's not about self flagellation, it's about you. If there's something wrong in your life, you fix it. And that especially starts with you. You, how you are and how you are in the world. I wish we had another two hours. Jordan, I loved talking to you. Thank you so much for being here today.
- [100:46]
Jordan B. Peterson
Well, it's really nice to see you again and thank you very much for the opportunity to talk again. I've been watching what you've been doing for, well, for a very long time and you seem to be very useful and, and very successful. And what you're doing is very difficult and it seems very helpful. So, you know, hooray for you and thank you. Yeah, it was a pleasure talking to you today.
- [101:09]
Megyn Kelly
And back at you. Okay, all the best. And tomorrow the fellas from Ruthless will be here, will look forward to that. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.