YouSaid · the spoken record

Jordan Peterson

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214
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2022-08-19
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2022-08-19
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1
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podcast

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  1. “We do need humans, yeah. We found them, and they've lasted that long. And then think about Europe. Secular people all over the world make pilgrimages to Europe. But why? Because of the beauty. Obviously, I mean, that's self-evident, and it's partly because there are things in Europe that are so beautiful. They take your breath away, right? They make your hair stand on end. They fill you with a sense of awe. And we need to see those things. It's not optional. We need to see those things. The cathedrals, I was in a cathedral in Vienna and it was terribly beautiful, you know. Well, it was terribly beautiful.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Perhaps will not be. Well, we have images that we have artistic images that are at least 50,000 years old, right, that have survived. And some of those are already profound in their symbolism.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Not only do you have to face death, you have to face death and hell before you can get to paradise. Hellish judgment, and all that's embedded in that image, and a piece of art with an image like that has all that information in it, and it shines forth in some fundamental sense. It reaches into the back tendrils of your mind at levels you can't even comprehend and grips you. I mean, that's why people go to museums and gaze at paintings they don't understand and that's why they'll pay what's the most expensive objects in the world. If it's not carbon fiber racing yachts, it's definitely classic paintings, right? It's high-level technological implements, or it's classic art. Why are those things so expensive? Why do we build temples to house the images? Even secular people go to museums. I'm secular. Well, are you in a museum? Yes.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So you could say that the entire Christian narrative is embedded in that image. Why? Well, let's say that flaming swords are a symbol of death. That seems pretty obvious. Let's say further that they're a symbol of apocalypse and hell. That doesn't seem completely unreasonable. So here's an idea.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “And then I found out from Matthew Pagot, who wrote a great book on symbolism in Genesis that cherubim are the supporting monsters of God. It's very complicated idea. And that they are partly a representation of that which is difficult to fit into conceptual systems. They've also got an angelic or demonic aspect. Take your pick. Why do they have flaming swords? Well, a sword is a symbol of judgment and And the separation of the wheat from the chaff, use a sword to cut away, to cut away and to carve. And a flaming sword is not only that which carves, it's that which burns. And what does it carve away and burn? Well, you want to get into paradise Carves away everything about you that isn't perfect. And so, what does that mean? Okay, well, here's part of what it means. This is a terrible thing.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I mean, there are images. Religious images in particular. So we could call them deep images that people have been unpacking. For 4,000 years, and still haven't, I'll give you an example. This is a terrible example. So, I did a lecture series on Genesis. And I got a lot of it unpacked, but by no means all of it. When God kicks Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, he puts cherubim with flaming swords at the gate to stop human beings from re entering paradise. I thought, what the hell does that mean, cherubim? And why do they have flaming swords? I don't get that. What is that exactly?”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, well, and look how mundane that is and look how trite it is and look at how cliched it is and look at how sterile or too ordered it is or too chaotic.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “You know, my house was and will soon be again completely covered with paintings inside. And it was hard on people to come in there because while my mother, for example, say, well, why would you want to live in a museum? And I'd think, well, I would rather live in a museum than anywhere else in some real sense. But beauty is daunting. It scares people. They're terrified of buying art, for example, because their taste is on display and they should be terrified because generally people have terrible taste. Now, that doesn't mean they shouldn't foster it and develop it. And, you know, when you put your taste on display, it's a real, really exposes you.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “It's a phenomenon, and that means to shine forth. And Moses has to stop and attend to it, and he does. And he sees this fire that doesn't consume the tree. And the tree, the tree is a structure, right? It's a tree-like structure. It's a branching structure. It's a hierarchical structure. It's a self similar structure. It's a fractal structure. And it's the tree of life, and it's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the fire in it is the transformation that's always occurring within every structure. And the fact that the fire doesn't consume the bush in that representation is an indication of the balance of transformation with structure. And that balance is presented as God. And what attracts Moses to it in some sense is the beauty. Now, it's the novelty and all that, but like a painting is like a burning bush. That's a good way of thinking about it, a great painting. It's too much for people often.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Well, I would say it probably doesn't have to be. It can't be reduced to clarity and simplicity. Because when it's optimally structured, it's a balance between order and chaos, not order itself. If it's too ordered, if music is too ordered, it's not acceptable. It sounds like a drum machine. It's too repetitive. It's too predictable. It has to have some fire in it. Along with the structure. I was in Miami doing a seminar on Exodus with a number of scholars. And this is a beauty discussion. When Moses first encounters the burning bush, Not a conflagration that demands attention, it's something that catches his attention.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Well, yeah, we have to exist within contradiction, but when the contradictions make themselves manifest, say in confusion with regard to direction, then the consequence of that technically is anxiety and frustration and disappointment and all sorts of other negative emotions. But the cardinal negative emotion signifying multiple pathways forward is anxiety. It's an entropy signal.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “It points to the divine. And I would say again, by definition, because we could define the divine in some real sense. So one way of defining the divine is what is divine to you is your most fundamental axiom. And you might say, well, I don't have a fundamental axiom. Then I would say that's fine, but then you're just confused. You have a bunch of contradictory axioms, and you might say, Well, I have no axioms at all. And then I'd say, well, you're just epistemologically ignorant beyond comprehension if you think that. Because that's just not true at all.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “The arrows pointing up, no, I think that which it points to is what beauty points to. It transcends beauty. It's more than beauty”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well I guess it's the divine that saves the world. Let's say you could say that by definition. And then you might say, well, Are there pointers to that which will save the world or that which eternally saves the world? And the answer to that in all likelihood is yes. And that's maybe truth and love and justice and the classical virtues, beauty perhaps in some sense foremost among them. That's a difficult case to make, but definitely a pointer.”

    2022-08-19 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #313 – Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source