Good afternoon my dear readers,
I want to share with you all an amazing podcast interview between Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Jordan Peterson made the news this year for his “controversial” critiques against political correctness, postmodernism feminism, category bashing (e.g. white privilege) and outrage over cultural appropriation.
First, this is his message to millennials who are looking to change the world: “Change yourself first”
This 3 hour discussion was one of the most elucidating talks I’ve heard in my short life across a span of topics ranging from post-modernism, classic male dominance hierarchies, political correctness, good & evil, the authoritarian left and social justice warriors, kekistan, operating in a world of chaos, finding the meaning in life for men/women, universal basic income, Donald Trump’s lies vs. Hillary Clinton’s lies, PTSD, Freud and Jung and realizing our capacity for evil.
The following passage(s) resonated most strongly with me, and I’m paraphrasing the conversation in the most coherent way possible. Before I start, I note that I am a cis-gender male who embraces climbing the dominance hierarchy, and all the shit that comes with it. I reject political and social orthodoxy and absolutism from both the left and right when it conflicts with science, intellectualism, and the hard-fought principles of humanism, individualism, and the enlightenment.
Unlike chimps, human females are choosy about their mating partners. Alpha chimps pass on their genes because they dominate and push off lesser chimps. In the 6 million years since humans split from chimps genetically, we have created our own male dominance hierarchy (DH) mediated by FEMALES but chosen by males who push those with power, influence or leadership to the top, who then pass on their genes with the females who select them.
As humans, we are optimized to live in tribes of up to 100 to 250 people (Dunbar’s number). That number is big enough where climbing to the top of the hierarchy feels important, but small enough where it is achievable, compared to the entire world/civilization.
On average, we have twice as many female ancestors than we do males ones because females on average reproduce once, and males on average reproduce twice or not at all. Men are well adapted to both accepting the presence of the hierarchy and learning how to climb it so that he can leave a genetic contribution. Over time, our observation of the evolution of the DH spawns hero mythologies- the hero is the man who kills the snake, who slays the dragon and gets the gold to bring back to the village. He is also mostly likely to find and claim the virgin in this mythology. The classic male dominance hierarchy is a mechanism that selects heroes and breeds them, and since we tell stories about heroes, the classic dominance hierarchy is as much as cultural and societal narrative as it is a form of genetic and sexual selection. The societal narrative for the description of people as admirable or not admirable evolves into categories from which we derive good and evil – we can then imagine the perfect person. The meta-admirable is a hero, a religious figure, a messiah.
Men compete because women like winners, and hetero males are shamed for that in a post modern society. Post modernists reject the classic male structures because they realize that they can’t compete in this hierarchy. They compete as allies, which is why “male feminists” (a crude catch-all that doesn’t encompass the complexity of modern male/female relationship dynamics) are still seen as “creepy/sneaky”, particularly when they are discriminatory towards classic male behavior.
Did you guys enjoy the podcast? What stood out most to you? Let’s discuss!
Wangtheory 