The Truth About People With Fewer Friends - Jordan Peterson — Transcript

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1. 0:00one of the things that i've realized is
2. 0:01that
3. 0:02people that are self-reflective
4. 0:04that rely on cerebral horsepower
5. 0:08that pay attention that think in a
6. 0:09detailed way
7. 0:10the more nuance that you're thinking is
8. 0:12the fewer people are going to be like
9. 0:14you which makes you feel more alone
10. 0:17how do you think people can overcome
11. 0:18this
12. 0:23well i would say that hasn't been my
13. 0:25experience exactly
14. 0:28because
15. 0:29as i started to make my thoughts more
16. 0:31public
17. 0:33they seem to appeal to more and more
18. 0:35people
19. 0:36and so i don't know if that's a
20. 0:38threshold phenomena because maybe it is
21. 0:40you know
22. 0:41as you start to become specialized as a
23. 0:43scientist
24. 0:45in some sense your vision narrows and
25. 0:46narrows
26. 0:48although it gets more high resolution at
27. 0:50the level that you're operating but you
28. 0:52kind of pass through a
29. 0:54needle let's say
30. 0:56out the other side where the thing
31. 0:57you're studying starts to become
32. 0:58everything again
33. 1:00and so maybe that's maybe that's that
34. 1:02developmental progression further more
35. 1:05yeah specialization and then
36. 1:07generalization again yeah yeah i think
37. 1:10that you might be right there the deeper
38. 1:11into the breach thing the show that i
39. 1:13went to go and see you do in manchester
40. 1:15in 2017 or 18. someone asked a question
41. 1:18about um the depth of my consciousness
42. 1:19causes me to suffer and you said you
43. 1:21take more of the thing that poisons you
44. 1:23until you turn it into a tonic that
45. 1:25girdles the world around you and i think
46. 1:27that this is something you see here as
47. 1:28well that when you start to think
48. 1:30differently when you start to consider
49. 1:32the way that you're living your life in
50. 1:33a
51. 1:34more detailed higher resolution
52. 1:37more unique more nuanced way you will
53. 1:41probably receive pushback especially you
54. 1:43know speaking from personal experience
55. 1:45in a normal working class towns people
56. 1:47born live die in these places
57. 1:50it's insular
58. 1:52there isn't a huge
59. 1:54culture of especially in the uk tall
60. 1:56poppy syndrome is a huge problem the
61. 1:58biggest difference that i've noticed
62. 1:59actually between
63. 2:00american people and english people
64. 2:02is that american children are told that
65. 2:04they can be anything that they want to
66. 2:05be
67. 2:05[Music]
68. 2:07they're told that they have blue sky
69. 2:08vision they can achieve whatever they
70. 2:09want and that gives them a lot of
71. 2:11confidence
72. 2:13when us brits stuffy stiffer brits see
73. 2:16americans on tv it sounds like
74. 2:17everyone's had media training because
75. 2:19everybody's just so enthused about
76. 2:21whatever it is even if it's a 18-car
77. 2:23pileup
78. 2:24and then the
79. 2:26equivalent in the uk is that
80. 2:29deviating from the norm is very very
81. 2:32very
82. 2:33quickly mocked
83. 2:35and there's a lot of that in canada too
84. 2:37tall puppy syndrome it's a big deal
85. 2:39now
86. 2:40the japanese have that saying too except
87. 2:43it's um
88. 2:44the nail that sticks up above all the
89. 2:46rest is the first one to be struck down
90. 2:48by the hammer
91. 2:50and there's some truth in that too
92. 2:51there's some truth in that but
93. 2:53some
94. 2:54and all are very different words
95. 2:57when you roll the clock forward what you
96. 2:59end up with
97. 3:00is american children that then become
98. 3:02adults who
99. 3:04look around at the world and say well
100. 3:06hang on this wasn't what i was promised
101. 3:08i was told that i could be anything that
102. 3:10i wanted to be i was told that i could
103. 3:11have anything that i wanted to there's a
104. 3:13difference between you can earn
105. 3:15everything that is earnable and you
106. 3:17deserve everything there is
107. 3:20so that message can become
108. 3:22what you say it can become
109. 3:24misinterpreted in a narcissistic manner
110. 3:26and i think that has happened to some
111. 3:28degree especially as people have had
112. 3:29fewer and fewer children
113. 3:32you know
114. 3:33jonathan height and luke enough talk
115. 3:35about the coddling of the american mind
116. 3:37and they think about that in large part
117. 3:39as a consequence of
118. 3:41an ideological transformation
119. 3:44and some of that's true but it's
120. 3:46also useful to look at more fundamental
121. 3:49phenomena
122. 3:52people have children when they're a lot
123. 3:53older
124. 3:54they have way fewer children they have
125. 3:57way more resources when they have
126. 3:58children on average you know if you're
127. 4:00one kid of eight you're pretty much
128. 4:02battling it out for attention for a very
129. 4:04finite amount of parental attention with
130. 4:06a lot of intense competition and the
131. 4:09probability that you're going to come
132. 4:11out of that entitled and narcissistic is
133. 4:13pretty damn low because your siblings
134. 4:14will definitely punish you for that but
135. 4:17if you're the only child especially of
136. 4:19older parents who are also more
137. 4:21conservative because of their age and
138. 4:23also less willing to take chances with
139. 4:24you because there's only one of you and
140. 4:26then you have a lot of resources at your
141. 4:28disposal well that's a whole different
142. 4:30that's a whole different
143. 4:32developmental milieu and we have no idea
144. 4:35what the consequences of that are but
145. 4:37the idea that children in that
146. 4:38circumstance are more likely to be
147. 4:41overprotected and dependent and
148. 4:43structured it's like well yeah
149. 4:46undoubtedly
150. 4:47and you know that that would even be an
151. 4:49overabundance of parental virtue in some
152. 4:52sense right
153. 4:53well we just did nothing but pay
154. 4:55attention to our child
155. 4:57okay but
156. 5:00too much what did you expect it's so
157. 5:02strange because i'm an only child right
158. 5:04and all of the well maybe my friends
159. 5:07might say differently
160. 5:08but a lot of the commonly held
161. 5:11presumptions around only children
162. 5:14i just and i have a couple of friends
163. 5:16who are as well and i don't know whether
164. 5:18it's where we're from that the northeast
165. 5:20of the uk is very spit and sawdust it's
166. 5:22salt of the earth people it's you know
167. 5:24grab your boots straps on your boots and
168. 5:26start pulling and
169. 5:28i just haven't i haven't seen that what
170. 5:31what is it
171. 5:33through your clinical practice what the
172. 5:35hell might not be a
173. 5:36primarily working class phenomena you
174. 5:38know that the coddled mind phenomena
175. 5:40that could easily be a middle class and
176. 5:42upper phenomena is there something is
177. 5:45was there a common trend or from your
178. 5:47reading have you found that only
179. 5:48children
180. 5:50tend to be one way or another no
181. 5:53no i just get huge variants in them as
182. 5:55well i don't know the answer to that at
183. 5:57the level of individual psychological
184. 5:59data there might be a literature i'm not
185. 6:01aware of it that for me that was more
186. 6:03response to heights book on the caudal
187. 6:05mind i thought okay
188. 6:06fair enough coddling of the american
189. 6:08mind what's driving this
190. 6:10it's not just ideas it's a huge
191. 6:11demographic switch it's a huge
192. 6:13transformation in the way we raise
193. 6:14children we're 10 years older when we
194. 6:16have our children now that's a lot older
195. 6:19you know when you're 18 you have a kid
196. 6:20you're still a kid and that there's some
197. 6:22wildness that's perhaps not so good
198. 6:24about that but there's also perhaps
199. 6:26a higher proclivity to go off and live
200. 6:28your own life
201. 6:30and then you know the how much children
202. 6:32how much should your children be left on
203. 6:34their own
204. 6:36the answer is as much as they can
205. 6:37tolerate
206. 6:39and how much is that well
207. 6:44you find out with each child
208. 6:46but it's certainly possible to not
209. 6:48deprive your child enough what's
210. 6:50happening people if you enjoyed that
211. 6:52then press here for the full unedited
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213. 6:58peace
214. 7:02oh