Economist Tyler Cowen recently interviewed Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. The audio and transcript are here.
My three favorite highlights follow. After that, I’ll say what I wish Tyler had asked about.
On modern universities:
They [universities] do absolutely everything wrong from a psychological perspective because the fundamental rule — if you’re a psychologist who’s interested in increasing resilience — is that you help people identify what they’re afraid of and what they would like to avoid that’s standing in the way of their movement forward. Then you design techniques to help them voluntarily confront that and learn how to withstand it or to cope with it.
That’s standard exposure therapy. It’s the bedrock of virtually every therapeutic system — that and getting your story straight, let’s say. Well, that’s it. Those are the two most important elements of any psychotherapeutic process.
So when you insist that the right way to view the world is victim versus victimizer, and then you coddle people into exaggeration of their own negative, emotion-centered pathology, you’re going to ensure that the political structure becomes more and more neurotic. If you’re aiming at something and you’re moving rapidly towards it, you’re likely to hit it. And that’s exactly what’s happening on the campuses.
On what modern corporate managers don’t get:
COWEN: If we turn to senior management of large American companies, as a class of people — and I know it’s hard to generalize — but what do you see them as just not getting?
PETERSON: I would caution them not to underestimate the danger of their human resources departments.
And, on the same issue:
PETERSON: Yeah, well, all of a sudden now, they’ve [the HR departments] become ethics departments. And people who take to themselves the right to determine the propriety of ethical conduct end up with a lot more power — especially if you cede it to them — than you think. And that’s happening at a very rapid rate.
The doctrines that are driving hiring decisions, for example — any emphasis, for example, on equity, or equality of outcome — it’s unbelievably dangerous. You don’t just pull that in and signal to society that you’re now acting virtuously without bringing in the whole pathological ideology.
And look out when you do, because it’s like, there are elements of it that are extraordinarily old, and that would be the resentful element in terms of patterns of thinking. But the collectivist ethos is very, very attractive to people, so you have to be very careful of it.
On gender discrimination:
COWEN: Let’s say one is of the view that men and women are intrinsically different on average, but one still recognizes there’s a great deal of unjust discrimination against women.
PETERSON: Yeah, I don’t recognize that. I don’t think there is a great deal of unjust discrimination against women in comparison to the degree of unjust discrimination against men. I think that hasn’t really been true for probably, well, at least 10 years. And I know that’s not very long. But then, I also don’t buy the argument that throughout history, men have, what would you say? Singularly oppressed women? I think that’s absolute bloody nonsense.
Peterson is also good on immigration.
Now to what I wish Tyler had asked about. Here’s a guy, Peterson, who grew up in rural Alberta. His parents were almost certainly modest income. I always find stories of such people fascinating. Admittedly one of my reasons is that my upbringing was similar: in a modest-income family in rural Manitoba. I have 12 years on him and so with the all the economic growth in those 12 years, his family’s income was likely higher than my family’s. I think a lot of people are interested in those stories. He read Ayn Rand at an early age, as did I. What was he thinking? How did his views develop? Did his modest rural upbringing contribute, as I think mine did, to his being a fighter who won’t take crap from people? Inquiring minds would like to know.
My impression, from admittedly a quick reading of many transcripts of Tyler’s conversations, is that he’s a lot in the present: what do you think now? what are your views now? That probably is more important. It’s just that I find the early life stories fascinating and would like to see more on that.
A year ago on EconTalk, Russ Roberts interviewed Peterson on his book 12 Rules for Life.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Z
Feb 17 2019 at 4:28pm
One thing I wish were discussed more is possible economic (or, perhaps, behavioral economic) explanations for private companies indulging increasingly powerful and expensive HR department and their ideologies. One would expect this from public or nonprofit organizations, but profit-oriented ones? The best explanation I can come up with that’s consistent with efficient markets is that creating such environments gives companies a competitive advantage at recruiting young, educated, skilled workers fresh out of college or grad school who largely share the HR department worldview. Or could it be a market failure; maybe this phenomenon just reflects the worldview of the managers?
Jake D.
Feb 18 2019 at 11:42am
Speaking from some personal experience, they are afraid of litigation. They are hired to avoid it.
It’s getting pretty complicated to legally pay someone to do work, so they also figure that stuff out. I smell a Dilbert strip in there.
Jason
Feb 17 2019 at 6:21pm
I am also a former rural Manitoban from a family of modest means. I read The Fountainhead at 12 or so and I must admit – I didn’t catch on to the philosophy behind at all.
At that age I also thought that tax rates of 80% or more on the very rich would be most “fair”. I wish everyone grew out of such naivety like I did.
David Henderson
Feb 17 2019 at 7:10pm
Reading The Fountainhead at age 12. Wow! I’m not surprised that you didn’t catch on to the philosophy. What I got from it at age 16 (almost 17) was the importance of being true to yourself. I bet you got that out of it. The whole Objectivist/libertarian thing came in her later writing, both Atlas Shrugged, of course, and the non-fiction.
What town in Manitoba did you grow up in or near?
Jason
Feb 18 2019 at 2:55am
The far south-east corner – I went to school in Sprague. I remember reading you were from out west? And moved out-of-province before I was born.
Sorry, I was probably actually older than 12, I don’t remember specifically, though. It was definitely different from anything else I had read at that point.
David Henderson
Feb 18 2019 at 11:12am
Boissevain (1950-60), Carman (1960-67), and Winnipeg (1967-71).
Thaomas
Feb 20 2019 at 4:13pm
As a marginal rate on consumption 80% might not be bad on the highest levels of consumption.
RPLong
Feb 19 2019 at 9:21am
Peterson does go into his personal history and the development of his ideas in other interviews and in his most recent book. So, perhaps for that reason, Cowen decided not to explore that side of Peterson.
Still, I completely agree with this:
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