Amazing lecture, from some years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY7a1RXMbHI
I was particularly struck by Peterson's comment that (I'm paraphrasing) that "big is bad."
Whether it's big government, big corporation, big Church, big mob, whatever it is, the capacity of "big" for corruption increases exponentially as "big" increases.
Also, his comments on "reacting to meaning," i.e., that when we "see" something, whether a simple Coke can or even a person, it isn't initially the object but a meaning that we see, and it is the meaning that we respond to. His example of betrayed love is perfect. The spouse who's discovered the other spouse has been having an affair: suddenly the traitor-spouse LOOKS different. Same person,same presumably attractive (at least to the other spouse) body, fundamentally in virtually all ways the same person (which itself is the most horrifying realization: "THIS is who he/she has been all this time?!"), and yet this person who was, just five minutes, loved and adored and extremely appealing is now revolting, repellent, the thought of even touching him/her is nauseating.
Which points out that mere physical attraction to what you think you "see" is almost entirely illusory (something akin to those autostereograms, where you do indeed see a picture but only because you're looking at it in the way that let's you see it that way), a complex of projections and assumptions about both yourself and the surrounding world. And how easily that can be obliterated, in the blink of an eye, reveals something much, much deeper.
Also, a very important point he makes in immediate connection with this: how it is, when you are suddenly staring, in horror, at the spouse who isn't what you always thought, that the horror cannot be contained in simple disappointment in a single person--as dreadful as such betrayal is, if it were merely disappointment in one person, it would be relatively manageable. But it's not merely that. If you were wrong all along about him/her, then it's very likely you were stupid enough (as you would say to yourself, so I'm not being cruel but just reflecting your thoughts at the moment) to be wrong about so many other things: who else has deceived me, who else knew about this, what does this say about my entire social network, what is real anymore, who am I, where have I been and where am I going?
One brick falling out of the wall suggests the entire structure is about to crash, leaving only ruin and despair behind.
This goes right to the heart of our deepest human, existential fears.
It's why two drunks in a bar come to blows over whether there's life on other planets. As moronic as it is to come to blows over it (and pretty moronic to get drunk in the first place), they are, neverthless, acting out this root, existential conflict.
One of them says, "There's gotta be life on other planets."
And the other says, "What are you talking about? You ever seen life on other planets? They ever contacted us? No. Means they're not there." The first guy says, "You calling me a liar?"
The second snorts, "You calling ME a liar?"
And next thing they're at each other's throats.
And all because each one is ready to fight to the death in defence of his ignorance.
"Ignorance," because neither one knows, of course.
But both their egos are 100% invested in their opinions being unassailable.
Because it's not about whether there's life out there.
It's about their inner sense of place and correspondence to the real order of things, the actual configuration of reality.
'Cause if my opinion about life on other planets is wrong, then...waitaminnit, what else am I wrong about?
Maybe I'm...ALL wrong, about everything!
Which is why people irrationally get aggressive about the most inane things they don't objectively have either the least stake in or the least claim to authority on.
I compare it to a puzzle in our brains.
Our internal schematic of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
The moment any piece of that puzzle is called into question, we go into self-defense mode.
'Cause the whole structure could fall apart.
(Which is why there is a power, disarming and liberating, yet insufficiently appreciated generally, in the simple phrase, "I don't know.")
