On May 20, Theodore Dalrymple was a guest on the popular podcast of the well-known Canadian psychology professor and YouTube phenomenon, Jordan Peterson. The two-hour video has been viewed over 300,000 times in the five days since it was published on YouTube.
A big thank you goes out to Robert R. for bringing this exciting conversation to my attention.
I tried to watch it but found it impossible, I gave up probably too soon. JP was constantly interrupting and being an irritant (his voice is turning into a coak which does not help) Maybe he suffers from some sort of burnout. On top of that, he must have some image problems (hair transplant, weird tan) which do not necessarily go with the soulful man of integrity his many fans (including myself) imagined him to be. In one of his videos, he even showed his wife in a bikini for the world to see how “well” she looked. And he is constantly pushing his chavvy, vulgar, uncultured, dim daughter onto his public. He has a huge fan base but I wonder how long until it shrinks down just a few million incel nerds.
I too found it hard to watch. Theodore’s intellect towers above Jordan Peterson’s, and the latter’s constant interruptions made it hard to listen to.
Yes, Peterson is a bit too self absorbed to tolerate. I sensed the Dr. Daniels was a bit fed up with him, but is far too polite to interrupt him in turn. However, I was heartened by the fact that Peterson’s million viewers were exposed to the good Dr. Daniels.
Very interesting, as one would expect. It wasn’t as much of a conversation as I’d hoped for, though. The two of them were working at different rhythms: JP at his most intense, Dr Daniels just a little too laid back. Maybe he was wary of being drawn into something Jungian, but in the event he had nothing to fear.
I was incredibly pleased to see Dr. Daniels as a guest of Dr. Peterson, as both men have positively influenced my life, however I admit that the conversation was disjointed at times. I owed this more to the difference in styles of communication than anything else. I do have a soft spot for Dr. Peterson as he introduced to me to Theodore Dalrymple by reference. Hopefully this conversation will do the same for others.
I’ve followed Theodore Dalrymple’s writings since the late 1980’s when a Scottish doctor-friend introduced me to his column, “When Symptoms Subside.” He just gets better. Good luck to Dr. Peterson, too; with his wife’s illness and his own, it’s been tough, I’m sure, and the Left can’t stand anyone with a good heart, so there’s that ….
Correction: “If Symptoms Persist” was the column. Old age and all that.
Listened to the audio podcast version. Almost done but am quite enjoying it. Peterson has a habit of setting the stage and trying to head off obvious objections from the start while Daniels is content to plow ahead regardless of them. I especially liked it when they started bouncing off each other as professionals. Hope they do more together.
I also enjoyed this interview, and am grateful to Robert and David for bringing it to my attention.
Myself, I didn’t find Jordan Peterson to be overbearing, though perhaps I’m just a bit more used to his style. Dalrymple and Peterson just seem to have very different styles of thinking.
Peterson wants to fit every insight into a theoretical framework, and phrase himself as precisely as possible. He’ll preface a statement with two or three caveats just to make sure his statement doesn’t go an inch farther than what he actually believes.
Dalrymple, on the other hand, has a general distrust for any theoretical framework which purports to explain or predict human behavior. He deals in short anecdotes which illuminate a deep truth about our own humanity.
In more ways than one, Dalrymple is Ecclesiastes/Proverbs to Peterson’s Job.
A few comments about the slightly disjointed conversation and the cross-talk. I think this is the inadequate Zoom-esq technology rather than anything else. In actual fact JBP is apt to make rather pregnant pauses in non-confrontational conversation, rather than interrupt someone. It’s a little frustrating really, as it does tarnish the tenor of the conversation, and would seem eminently solvable with the production level that JBP could call upon. In other podcasts its been worse and he’s thankfully pointed it out – but perhaps not frequently enough.
There’s a lot of interesting common ground here since both men have worked with prisoners. I feel JBP might have a slightly curmudgeonly attitude to young people’s ability to conduct their sex lives, but that’s not to denigrate the core value behind the idea.