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Jan. 24, 2025 - Epoch Times
06:58
Jordan Peterson: "The cultural tide has shifted."
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Why the move, ultimately?
Well, primarily because my daughter is in Scottsdale, and we have an enterprise established there, Peterson Academy, which is a new university, online university.
You just interviewed her about that.
Oh, you did?
Well, it's thriving away.
It's growing, like, insanely.
Congratulations on that.
Yeah, so I'll spend plenty of time in Canada.
I have a son there in Toronto, so it's not like I'm gone.
Forever, permanently.
And I also believe that as a Canadian, I can do a lot of good for Canada in the United States.
I know a lot of the people who are senior in the administration, and I can be an effective voice for Canadians in that regard.
So the move was, there are a variety of reasons.
The biggest reason was to work with Michaela on this university initiative.
It's also been a pain for me, in many ways, to be in Canada, particularly in Toronto, particularly in my neighbourhood.
I've faced a fair bit of unproductive opposition from my colleagues, for example, who are striving to deprive me of my licence.
And, you know, a little of that goes a long way.
And so, it's given the...
Clear economic opportunity that beckoned in Scottsdale.
The importance of this Peterson Academy initiative and the fact that my daughter was there.
I had ample reason to make the move.
What do you think of this?
The thing President Trump has been repeatedly talking about Canada as a future 51st state.
What do you think about that?
Trump is preparing to renegotiate a whole series of international agreements.
And he's doing what he usually does, which is to push.
For advantage.
Hard.
And see what happens.
And to establish, what would you say, an anchor that is beyond even what he might hope to achieve.
So that he can achieve half of that and be thrilled about it.
He's very good at that.
And I think Trump also floats these propositions as a trial balloon.
You know, he's obviously a guy who's willing to see what'll happen.
And so he likes to stir the pot.
And he's doing that very effectively at the moment in relationship to Canada, and Greenland, and Panama, and Mexico.
Some people are saying that this is the first sort of vestiges of patriotism that are kind of coming out now, that these statements have been made.
Canada.
Yes, yes.
Canadians are going to...
They do have an identity, which is at least resistance to the awful Americans.
And we'll see.
That could be a positive consequence.
I don't know what the separatists are going to do about it.
They're likely to be the official opposition in Canada come next federal election.
Canada's got some serious structural problems.
Maybe the pressure that Trump's putting on the country will be salutary.
It's certainly possible.
Nothing unites the people like a common enemy.
And now the Americans are clearly not the enemy of Canadians.
I suppose one of the underlying realities that is motivating Trump is the fact that...
Canada and the U.S. should be bound together very tightly economically, especially with regards to energy and energy security.
And that could be negotiated in a way that would be eminently beneficial to both countries.
So we'll hope for the best.
You're obviously a huge champion of free speech.
When I first came across you, you were explaining to Canadians how we can't legislate speech, that this is a disaster.
That's what I remember.
Now we have this TikTok situation.
I personally am torn about this situation because I know the incredible power of manipulation that exists in the hands of a regime that really has no moral boundaries.
On the other hand, there's a legitimate freedom of speech concern.
Where do you stand on this?
Well, I'm no fan of TikTok.
I know that TikTok has pathologized women between 18 and 34 in the U.S. It's probably the pride agent on the media front in their pathologization.
The terrible manipulation of the information streams that they've been fed.
It's appalling.
We're fools when it comes to communist China.
Is there a free speech concern there?
I know the libertarians make that case, libertarian conservatives, and it's not like we want the government attending to which apps we use on our phones.
But there's a legitimate security threat from the Chinese communist.
There's genuine infiltration.
With regard to TikTok, so I don't know enough about the specific details of the situation to come up with anything brilliant to say about appropriate policy moving forward.
I can say, however, that the idea that the Chinese communists are our friends is a very naive idea indeed.
Wonderful.
Final question.
The next 100 days, what do you predict will be written about the next 100 days in America?
After the inauguration?
Well, I hope that it'll be the start of a boom, the likes of which have been seen since the 1990s and the revolution of the internet.
And that's my suspicion and my hope.
So, we'll see.
We'll see.
The cultural tide has shifted.
And hopefully the people who benefited in consequence of that will have the wisdom to be measured in their political maneuvers and focused on the issues at hand and not on petty revenge and foolish politics.
If I can, just one tiny more question.
I've noticed that you're posting a lot of pithy life lessons recently, right?
Great ones, frankly, that I appreciate.
Why is this become sort of the thing that you're doing?
I've decided to pull back to some degree from finger pointing, let's say...
Especially on Acts, partly because many of the views that I've promoted are now in the ascendancy.
And there's many other people who are pointing to the problems that I, in some ways, was at the forefront in pointing out.
Well, I'm much more comfortable in the philosophical, religious, and psychological domain.
That's where I belong.
I only started commenting politically.
Because the bloody politicians wouldn't stay in their bailiwick.
It started to interfere, for example, in Canada with, what would you say, the axiomatic structures that enable our freedom of speech.
Well, maybe the tide's turning, and I'm not interested in it.
I'm only secondarily interested in it, politically.
And I should retreat to my, or advance back to my fundamental...
Thank you so much.
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