45 minutes on a single paragraph of Nietzsche's Beyond Good & Evil 

"Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity"

Ran into Dr. Jordan Peterson on the streets of Toronto: "How you doin today, Doc?" "Well, it depends on what you mean by 'doing.' And it depends on what you mean by 'today.'" "Now, I've been thinking about this a lot, and you can tell me what you think about it." "It doesn't seem to me to be self-evident that when we're conceptualizing the nomenclature of a word like 'today' within the substrate of a dominance hierarchy, let's say, that we're not actually utilizing an a priori interpretive framework." "That seems to me like a good way of thinking about it." "Like, you might say it's proper, by the same token -- roughly speaking -- to order your (How would you put it?) your ... your manifestation of thinking in such a manner that 'today,' or 'doing,' for that matter, is predicated upon an evolutionary understanding of the archetypal representation of these utterances as they'e been portrayed in great literature." "And why the hell not?!" "It isn't obvious to me, eh, as far as I'm concerned, that this kind of ideology isn't part and parcel of a threat to the neo-marxist identity-politics approach to Jungian chaos and order. I see this as substantiated in the humanities departments of the university as it functions today. Yunno ... as the post-modernist types would have it." "So, so ... You have to give the devil his due, you know, because the devil is in the details." "It's no joke, man. Not bloody damn well. Not at all. AT ALLLLLL." "And fair enough, you know. More power to ya as far as I'm concerned." "And how are YOU doing today?"

For everyone dissatisfied about the sound quality: 1. Copy the URL for this video 2. Open VLC (download it for free online if you don't have it) 3. Press "CTRL + N" for 'Open Network Stream' 4. Paste URL to stream the video. 5. Adjust volume accordingly. 'Like' this comment so it gets more recognition! xoxo

I love how he´s always picking the water cup up but then becomes engaged in what he´s saying and ends up putting it down without having had a drink

Peterson's comment at 36:01 is excellent: "Nietzsche's book is not a book at all - it's a series of bombs.... And each sentence is a bomb. Each sentence blows things up that people don't know exist".

“The more poetic the author happens to be, the more the case that his or her writings contain within it the seeds of future ideas.”

Im never been so fond of a man that lived in my lifetime. ..thank you professor

*---------* *Here's the section he's referring to if you would like to read it before you watch the video* *-----------* It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of-namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that themoral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstruse-st metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: ‘What morality do they (or does he) aim at?’ Accordingly, I do not believe that an ‘impulse to knowledge’ is the father of philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise-‘better,’ if you will; there there may really be such a thing as an ‘impulse to knowledge,’ some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual ‘interests’ of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another direction-in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not CHARACTERIZED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,-that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses ofhis nature stand to each other.

when the teacher says "justify your answer"

I’m 3 pages into this book writing this comment. I need a 10 minute break to digest each paragraph to possibly not comprehend anything properly or fully. I didn’t know something like this existed. Quite frankly I’ve never been terrified and exciting trying to digest something. How fantastic.

Prof. Peterson, it would be awesome if you could share some advice on reading and how to comprehend and retain what is written.

Wisdom is a woman and she always loves a warrior. Thus spoke Zarathustra.

"What makes you think you're a reliable judge of what you're up to?" 26:00

--------- Here's the section to which he's referring, read before watching! ----------- It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of-namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstract metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: ‘What morality do they (or does he) aim at?’ Accordingly, I do not believe that an ‘impulse to knowledge’ is the father of philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimate LORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise-‘better,’ if you will; there there may really be such a thing as an ‘impulse to knowledge,’ some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, when well wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any material part therein. The actual ‘interests’ of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another direction-in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his little machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a chemist; he is not CHARACTERIZED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,-that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other.

I think I enjoy listening to Jordan Peterson and learning from him not just because he is significantly more intelligent than me, but because I am willing to admit that he is significantly more intelligent than me. His intelligence demands respect, and my demand is satisfied by his intelligence. A toast may need to be raised to never watching buzzfeed again.

Please more Nietzsche videos. You're analysis is remarkable!

I think one of your internal spirits wants you to quench your thirst by taking a drink of that water, but some other spirits are preventing you from doing so. Just something to be aware of. Stay hydrated!

I feel like Dr Peterson always provides a sort of meta-view, intermixed with his own original thought which provides a framework within which to understand these great thinkers in conjunction.

This might be the most important video I've seen on youtube. I feel like the direction of my life changed & solidified at the same time somehow just now.

Dr. Peterson, I have followed your work for over a dozen years and have been deeply inspired by it from start to finish, but this video is hands-down the most mind-blowing, astonishing work I have ever seen you do. Your careful, close reading of this paragraph is nothing short of brilliant.

When Nietzcshe said that a philosopher is not primarily motivated by a desire to accumulate knowledge, it was like Bobby Flay saying that a chef is not motivated by a desire to acquire food.

I read beyond good and evil and the science and health at the same time when I was 18. I loved Neitche even though I am very religious... I gave up on western philosophy and concentrated on music and Chinese language learning and my children blahblah blah. But now I am drifting back to my Christian philosophical routes. God bless Jordan ... Real prayer is good deeds sir and your free lectures are a catalyst of good. May a divine sword defend your cross

"what makes you think you're a reliable judge of what it is that you're up to." simply a bomb

I watched your interview with Saad and thought I was picking up on a nuanced view of Nietzsche--particularly when you touched on the idea that mans' most central values are religious in nature. I'm excited to watch the other videos on Nietzsche/Jung/Morality/Existentialism etc. I'm glad to have finally found an accessible contemporary thinker who explores these ideas.

First read this outdoors beside a lake on a warm Spring day at 24 as an undergrad and it changed my life forever for the better!

Recently purchased a biography on Nietzsche - "I am Dynamite" at the back it references some his aphorisms, I read through them and stopped dead at this one - "The Kingdom Of Heaven is a condition of the heart" (I've shortened it slightly) incredible.

Thank you for posting this, and all the other videos you have posted in the past. I am learning so much from watching - and trying to live - your videos. Thanks again!

Around 10 minutes or so where you give a great answer for why someone might want to read a great philosopher (like Nietzsche)-thank you! This is a great reason for why a formal education is unique, too; (a good formal education, anyway) exposes you and has you engaging in dialectic with great material that professors and other students have recently read together as a community of learners, which builds over the 4 years. I’ve been watching vids of you to see what people are liking (and not liking) about you. But I’ve just been enjoying the way you lay out your thoughts. It’s awesome people are thinking about the objectively positive writings of Nietzsche that are still the most useful and poetic phenomenology-type philosophy I’ve read.

Such an amazing video! This is my 4th time watching it, his enthusiasm while deciphering Nietzsche's texts is like watching a child play with a new toy.

Thank you for unpacking this paragraph from Beyond Good and Evil and explaining the process of Nietzsche's writing. It's a very fruitful way of understanding these kinds of texts. I hope there will be a lot more of these kinds of videos dealing with the existential philosophers, especially Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard.

Thanks for sharing. I have been on a Hegel funk for a while now and trying to push myself into Nietzsche, and this lecture provoked my interest to continue into Nietzsche's world. I appreciate your forum and found your presentation kind and inspiring. Looking forward to whatever comes along in your next thesis or insight. I like these longer discourses more so than the quickie thoughts.

Great video! You're passionate about "knowing thyself" which I find to be a rare quality in most "philosophers". The first chapter in Beyond Good and Evil is one of the great masterpieces of psychology, imo.

I had the same experiences that Prof. Peterson had been through while reading Nietzsche which continuously blow my mind away. But even though i had the same enthusiasm to explain it or articulate my own ideas about this book to the people or even to myself i am always finding myself not qualified for those skills. In here, in this video, i again felt the same enlightenment and inspiration by Prof. Peterson's skill to explain the book so clearly and accuralately that my mind blow away again not only with the thought of Nietzsche but intelligence of his own.

A book reading of a complex book like this is something that a lot of people could benefit. I would love to see more such videos

I gotta exclaim that I am so happy to have a Professor, an academic teacher by my choosing. Dr. Peterson, thank you for accepting your coronation into Public Figure-hood.

Dr. Peterson is an enigma. I turn my volume up to hear him better, but the only thing that gets louder is the background noise and not his voice.

"The very act of interacting with the world presupposes an ethic" this whole video is just 45 minutes of answers to questions i never asked damn

Thanks for this, the world needs more people like you.

While I was listening to a girl in my class present her topic of Jihad I started to think about what she was doing. I had the idea that the information that she recounted was the information that her value system inspired her to seek out. This, and how she used examples to convey her ideas, showed me that we are all unconsciously revealing our aim and lives in our words.

You are definetly my all time favorite professor .. thank You so much Dr Jordan

Honestly was about to throw in the towel on this book. Glad I found this Dr P. “Dense” is perfect description. Gonna put on my big boy pants and give it another go.

Thank you for the delightful insight and breakdown into a portion of Nietzsche's mind!

Thank you Jordan for introducing Nietzsche to me, and to a wider audience. I agree with you ( just by reading my first book by him-The Dawn of Day), i am underlining so many sentences on the page, that i am almost underlining all of them. Incredible accuracy and sharpness of his words, so much is said in just a few sentences. I am taking the book with me and reading it out loud to people, which i do not remember ever doing before. Brave and sharp-minded thinker, truly worth digging further into it.

More videos like these please such a wealth of insights. I learned more about my life in 45 minutes than I did my entire life.

I just had this book in my hand two seconds ago. I picked it up a few months ago and it’s been sitting in a box since. As I read the authors name I heard Jordan Peterson’s voice pronouncing it in his funny Canadian accent lol. I put the book down and came to bed and scrolling through RU-vid feed this video popped up on me . Synchronicity! I have to read this I guess

“It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of - namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown.” Nietzsche

I just asked myself, what would Jordan Peterson think about the book "Beyond good and evil", so I just googled "jordan Peterson Nietzsche" and there it was. Thank you Sir! I will really enjoy watching it.

Exceptional video. Your analysis is superb. Thank you sir!

Complex thinkers write one book, then hundreds books are written about the book. They can be a real pain to read. When I was new to reading books by intellectuals I at first thought it was a load of unreadable bollocks, then when went to the lecture, i realized that my reading skills and attention span were bollocks. Some books I can only understand through anamnesis (recollection from experience) cause the language is so unusual. Some of Platon` writings - translated from ancient greek to my native language - for example. Different culture, different language, but I also suspect that Platon might obscure the text by choice. His teacher, Socrates, was very aware of the dangers and limits of written text. As he said: the father of the text is not there to protect it. So let´s make it hard to read so that those who would misunderstand or misuse it will not bother to read it.

I bet that when he speaks with journalists he can oversee the conversation on slow motion as the spiderman movie and, based on his observations about their intentions and narcissism, decide on the degree of power and eloquence velocity to instill to his words to disarm them completely

Thank you, what a wonderful teacher you are Mr Peterson. I hope you’re recovery will be swift

stimulating thoughts, much to digest and think over. thanks for posting.

This brilliant, will have to read more of these guys, this so insightful.

"its a series of bombs" I am not a man, I am dynamite!

Just started Beyond Good and Evil. When Dr.Peterson describes how dense the book is he is not exaggerating. Every sentence makes you think.

This is exactly what I’ve been trying to articulate for so long! Thank you on the very deepest level, a truly life changing affirmation for a young man like me

Dear Prof. Peterson Thank you very much for taking the time to upload this and use your knowledge of Nietzsche to spread wisdom across the Globe. Also, hats off to you on the political frontier of Canada. Don't let the Bastards beat you down! Bests, UK

An hour and a half spent on a single 45min RU-vid video...

nietzsche is so deep peterson has to pause just to do short meditations just to search for words with the proper depth... very beautiful.

Thank you for affording the masses with insightful teaching. I love you.

Dr. Peterson I love your vids and they really help me get closer to complex concepts and ideas but.... every time you grab a glass or a bottle of water and you DON'T drink from it for ages I just can't help it and lose focus. I don't wanna rely on just listening cause you are very expressive and your body language complements enormously your message, so PLEASE ..take a sip , TAKE A SIP of WATER ! for Nietzsche's, Jung's sake ! :) Jokes aside , thank you professor ! I've been a Sam Harris listener and disciple for a long time and now yours too. The debates you guys had, first one included, were spectacular ! Glad to know everything's being sorted out now with the U of T. All the best !

Read that book years ago my brain still hurts.

Thanks, Prof. Peterson, for showing how Nietzsche's writing must be approached. This unpacking of concepts is what really blew me away when I first started reading N's works. The professor I had took much the same approach with us. It's more than a little daunting to realize a 3-page section can contain a novel's worth of information.

Such a profound analysis. Bravo, J.P.

That "if you don't believe in something you couldn't organise your vision" thing is spot on. It happened to me just a few weeks ago that i realised i couldn't focus on the things in front of me (in terms of sight). And it had begun when i read nietzsche and oscar wilde (and a few others) and saw some fantastic movies. It made me re-examine why i believed in the things i believed in, what my biases were etc. I've to almost strengthen the muscles around my eyes and gradually reprogram them to look at the things in front of me. It's very tough

Every time I listen to Dr. Peterson I feel like I have gained a few IQ points.

So enjoyed hearing how you deconstruct statements and ideas.

This was really awesome and helpful! Thanks!

First and foremost thank you for this video and your elaborations: Some critical words permitted? 1.The sentence on which Dr. Peterson reflects upon could be written somewhere in the video... Otherwise one cannot really watch this video without a copy of the original book at one´s hand. Second comment: Or even a German - English study version of it. Although English might be a partially "German based - language" - one might loose twists and gists by the rendering of a translation! For me, it felt always harder to think properly in English than it was in German. I´d say German is more straight forward were as English is so much more poetic hence the multi - layered versions of synonyms - therefore it´s much harder to think straight in English. But some people like Alan Watts and Dr. Peterson do a phantastic job... Please don´t mind if I made any spelling mistakes.

I'm reading Beyond Good & Evil right now and this was helpful. I think the comment about marking important points is very funny because I find myself in the same situation with great books. It might be useful to do more of these

It's a really inspiring quote, because in that sense, everyone is a philosopher. Or the philosopher's stone is the most basic archetype there is to self-awareness.

I love the way he free associates as he expresses his ideas. He has admitted that he learns to understand what he is thinking by listening to what and how he says what he says....and that is true. Often enough we can learn from what we say if we listen to ourselves. We can also evolve better ways of saying what we think by doing this.

Holy crap. It’s amazing how much five years changed Peterson’s appearance.

Nietzsche's books are great. He helps me put it all together and see ahead. Sometimes the magnifying glass is on something I had vague ideas about, not knowing how it could or would make sense together and it's in the grey area so to say, and it would bother me, but then Fritz puts it all in a few sentences for you. Boom!

the fact that i could understood the sentences despite me not being an english native speaker, even before he proceeded to explain them, made me want to read the whole book. thanks for the upload

I loved this book so much, it completely changed the way I looked at the world in so many ways. It's good to know that it shares this renown in academia as well :)

It's fun to know that even someone like Jordan is having a hard time interpreting the density of each sentence. In other words, I may not be that stupid after all.

Read this when I was 18 and it changed my life

This book is really awesome. Thanks for talking a bit about it.

thank u so much for sharing your great intellect and I am especially appreciative during this time of isolation.(covid-19)

31:05 Peterson describes one of Nietzsche’s most infamous lines on the nature of power. Before I even gave Nietzsche a chance, this quote of his was the primary reason I did not allow myself serious inquiry into his work. I’m glad to have that Quote explained better and also to realize that in his greater body of work he is actually cautioning against this tendency. In other words I have been selling Nietzsche short this whole time as I hadn’t thought about it myself, or delved into the literature seriously, taking the footnotes provided from my feminist philosophy teacher as dogma. Thanks for elucidating this and emancipating my mind Professor Peterson.

Please improve the sound quality! Really great insight!

My copy of this book came in the mail today. I'm having to rewind this a bit pretty frequently to stay on task. This book should be a healthy challenge. Can't wait to read it again in 5 years too

26:00 Chilling the way he delivers the line looking straight at the camera

Neitche is such a German his philosophy would be so different if he was Irish... Neitche was very courageous and lived with a lot of pain

Please, do the Nietzsche series.

I need to meet Jordan sometime, brilliant man, deserves better than what he gets for his attempts to help others. My hero.

This video was my reason to buy and read this book. All I can say about it (and this video) is: marvelous.

0:00 "So I'm going to read something" CROWD CHEERS

I found this video really helpful! As I have attempted to read Beyond Good and Evil and really struggle with understanding precisely what Nietzsche is getting at in particular sentences. Somehow I chose one of the hardest philosophers to start with. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't after the truth.

I would love to hear more material on your interpretations of Nietzsche. I feel like your perspective on Nietzsche has a lot of breadth so I feel like you would have some very interesting ideas to express. In addition, videos on how you fit Jung and Nietzsche together in terms of their commonalities and differences, and lastly, what research has followed both of them that progresses their lines of thought.

I`ve read most of the comments and suddenly felt an obligation to share a thought. Here he cites one of the humanity sharpest, most philosophically inclined, mind. What has eluded me till now, though this video had me contemplating the idea of beyond good and evil for far too many times, is that it ain`t the greatest one. Such a relief. Tear briefly shed finds its` closure.

Thank you. This was of course brilliant, but also a little distressing; but I guess that's par for the course - as JBP has said, ideas of this magnitude can destroy one's self concept, transforming it to "dead branches". It would be fabulous if JBP would do this for the whole book, but since this is not practical - we might need a study guide. I do. This is my experience as a beginner, for what it's worth and I would love feedback from JBP and other viewers who follow him - I'm using Gareth Southwell's beginner's guide, and the Brian Leiter blog for the time being. I got a lot initially from the "Great Courses" on Nietzsche. PS. The hour long interview with JBP from last year works well (for me) with this, so sharing that.

"There is way more at the bottom, than what is fully articulated." - Jordan B. Peterson

Your lectures are indispensable to anyone whom wishes to delve deeper into the history of epistemology and the humanities. I would not touch drugs with a bargepole and so videos like yours are my only way of intoxicating myself. Drinking from the fountain of knowledge and becoming inebriated.

If only people would stop and think before they speak, as much a he does. Makes this (personally) challenging book far more comprehensible for us smaller minded individuals.

Around 30:40 Peterson talks about the fundamental deconstructionist claim: "It doesn't matter what the content of the text is, what matters is that the text can be used as a tool for power and whether the person who wrote the text knew it or not that's what they were doing. and they were doing it in a way to privilege themselves above other people." I hear echoes of the PC game in this claim -- where it doesn't matter what someone else says, the person saying it is either being dominated or dominating other people and in the latter case trying to maintain that dominance through every action they take. What I'm taking from this is that the deconstructionists shook their fairy dust over reality (in the form of their fundamental claim, applied to all sorts of texts and simplified in the form of cognitive algorithms that can be easily transmitted) and it has started dissolving reality in an important sense. Or, more precisely, they are dissolving the linkage between objective reality (the world of objects) and subjective reality (the world of meaning). Which frees people up to invent their own subjective replacements for physics, biology (claiming, for example, that biological sex is a social construct), psychology, etc. -- unmoored from evidence or rational scientific method. They seem to be trying to reconstruct the structures from the world of objects within the plane of meaning, where things are more fluid. So we have objective biology and subjective biology now, and objective biology is being labeled as a tool of oppression, which means it's marked for destruction. So, this is rather terrifying. But I think there's evidence that it's actually happening all around us. The video footage documenting the current free speech debate is loaded with examples. Which raises an interesing question: what is the nature of Order in relation to the planes of Object and Meaning? Order must fundamentally be a belief system, yes? I mean, Order cannot be something "out there" -- otherwise there would be no process of transformation, so Order must be a human model of something out there -- which is what a belief system is. So, following, this line of thinking, the deconstructionists are basically trying to corrupt the fundamental nature and/or operation of the Logos. Because the Logos operates on two aspects -- object and meaning. But if everything is basically dissolved from the object plane and moved over to the meaning plane, that is not simply a revision of the existing Order but also a transformation of the fundamental mechanism by which Order is created out of Chaos. It's a radical change to the foundation of belief systems. In a world based on that kind of belief, Truth is obviously not a primary value. In fact, Truth would tend to be quite disruptive, and naturally defenses would evolve that would protect against Truth -- like silencing any opposition (again, see the video on the free speech debate at UoT). What would happen if everyone were inculcated into this way of thinking? Who would operate all the machinery that actually depends on objective physics, biology, and psychology? How would decision making about important object-world issues like economics and climate change be negotiated and plausible solutions produced? I would imagine this would cause the whole social system to collapse into chaos before too long.

45 minutes in 43, only Jordan Peterson can pull that off

I wish I had someone like Peterson as a friend, as someone to talk to. I think that he makes live hard for himself, thinks to much and lacks in simple joy for live. Sometimes I get the urge to console him, which I understandable knowing he suffers from depression, which often manifests as over thinking. I am far from as intelligent and well educated as he is, but I have an intense feeling of recognition. Forgive me the possible string mistake, since English is not my native tongue.

sir, what a pleasure to listen to you talk