Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Responsibility 

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I heard a philosopher say that we transitioned from *agent morality* (ex "how should i act in order to be virtuous"-it’s about the doer) to *patient morality* (ex "how should i act such that my actions don’t cause harm"-it’s about those who live the consequences) and we’re now starting to focus on *relation morality.* This latter paradigm rises from the understanding that everything is a network, your car exists solely as the product of a network of technologies and tools (production lines, welding machines, the internal combustion engine, the mining industry, paved roads, refineries and gas pumps, etc etc-bring a Ferrari back in time before paved roads & gas stations existed and you have a very complex piece of metal) and you yourself exist solely as a member of a network of humans. A human by itself is not even as smart as an ape, which comes almost fully "programmed" as it were, out of the box. A human cannot be human by itself, as opposed to something like a wolf, sheep, zebra. We need to be welcomed amongst society to develop to our human potential-your name, your language, critical thinking, your clothes, your dreams and desires, the music you listen, the computer and internet protocols you use, highways and streets, airplane flights, medicine and dentistry, soap and toothpaste, being a punker or a rapper, etc etc *are stuff you’re receiving/unlocking thanks to the network you’re part of.* Imagine a very dynamic sophisticated person living in San Francisco, trading crypto, developing DeFi, listening to The Weekend while driving his Ferrari to a party, all dressed up with fine clothes and an attitude to stun. Now imagine the same individual if they would’ve grown up on a deserted island (with plenty of food and water at an arm’s length) without taking part in the human network. Yep, take away the network and what remains is the ape. Each node is only as strong as the network, meaning that we’re as complex, resilient and healthy as the social network is. Given this, it means that *in order to serve the individual you have to tend to the nature of social relations.* Right now, humanity is a mix of moral attitudes that aren’t taking our relational nature into account-instead, our moral attitudes stem from the view that we’re magic individuals, independent and wholly humans by ourselves. This feeds back into the poor quality of life we have. Society today and us as individuals are very primitive compared to our potential, unfortunately we cannot see ourselves any other way but highly (or even "ultimately") evolved. Passage from an essay tackling this very insight: **

I just recently got to know about this Peterson and, after listening to a few his lectures and interviews, i can't really see the reasons to his huge popularity: he brings nothing new to the table, but he does that with a lot of presumptuous pomp and self righteousness. To see who are the "stars" of our times, from music to cinema, from politics to philosophy, tells a lot about the fading out of any critical thinking in the decadent west.

Peterson is a product of his upbringing in small town Alberta, the most conservative, right wing province in Canada.

I'm gonna tell you what's the limit of Peterson, the fact that he has CLEARLY never read a line of Derrida or Foucault, even less Baudrillard and has the spine to critique them.

He is a walking contradiction. For a man that is all about staying in your own lane, he is a professor of clinical psychology yet he acts as expert of multiple disciplines. He is so eyeroll worthy that obscurity is all he deserves yet his ego means one cannot. Additionally, in a strange way, I feel sympathy for him because all his bloviating about personal responsibility has gotten him is a mental breakdown not unlike the great uberman Nietzche himself.

Thanks for the critic...I personally didnt take Jordan Petersons view to be so absolute either on responsibility or in helping others or on ideology..I have other areas where I would challenge him but not specifically those ...in response to you key points Responsibility : MY thinking is that he is not blaming a person for their poverty (I don't see any line where he has specified that ) he is only pushing us to the limits to be honest about challenge ourselves to pick up the mantle of what we have power to control (I remember a conversation where he was criticising the USA for their backward social care system, when compared to Europe, for example)..and like you and he say to not get resentful. Helping others: Although I agree his statement that "the literature is clear" (if one paper was his source) would be unfounded ...I didnt think he was advocating not helping a fellow worker but it was about the impact on someone who was not "playing the same game as the group" ...I think this is a basic animal behaviour...and i have been on the wrong side of that myself it is a lesson in the social rules of the group (although very painful to me and most) on how to integrate.. learn it or be excluded. (obviously it depends upon the circumstances not being ridiculously extreme, such as racism etc) Ideology : I am probably biased here by familiary experience of feminism , which I humbly believe I fully agree with. However not when it turns into hatred of men per se and tries to make them the cause of all world ills and worth less than women then we have a problem. Don't get me wrong I believe most feminists are reasonable I am just talking the extremes. I felt your reference to Nelson Mandela, MLK, building a bridge etc misleading ....as I understand him, he is not against such movements ....he is not against ideology but against tribalism/extremism of ideology, and definition of their tribal good by comparison to the bad of the other tribe , indeed the creation of the negative "other" is the problem which leads to exclusion and hatred of that other ...something we are seeing more and more of with the current politricks. ...however I will now watch you next episode, on the same, and see :)

I'm a fan of Jordan Peterson but I think you are nailing his weaknesses. I find his philosophy very useful but he often overstates his case and therefore needs to be read with that in mind. I think the rancor that is encouraged from public intellectuals (especially today) and his own apparent sensitivity has robbed us of a chance to see his weaker arguments fairly challenged in a rigorous way. Bravo!

¡Best critique of Peterson I've seen! I used to respect him a lot but after listening "talking" about posmodernism and creating a strawman such as "neo-marxism" I saw him as what he is, a pseudo intelectual and more of a showman than anything else.

Great video. I hope Jordan Peterson fans and even Peterson himself will see this. It’s ironic how irresponsible Peterson is as a “public intellectual.” Marxist and Postmodern thinkers like Adorno or Derrida especially have many valuable things to say about personal responsibility, which Peterson simply ignores or vilifies without understanding. It’s a shame because Peterson would likely benefit greatly from reading these other thinkers, but he’s too deeply trapped within his own ideology to do so. Adorno’s treatises on mass culture and Derrida’s analyses of one’s responsibility to Others are very important. Being truly responsible requires an adequate understanding of how your society functions and how you relate to others within it structurally. Peterson doesn’t seem to care about any of this beyond a shallow fixation on one’s “career” and “family.”

This is honestly one of the most professional criticisms of Jordan Peterson I have seen. No ad hominem or other slanderous logical fallacies were present. Just examining and responding purely to his philosophical and ethical stance that he espouses. I also like the approach you took by looking at examples of responsibility at different levels and scopes and determining which level is ultimately responsible for certain causal events.

Jordan is living in the same city as myself.....Toronto is having an awakening to racism against our natives and blacks and he doesn't let us heal....He was a fan of Prof. Rushton of London Ontario's who taught racism at Western University.....London Ontario has had serious killings of

We need social responsibility too !!

Having read self-help when I was younger, I was decidedly underwhelmed by Peterson's self-help. He would often take the long way round to say the same things you find in every second self-help book. Combine it with his dogmatic and inflexible ideology, and you have a recipe for nonsense.

If you haven't already, could you do an episode on determinism (soft and hard), how it effects morality and the difference between human choices/causes and a lack of free will.

Would definitely be looking for the next part. Great video mate.

The “rule” of helping only those who want to help you is ridiculous in my opinion. If you are uncertain, whether or not you want to help someone based on you not being sure of their intent to help you or their usefulness, you clearly do not have their best interest at heart, because otherwise your desire to help them wouldn’t be dependent on their usefulness to you. So if we now apply the same mindset to the person you are deciding on whether or not to help, they wouldn’t help you either because of this very reason, which would lead to the condition of neither yours, nor theirs applying. So all in all we would be living in a society where there can be no cooperation if this rule were to be implemented by everyone.

I'm not sure whether or not Peterson actually makes the best case against himself himself. After all, he doesn't exactly hide the story about his anxiety and severe drug withdrawal symptoms. So whoever actually follows this guy sees that a tidy room won't actually fly you out around the world to take care of you in dire straits.

I believe your argument is weakened by your incorrect etymological analysis of "responsibility". Characterizing it as equivalent to "ability to respond" allows you to focus on the external moral judgment of a person's ability to respond to a situation, free will, and accountability. Nevertheless "responsibility", from the Latin "respondere", is a combination of "re" (back; again) plus "spondere" (promise, guarantee). The external judgments are secondary to the person's commitment to promise or guarantee something to another person in its two meanings of "duty" and "accountability". Peterson has a focus on the "duty" aspect and you focus on the "accountability" aspect. Peterson might say "before blaming others fix your part of the blame" as in "it's your duty to address the blame first" which is basically a "cast the first stone " kind of sentence. You might respond "it's easy to find situations where the individual has no part in the blame and can't be held accountable by others or herself" which is true and a case that matches the "house in perfect order". Also note that to be responsible, in the sense of being accountable, is not identical to being the cause, as you seem to affirm in 13:12. You can "spondere" for someone else's actions. You can both be held accountable for someone else's actions and take the duty to amend the bad someone else did.

If we lived like Peterson we’d have a society of drones , neurotically plumping their pillows and cleaning their shoes before going to work and accepting every and any demeaning instruction because one is never perfect enough to question that society. Thanks for the video. Delighted someone made these points.

I am a firm believer in individual sovereignty for without it, it would be much more difficult, if not close to impossible to be socially responsible. Taking care of oneself, I believe is sometimes confused with selfishness, which at times can be exactly that, but if we can put our houses in some kind of order ourselves as individuals, even imperfectly, we can be better able to voluntarily collectivize for greater social change which can benefit communities. I am an individual and I stand by it, but as an individual I am also a part of a larger community. No man is an island as once was said( well maybe Simon and Garfunkel did) so responsibly to those around us is in fact preserving the ideal of the individual for the individual. Nice vid. Refreshing to see an actual critique of what was said not an attack on who said it. Looking forward to the next video on ideology.

This is a very good video overall. A few things to consider. I don't think Peterson would land in the deterministic camp. I watched him give a lecture in Ohio where he specifically discussed his perceived differences between Determinism and Free Will and he definitely landed on the side of free will. I don't remember the specifics exactly but I believe the reason you gave is precisely why he didn't land in the deterministic camp. Also I've noted him speak not only about multi variant factors for causation but also on joining political parties and communities in action to affect change. What I think he argues for is which comes first. "Perfectly" was the wrong word to use, you are right imo. Another part you point out, that being the accompanying nuances and facets of potential, are the secondary innumerable factors in each circumstances., How does one write a book about those things exactly? How would anyone apply all potentials in all situations and remain broadly prescriptive (rules or even suggestions) at all? I've heard him tell a story about a man with a low IQ who came to his practice that he helped get a job stuffing envelopes and the man still failed to perform the task, after many attempts. When should Peterson have stopped, if at all? I think this story highlights the danger of crafting beliefs and narratives. I think you are on the right path to investigating the truth in so far as you can muster such a thing, and I do commend you for that. The story I mentioned could be spun in a multitude of ways, one of which is that Peterson repeatedly stated no one knows what to do with the "13%" of people below the level capable of performing routinized simple tasks. Is he wrong about that? Have you ever encountered someone who repeatedly refused to act in any way but selfishly? How much of ones life should be spent on the people who legitimately refuse to help themselves? How do you specify in a short book exactly how to do what in each of the many potential ways people act nefariously, leech off of other people, or break culturally or legally imposed boundaries? The reference to the "factors too big to overcome" is a very broad category. Could Peterson have done better to intersperse situations that are outside of our control in these 2 books. Maybe. What would be the utility? Describing the fact that a person whose legs were amputated after a car crash and how it's not their fault the post office didn't have ADA compliant access points brings what relevance to what the average person should do about shaping their expectations of the world around them? If it shouldn't be about what you can control, what should "rules" about life be about? I think what you are looking for generally is what Peterson terms as chaos in Maps of Meaning. There you'd find examples of the kinds of "malevolence that characterizes life outside of your control" you think his philosophy is devoid of. It is hard not to think that after this it was his responsibility to have crafted a "better" philosophy on responsibility. Mandela, Ghandi, MLK. That's where you took "before you criticize the world" and turned it into "even the greatest among us should have kept cleaning their room." That man isn't even made of straw.

I didn't have responsibility as I was growing up, growing up poor, fear of bullies and no real father role model to look up to to name but a few, that being said things got progressively worse as the years went on, was I responsible? the police seemed to think so, my family and friends also and me saying I don't have free will wouldn't of got me out of any of the mess I found myself in, the truth is I was just a product of my environment growing up and that wouldn't of changed if I hadn't of changed the story I was living, after I wrote out my life story and saw for myself that my life was a tragedy I actually gained a real sense of free will, I was finally able to see cause and affect, being with these friends meant this behaviour in me, working at this place enabled me to act this way and all the while learning that it was my part in all these things that had to change, thinking, feeling, actions made up my character and the best characters in life stand the best chance of having a good life, people do have to wake up, not everyone will for many reasons but I do believe Peterson is helping some people to become more than they are right now and more than they might of been, really enjoyed the video 🙏🏼

Here’s the thing. While you can intellectualise personal responsibility but ultimately the message Peterson is trying to push out is one for people who really need to just take responsibility. I find his usefulness in the world is one of pragmatism rather than accuracy

The piece on responsibility here focuses on "Who's at fault? Who's to blame? Is it the individual, or the events and society around the individual?" But the ethic of personal responsibility is about the opposite of blame -- it's about creating, regardless. To take personal responsibility for yourself, your community, and the world, is to simply create, and to create without blame. Blame, here, is the opposite of responsibility. A concept of responsibility that is rooted in blame, "You're blaming the victim," etc., is from the get go, not an ethic of responsibility.

The essence of Peterson’s teaching amounts to this: If your life sucks, it’s your own fault. Don’t blame corporate capitalism and social anomie. That’s what “individual responsibility” boils down to and that’s why it’s advanced by the ruling elite that controls the mass media.

The biggest problem with JP is he does not take his own advice. The man went a media tour for years telling everyone who we should live while having a terrible addiction to Benzos. He was not cleaning his room.

I'm a little late to this vid, though I couldn't resist commenting anyway. While I listened to your criticisms, I was reminded of something said by William Churchill in response to a reporter accusing him of going back on his word. With the aid of a maritime analogy, Churchill explained that his job was to keep the ship of State on a steady course toward its destination. So if the ship begins listing to the left, he shifts balast to the right. If the ship begins listing to the right, he shifts balast to the left. Thus, it is only to the outside observer that his actions appear hypocritical. It is much the same with Dr. Peterson. As he has explained many times, his emphasis on individual responsibility is due to the absence of such concepts being properly articulated in contemporary society. So why would he pay lip-service to collectivist ideas when they already make up the majority of the discussions being had within the culture. Why would he take the time to articulate points of view different from his own when those views are already over represented?

Great video! Thank you. I am interested in Peterson, and in watching a few videos concerned with pointing out less than ideal points he makes I find myself leaning towards the belief that his thoughts are more stepping stones and less permanent fixtures. It is so helpful to have this kind of content that is measured, and honestly points out concerns with Peterson's claims.

Point to add: morality is socially constructed, but it's not *only* socially constructed. The trolley problem is an excellent tool that psychologists have used to parse out what are evolved biological moral emotions versus mere social constructs (ape shall not kill ape vs. don't eat pork, for example). Some of our moral emotions exist because they're useful for the propagation of genes. Broadly: 1) don't hurt people 2) be fair 3) listen to your elders 4) don't eat that, it's dirty 5) the more like family they are, the more you bend/break the rules for them

Here's my thought: the reason Dr. Peterson focuses so much on the responsibility of the individual is because he recognizes the world is a bleak place, and sometimes things happen that are out of our control that leave us in a pit, whether it be financial, psychological, existential, etc,. You may have family, friends, mental and physical health experts or whoever else who can support you and help you out of that pit, but ultimately the decision is yours and yours alone to brush yourself off and start climbing out, or to sit and wallow in it. The hard truth is the only person who truly cares about your life enough to pull you out of the lowest depths of hardship and despair is you. Everyone else WILL give up eventually if they don't see you put in the effort yourself

Just stumbled upon your Channel very recently. Couldn't help but binge for hours! Loving your videos so much, I've been sharing them on the little social media that I have. Only thing I'm unhappy about...is how late I found you! Thanks for all the hard work, interesting topics, deep research, and articulate compendious summarizes ^-^ Wish you the best, and that your content will soon be recognized for its high quality! 💙

Excellent critic of JP, fantastic channel!

The one point I keep seeing over and over, constantly misunderstood is Peterson saying "you are responsible for your life and circumstances"... Then it being taken as "you are at *fault* for your life and circumstances" Now I don't totally agree with Peterson, he goes down the weird path, a little delusional and his followers all repeat back in unison about individual expression and the importance of critical thought (completely missing the irony) but he does have a few, very solid arguments. Chiefly being that you are responsible for making change. It isn't just going to happen without you, people won't just give you what you want and to rely on the charity of strangers who can't hear your voice is foolish. It isn't your fault that you started here but it's your responsibility to make sure you end up where you need to go.. (but you can't do it alone, you will have to rely on those around you)

Peterson’s urgings towards individual responsibility, is really calling for self sufficiency, which negates the balance, understanding, and need for being able to live with interdependence.

Something to be considered on your critique. He's a psychologist. His job is to motivate the individual, educate them, and help them out of a degree of symptoms all of which focus on a person's lack of self worth, or self motivation. These people generally have this because they are crushed by their interpretation of a collective, and do not see the worth of their own decisions. As such his talks are geared specifically towards providing a counterweight to those conditions. A collective is made of individuals, if each is not motivated, they will either fall in line to those who are, or stagnate. Jordan isn't wrong for focusing on personal responsibility. Moreover, if he were wrong, why would you feel the personal responsibility to correct him, if you didn't see it as your personal responsibility, which then proves Peterson right?

You are an individual. In society you deal with individuals. Society is composed of individuals. It is wrong thinking saying things like, "Society should do X..." Society cannot do X. The individuals in society have to do it. It always comes back to the individual.

“Free will” is useful ideology for governments to hold as they may hold “individuals” accountable when individual desire counter the “rule of law.”

Everything has its limits, there is no one size fits all solution and I do think adopting responsibility is a solid foundation for the majority of individuals. But as this video eludes to, there are some limitations of cause there are but it doesnt mean it is wrong. It just means for some people it is not effective. We will never find a solution that works for everyone (although we can keep trying), humans are extremely complex with different contributing factors to their current condition. The best we can hope for is to find something that is a solid starting point to build upon. I think the adoption of responsibility is very beneficial and I know more than a handful of people who have read '12 rules for life: an antidote to chaos' who have turned their lives around from the most awful childhoods. So I dont think it is wrong, as the title suggests but rather it has its limitations which is true for everything.

The problem with always shifting blame upwards is the theres an infinite ceiling, the regulator of the regulator of the regulator. Instead responsibility should be relative to the domain of power (position in the chain of causality regardless of 'free will'). Nothing is ever 100% responsible for anything.

this is an absolutely incredible video. normally i don’t comment but i really hope this blows up - so insightful and well put together

Some of us humans have preference for the most flattering ideologies.

He’s a frightened old dad, crushing ideas of masculinity haunt his decisions and drive his critique of identity structures. Dad say “Nooo change is bad unless it’s what I did and covers what I have failed on”

Jean-Paul Sartre actually said: 'We were never as free as we were under Nazi occupation.' or something along those lines. His point was that, under those circumstances, where forces outside your control dictate everything you do, you have the most obligation. He actually said that 'under those circumstances, every act is a committment.' So I'm not sure it follows to say that the more things outside your control are factors dictating your circumstances, the less free will you have. Actually, people tend to engage most with their freedom when it is most under threat.

I watched a lot of Jordan Peterson and i can't really agree with this critique. It might be to much to ask, that everyone spends as much time as I have on his videos, but at some point He always acknowledges this kind of counterpoints, that poeple are limited, depend in each other and are subjected to all kinds of obstacles. And he also talks about the social and societal networks we are embedded in. You can be given everything at birth, but If you don't feel responsible for your own actions you can still wreck your life, as well as the lifes of the poeple who want to support you and demand that everybody else owes you even more. And you can be given an unfair lot but nontheless do your part in supporting your loved ones as much as you can. He talks a lot about tragedy and suffering and that the reduction of unnecessary suffering should be a priority for everybodies actions. The question is, how the sustainable strategy for that purpose looks like. And the problem with political solutions he describes, is that it is all to easy to get swept away by a bunch of activists who demand changes that they do not understand the implications of. I recently listened to "Critical Race Theory - An Introduction" and according to this book his description at the end, that you labled as a strawman, is spot on. Unfavorable, yes, but by no means implausible or unreasonable. The suggestions that the principle of personal responsibility would have meant that black poeple and women wouldn't have got the vote is just nonsense. Equal rights means more souvereign individuals and therefore a greater collective capacity for individual responsibility.

Hearing peterson quotes is like nails scraping the inside of my skull. This is a man whose conservatism has poisoned is way of thinking so much that he has to make fantastical leaps and bounds in reasoning in order to justify what he already believes. This is why conservatives always have to add extra steps when they try and explain their worldview.

Nice and well-developed arguments. Looking forward to Part II!😊😊

Peterson is coming from the position of “You are fucked anyway, so might as well try.” If you cut out his word salad, that’s what it comes down to. What he doesn’t seem to understand is, everyone already knew that.

Basically Peterson is the kind of person to mock someone else's accent and then deny that he himself has an accent that could be mocked.

I wouldn’t appeal to systems-theory as the source without breaking down each of those systems into their root causes as well; In this the causes remain the human heart. And this is why I agree with Peterson. The truth of the matter remains the same in their effects generationally macro or micro.

Thanks. It would be interesting to consider Peterson's "philosophy" in the shadow of two Russian authors whom he seems to admire very much. I am talking about Dostoyevsky and Solzhenizin. Thereby, I think not so much about them as authors of fiction but as leading voices who did provide certain ideas, especially in the area of the harsh anti-Marxism (anti-semitism is also here) etc. Additionally, both Dostoyevsky and Solzhenizyn alike loved to play a sort of "Christ" bearing his cross to Calvary and suffering for our sins in advance. In order to execute a back-charge in times to come.

Dr. Robert Sapolsky's work in the field of neurobiology adds an interesting voice on the concept of "free will," and might further support that Peterson's ideas are both archaic and invalid.

you should have so many more subs. your content is always pure quality. thoughtful and provocative.

22:25 this is gold. I will be using these bits against JP in news comments. Thank you so much!!!

He just made a community post that starts with "Doing something for others is more rewarding than anything else you can do."

My 8th grade history teacher referred to WWI as the War of the -isms as in Nationalism, Imperialism, and Militarism.

Jordan Peterson may change his mind about personal responsibility if he was born again as a child laborer mining cobalt using bare hands in Congo in a parallel universe

Philosophers always try to complicate simple and basic stuff. Take responsibility, a 10 year old can be told "Take responsibility" and act accordingly without having to read a 200pgs book on concept or theory of responsibility. Most of us intrinsically know what it is and know where the boundary lies. All of sane people know that there are things happening outside of their control (The things other people do and that naturally happens) and there are other things that are within their control (They can alter them by actions, behaviors and choices). But there is some use of such complexities. In the legal and judicial systems, in politics and economics it may be important to dive deeper in such threads. but to normal people just providing for themselves and those they love, the simpler the better. Asking oneself "What can I do?" or "What or who to blame?" have profound difference in life from individual to community even from one lifetime to generations. Coz even major social or economic movement can be traced back to individual choices and actions they just appear to be similar and organized. And most importantly they can be traced further back to few individuals who started such movements and organized them that's absolutely individual responsibility. Movements never just happen, responsible people make them happen. Like, there was someone who first pushed idea of "women should vote" and there were those who took their time to push it harder and harder... Well, there were a million things they'd rather do but they sacrificed all those to shoulder such responsibility. Pointing out the holes in J.B Peterson's doctrine, The other areas of life it doesn't encompass is like blaming a mallet for not being effective in cutting trees instead of bringing an axe. It is a character building not political or social doctrine. If you spent even a week somewhere full of people focusing outward and not inward as a common person, you'd probably stop throwing stones at such noble doctrine within a second.

Love the way Jorpson blows right through the phrase 'we can't use logic because that doesn't exist'

Just offered to help my neighbor who just became a widow on Saturday to help get her groceries. I obviously have a big ego and she’s not trying hard enough. Maybe I should tell her to get on her bike 🚴. That’s a quote from a Norman Tebbit who blamed individuals for being unemployed in the 80s in the UK despite the fact the unemployment rate was 12%.

Shop lifting is not immoral behavior it is amoral. Withholding means of subsistence is immoral.

As a fan of Jordan Peterson I do agree with your argument. Definitely not the first person to argue against individual responsibility, yet one of the better perspectives I’ve came across! Great content.

Thanks for all the hard work on the video!

I think you are missing the point, missing the forest for the trees per say. It's not about fault, in fact, it's about the difference between those who focus on who or what is at fault vs those who focus on the fact that their own response to issues, regardless of the cause of those issues, is the responsibility of the individual. For example, imagine coming across some trash on the ground, some people will claim it's not their trash as an excuse to leave it alone, while others will recognize that regardless of how the trash got there, they've noticed it and are now presented with the choice of whether to do what is needed (picking it up and putting in a trash can) or to leave it on the ground. To take responsibility means to focus on how you are responsible for your response to issues you encounter regardless of the cause if those issues. Largely this is an issue because of two major aspects of people, first, most people don't do what is needed to make their life better and near always justify not acting to improve their lives because all they think about is how their problems are the fault of somebody or something else, and second, people who focus on what they can do about their problems or how they can better work around their problems are significantly more successful in life than people who are focused on who is at fault for issues. Activists are a good example, as instead of building their own life to resolve a problem within their own sphere of influence, they instead run out into the world to play the blame game, to yell and shout about how others are at fault for the problems of the world. This is actually counter productive. Imagine a bus is hurtling towards a kid in the road clearly unable to stop. We can all see how it would be a virtuous thing to save the child from getting run over, but once you get someone in the crowd demanding that you go save the kid and talking about how bad terrible everyone is for being cowards for not saving the kid just builds resentment towards saving the kid, instead of feeling motivated to save the kid it builds conflict within us, yea we want to save the kid but doing what that [insert pejorative here] is demanding just rankles something fierce, and this internal conflict results in us being weak to fear or even forgetting about the child entirely as our attention gets consumed by the crazy person yelling in our face instead of doing what they preach. On the other hand, someone who focuses on doing the right thing themself becomes an inspiration to others to follow suit. Just consider how Peterson became famous in the first place, he refused to give in to tyrannical pressure, he didn't set out to become famous, and that appearance of doing right for the right reasons regardless of the terrible things that could happen as a result is inspiring, it's what we wish we could do as well. The same occurs for anyone who focuses on their own choices in life. If you can't get a job the normal way, don't sit on the couch blaming the world for your sorry state of affairs, go out and seek a solution, make a sign saying "I'm available for hire, price negotiable" and wander the street corners, or build a mousetrap, from scrap on the roadside if need be, and then go find someone with a mouse problem and sell your mousetrap. Another aspect I think you fail to see is that if everyone, or really most people, deal with problems individually then the problems generally also get solved collectively as a side effect. For example, imagine a pile of litter scattered around a public space that'd take a few hours to clean up, well if you just picked up a single handful everyday on your way to work and inspired three others to do the same who in turn inspired three more each, well in a very short amount of time the whole public space becomes litter-free. Additionally, once those types of issues are on the path to resolution, we end up with more free time with which we can then work on things that actually require collective collaboration, such as infrastructure or going to the moon. But any collaborative project falls apart when everyone involved is constantly distracted by the problems they aren't resolving because they are too busy complaining about how those problems are other people's fault.

Nice, looking forward to Part 2.

Isn't the idea simply that preaching determinism might *cause* someone to eschew their responsability for making better personal choices because making the better choice is often harder? The flip side of that is the idea that preaching personal responsability to someone who's had a really shitty hand dealt to them might cause them to see that as a personal failing, making them think that they're deserving of it all and that their inability to help themselves due to the trauma is continued proof of their worthlessness, which ends up having the same effect as preaching determinism. Neither idea really discounts causation, but they really shouldn't be enemies either, hardlining either of them will cause some group of people to justify not making the harder but better choices that will improve their lives. So instead, it's a balance, like most other things in life

Can't wait for the part-2. Such an eloquent critique!

Personal responsibility, the hero journey, are all incredibly flattering.

Also, I don't know if someone else points out this, but Jordan Peterson have never read Butler or Foucault, he just hate'em cause he ain't them

Responsibility is the meaning of life. Carry the load. There are some who cannot (my younger sister, for example). That becomes my load.

Great critique!!!

Stupendous! Best critique, loved the Zizek bit. "Idiotic...impotent moralization".

Responsibility for Libertarians basically means not costing rich people any money.

If people could create their own world then everyone would be rich and good looking.

The sense I got from Jordan on being careful when helping other. I had similar things happen to me. I am empath so wanting to helping other comes naturally to me. That is my first instinct. But what I have noticed that unless someone wants to be helped no matter how much you do for them its like pouring water in bucket with hole. It just goes to waste. In those situation you are just being enabler and not helping. And often people take advantage of your help and keep wanting your help without them showing any sign of improvement. So I have to be very very careful on who I help and whether if I am making an impact or not. So in that sense I relate to his book

The ironic twist to this video's message is that philosophers and psychologists have a tendency to over-intellectualise everything. As Marshall Ganz teaches, it is EMOTION that drives action in societal change contexts. Think of Greta Thunberg's anger at leaders' collective inaction over climate change, or the emotional appeals of the Brexiters to "take back control." Ganz came from a background in trade union activism, and is now a Harvard professor. He masterminded Obama's election 'movement' that swept him to power, and has advised activist movements all over the world. The "emotion drives action" dynamic is easily understood. What blocks us from taking action on our societal values and principles is our emotion, such as isolation or fear, and so this emotional blockage needs to be overcome. So isolation for example is overcome by solidarity. Fear is overcome by hope. So Peterson is at least partially right, perhaps without knowing why. All human change starts with learning, which in turn starts with a feeling... that shifts our attention.

I don’t think this a good faith argument. Peterson recognizes many mitigating factors that impede success, but calls out flimsy excuses, which only serve to justify mediocrity. While nobody’s total success or failure is completely up to themselves, it’s also true people are often their own worst enemy through bad habits, counterproductive routines, excuses, over inflated self esteem, and self delusion.

The limit in Peterson is 1960s, he is not reading anything onward the date

This is eloquent and well-produced, but the essence of what is presented here is what anyone trained in philosophy would say to Peterson - who incidentally has not been trained in philosophy.

He is a cheerleader for the power of the elite when he states “individual responsibility” without the details of reality itself. He is not a biologist nor a physicist. He is a dangerous moralist with limited humanism.

World War I is a good example to dispute common thinking of individual responsibility. Gavrilo Princip is simply a spark for inevitable war. World War I is caused by series of events that can go as far as late 19th Century (e.g 1890's), Morocco intervention, Balkan Wars, etc. In politics, we are all responsible for one another despite individual strength to improve our life.

I partially agree with Peterson in that identity politics, although not intentionally, have reduced people simply to their groups (but that isn't necessarily because of postmodernism alone, but also because of racism and right-wing identity politics as well). And what's more, even before "identity politics", people were already divided into groups which were more rigidly defined. So, his idea of a Hobbsian competition between groups is basically a description of human history, not just postmodernism. However, I do believe that individuality as self-expression is among the few things that allow you to break free from the groupthink and rebell against social norms. After all, most social movements started because a group of individuals wished to rebell against the given power structures, and so they banded together to do it; inspiring others in the process, but in all cases it comes from individual free will the need to rebel.

Here's one… Why were the Europeans that first arrived in America unable to do the work that enriched this country themselves? Did they misplace their "bootstraps"? Why didn't they see this as an opportunity to actually create something of their own? As it is… we owe black people for this society from all the work that they did for free on one hand. On the other… we owe Native Americans & Mexicans for having a place to do it IN THE FIRST PLACE! Sure… you created a bunch of stuff! Thank you! Good to know that OUR hard work on OUR land was put to good use. We'll take it from here. I mean… all we needed was steel & animals. We would probably have created a less divided society… but, it's cool.

This is one of the best critiques of Peterson I have seen yet. Can't wait to watch part two!

-Jordan doesn't like reducing people to their identities, race, gender, class, etc. -You push back saying people are products of their environments, which is influenced by those characteristics. -Maybe a better way to word Jordan's point is that we should be careful reducing people to pure _products._

This is addressing philosophy at a different, deeper level than Jordan Peterson does, one must remember that Jordan Peterson is a psychotherapist and not a philosopher. It's inevitable that there will be inconsistencies between the starting points.

Outstanding video. Thank u for sharing.

The author of this video essay and Jordan Peterson seem to be talking at cross purposes. Peterson is not casting blame on the child who fails a maths exam or the single mother who can’t pay her bills - his emphasis seems to be psychological. There are a great many things in the world that we cannot hope to control, but Peterson believes the one thing we can control is our inner life. His ideology of the sovereign individual is a belief in *inner* responsibility and the human spirit, not the ability to be in control of all (or even any) extrinsic circumstances. In the face of inevitable adversity, do we think pragmatically, and with dogged determination, or do we become bitter and resentful? He uses the example of ‘being the strongest person at your father’s funeral’ - he never claims that you can stop the father from dying, only that you can try to be the author of your psychological response to that fact. I think the best defence of Peterson’s Protestant-soul ideology here is that we may not be able to help being poor or stupid, but we can transcend psychologically through ‘faith’ (in God, or in ourselves). Whatever the circumstances are, it’s the only life we’ve got and it is a choice to live as if we have power and hope. Nobody said it was easy, but it might be worth a try.

I am a fan of Jordan. But i support your work. Jordan would too. let us discuss let us learn from each other.

Peterson never seemed to think that it is our responsibility to change the world and make it a more tolerable place.

I am a Peterson fan, but you have a point that the question is all a matter of fact and degree and incredibly nuanced. Some of your critique did set up some of Peterson’s arguments as a straw man. Particularly your pointing out that he asks people to be “perfect” in putting their own house in order before criticising. Peterson is clearly using rhetoric here. It is a valid point that we are likely to be more effective taking action at the level of improving ourselves, where we have knowledge of the facts rather than set policies at a macro level where we don’t understand the context fully and are much more likely to cause adverse unintended consequences.

No Journey, even the Hero’s Journey contains a population of one.

Collective action is galvanized by personal responsibility……………. (for better or worse)

Determinism vs free will argument rather ignores the degree responsibility itself is part of the environment. It is a basic element of all personal and social movements. I think he focuses on the person because the reader can do something about it (rather than being distracted by the various multi causal effects). The issues people have with the exceptions are largely projections of what they read into it. A basic tenet of most ideologies is an acknowledgment that the reader doesn’t measure up to the ideal and never will. Most of this is a justification/ sublimation of motives.

Great video! There isnt any shortage for JP critique on youtube, but not many go so deep on it.

I personally like a lot of the ideas Jordan Peterson talks about, and I think the politicization of him (partially because of himself) has driven people to either support him to the ends of the earth, or hate him so viciously that they wont listen to a single word he says. I think its important for people to get away from the political polarization and just treat what he says (and anyone else who shares philosophical ideas for that matter) as ideas to think about and discuss.

I rather read Nietzsche than Peterson

The limits of JP: too many

Thank you for sharing light to this topic. I don’t agree with everything Jordan Peterson says, he’s cool and all but there is a flaw. He’s always telling it from a masculine biblical side of a story. Making his philosophical points and perspectives seem more valid than anything else without considering the facts and contexts of the topics and situations surrounded. I like how you base the video on an objective manner. Approaching it in a more honest and upfront way debunking definitions and contexts that are relevant to the topic. I enjoy this court like approach you bring rather than majority of the population who preach personal responsibility not knowing a clue about the context or facts about the situation.

Thanks. He isn't even worth a small critics. He is just RU-vid self made star, not a scientist. Anyway - it's great to say true to people