Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Dawkins vs. Peterson: There Be Dragons (Patreon)

Published:
2024-11-24 00:32:53
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

In this special episode, we return to the forboding Dragon's Den of the Peterson-verse and enjoy a rather punchy conversation between Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins, facilitated by Alex O'Connor.

As ever the discussion is dense with abstract symbolic interpretations, evasive answers to direct questions about biblical events, and highly speculative claims. So Matt and Chris don their best decoding armour, steel their resolve and prepare to face down endless waves of indulgent analogies and the constant conflation of mythological and scientific truths.

Also included: important insights from Matt on American public toilets and shower technology & stories of Chris' previous life as a coal shovelling street urchin.

00:00 Peterson and Dawkins 01:17 Matt's American Odyssesy: Shower Talk 10:25 Matt's American Gripes: Public Toilets 15:46 Jordan meets Dawkins Again 40:26 Pause for Anti-woke Advertisments 44:22 Science is Christian and reality is Mystical 53:31 Self indulgent Waffle 01:01:13 A Cultural Christian? 01:06:07 On Dragons 01:22:57 We Who Wrestle with God 01:27:41 A point of overlap? 01:35:03 Outro

Links

Dawkins vs Peterson: Memes & Archetypes | Alex O’Connor Moderates | EP 491

The Times: We Who Wrestle with God by Jordan Peterson review — rambling, hectoring and mad

The Guardian: We Who Wrestle With God by Jordan Peterson review – a culture warrior out of his depth

Files

Comments

Ben Godek

Eric Weinstein was the original “Feynman Negative” type. But Jordan fits perfectly too!

Sam D.

Matt you can just go in places (cafe's, bars, stores) and ask to use the restroom. Explain you're traveling from Australia and you will get hospitality. People will love your accent.

Emma

Again in furious agreement with Matt and Chris. JP seems to be almost completely ignorant of history other than European history. Other ancient civilisations like the Greeks and Egyptism did a great job of developing their maths and medicine and engineering and primitive astronomy from scratch. The Egyptians for instance had a very advanced understanding of maths because they needed it for their incredible buildings. And the ancient Romans were disecting animals to teach medical students about anatomy. I think where Europeans had the advantage over say the Egyptians is we could build on the advances of other advanced civilians instead of having to start from scratch and invent things like writing. Also I have recently been learning about how the ancient Christians were borrowing from the Greek philosophers in developing their Christian theology. Like JPs favourite bible verse: John 1v1 - "In the beginning was the word (logos) ..." was inspired by Platoism.

Jacqueline

Lol small complaint, but I feel like public parks in the US ARE free? Especially regular parks in urban areas like where Matt was visiting (I believe some National Parks charge). Also, urban bathrooms are often locked down with the stated reason being drug users or (sadly) keeping unhoused people out, but I believe bathrooms in the biggest Canadian cities are too. I lived in Japan and South Korea and visited many other Asian countries and I didn't really feel like things like Museums were noticably more free there than in the US, but maybe I'm just not observant lol

Kung fu fan

Chris, I also shovelled coal from the bunker into a bucket to take indoors. It seems bizarrely antiquated now, but it can’t have been earlier than 1990.

Polar Bear

My main issue with Jordan's Cain and Abel response is the obfuscation of what the question against it is levied with. The suggestion isn't that Cain and Abel don't exist as archetypes or aren't based on very real things that have happened in society/humanity i.e, character/personal dynamics etc, that makes complete sense. If you read the Bible through that lens, as Jordan often portrays it leaning heavily on it as symbolism, a lot of it does have a relevance within our existence. Naturally, they are stories written by human beings, so there will be a resonance with us within those stories - but the question as to whether they existed or not is essentially asking whether or not you truly believe in the bible and God etc, which underpins your epistemology and ethics that you use to push your world view and policy decisions, that's why it isn't a silly question to me. It might sound childish in its bare form but the centre of its origin is challenging his/their fundamental understanding of right and wrong, a right and wrong he pushes continuously via his content as categorical, as do the people who follow these belief systems. When I reference Santa, as we often do, casually and whimsically, we are aware of it as a cultural symbol and we speak in a way that feels like it has a sense of realness but we know that Santa doesn't exist nor does it define world ethical decisions. (spoiler) Just like arguing that Raskolnikov is an equivalent to Cain and Abel makes sense from an archetypal standpoint but I don't use Crime and Punishment for justification of world policy, history revisionism, invalidating schools of science etc, it's conflation and obfuscation to avoid the obvious nature of the question. You could have a room of people saying "No Jordan, we do actually understand it, you're just not acknowledging it" and he'd say "No it's so complex nobody could possibly-" okay Jordan, okay, time to switch off the lights and lock up. PS, Also, why is Jordan the one who is vouchsafed with this intellect to claim we don't understand these things and they are so complex? What knowledge does somebody need to have to be aware that we don't understand it that apparently nobody else has access to but him? Must be nice.

Duncan

I wasn't expecting plumbing chat on Decoding the Gurus. In the UK, originally there would be a storage tank on customer premises which fed a boiler which supplied hot water. Authorities didn't want water from the storage tank making its way back into the mains supply so didn't allow water to be mixed in the pipes. Thus the separate hot and cold taps. Nowadays, most houses will have a condensing boiler fed directly from the mains supply instead of a storage tank and with this arrangement they can have mixer taps.

Kgar

Matt, have you encountered my new favorite hotel shower puzzle, the one where the knobs/valves are on opposite end of the tub from the spout where the water comes out? 😛 The delay between adjusting the knobs and the change in the water temp ….maddening

john statham

MAttrix (TM) with the quote of the day on Mr/Dr’s Book: ‘It’s such lazy, speculative wank, isn’t it?’

Dr Marti McAuley

Loved the coal chat! Fellow westie here-we had a walk-in coal shed-one side of it was coal and the other storage. I friggin HATED that thing 😂 we didn’t get central heating/radiators until 1989.

Emma

You know, in the past I thought JP's whole 'jelly that doesn't want to be nailed to the ceiling' vibe in response to questions about religion was his way to try and keep both progressive modern Christians AND fundamentalist biblical literalist Christians happy at the same time. But now I'm wondering if it's not something else as well. Like a bizzare compulsion to be disagreeable in the most show off way possible! It's just so odd.

Rufus Evans

I'm old and also shoveled coal.

Sean Power

Public toilets: Rep. Ireland has appalling policy about public toilets. A city executive planner told me the council in the 20 century (90s? Dunno) decided to get rid of public toilets with the idea of driving people into engaging with local businesses; they’d be more motivated to go in and buy something if they could use the loo. There was in this an ‘understanding’ with the businesses that they’d let people use the loo without having to buy anything. Anyway, that doesn’t seem to have been communicated since, because loads of businesses have ‘customer use only’. So, it seems the follow-up plan is just to let people go wherever a Garda (cop) won’t see them. This does work, to be fair, because so few Garda are around

Lillie

I didn’t shovel coal, but I was the primary wood hauler and stacker until I was 18. My parents don’t have central heating, they STILL heat their house with ONLY a wood stove 🔥

Randy

I think Chris said something about Sci-fi with intelligent rabbits. Watership Down and Tales from Watership Down are almost exactly this, with rabbit (Lapine) language, culture, religion. There's a whole mythology. It's great. I loved it as a kid and my 10 year old daughter loved it. Highly recommended.

Jacob_3BP

In a scenario of humans finding and killing dragons to take their treasure, is the human not more like a predator (or parasite rather)? I think it's crucial to understand how important this is...

Richard DV

Why doesn’t anyone just say to Peterson - Look, we get it … you’ve got an audience that you need to keep and you have to keep talking shit for dollars ?

Joanna Mulvaney

🤣 the coal hole and emptying the pit under the grate. even other people in the UK look at you like you’re nuts when you say as a child you had to light the fire early in the morning to get to chimney breast water tank started, and climbing under the big radiator with a match to light the gas.

Saksaas

Regarding the taps in the 70s and 80s where you have one cold and one scorching hot tap, you’re suppose to fill the sink and wash your hands there.

DJ Wearing

I enjoyed this one, well done guys. One of my gran's worst memories was of her carrying coal outside in the cold when she was 12, and her thinking that it wasn't right for her to be doing this. Oh and FYI - not important but just a point of fact - Rowan Willams is a former Archbishop of Canterbury. The current guy is Justin Welby, but he has just recently resigned because of child sexual abuse in the church under his watch.

Linda Sears

I feel like a privileged elite. I grew up in the seventies, and we had indoor gas central heat and electric ac. Meanwhile, little folks in Ireland were shoveling coal with their freezing bare hands! I learned a long time ago that Cain may have represented those who were agricultural, while Abel represented the Jews, who were nomadic herders. I figured the story’s purpose was to explain why it was ok to take over an area. That’s probably wrong, but it makes for an interesting interpretation.

Da Jay SwIzzle

Seems to me this obsession with dragon slaying as a prism to understand all scientific endeavour is fundamental to the narrative undergirding his climate science denial - he gets quite venemous when he explains that the climate science orthodoxy is composed of virtue signalling would-be heroes trying to save us and that their motivation for producing "alarmist" climate science, beyond sweet sweet grant money, is to build a bigger dragon for them to have "slain". He's so obsessed with this prism of science I think maybe he's incapable of interrogating any science topic rationally any longer. He's going to be fitting it into this childish paradigm in the dumbest ways

Monica B.

Matt, I think one reason we are so bad at having public restrooms here is because we hate houseless / poor people and see them as people who failed, not people who were failed : ( The irony is we all suffer with less and less places to pee, sit, or hang out in non-commercial spaces. Super digging your US observations, was dying at the inconsistent and dated taps. ALL TRUE!

Nancy Hale

Chris’ description of the separate hot & cold taps brings back memories of an apartment I had in California. The building dated from the 1940s. I moved out in late 1990s. Pain in the arse but put up with it because of affordability & fantastic location at the beach.

Nancy Hale

I wonder if Matt has yet encountered in travels one of the few examples of truly public restrooms in the US: public rest areas along interstate highways? They’re often attractively designed and landscaped, funded by individual states. Since they intend to serve long distance travelers and truckers, they don’t have the same stigma as public facilities in cities, which get perceived as attracting “undesirable” people.

Adam Sher

35 mins in. Why did Peterson do this interview? Does he think he can convert viewers? Convert Alex? For money? Because he thinks he and Dawkins will create a knowledge synthesis (dare I say sense making)? He likes Alex and wants to do him a solid?

Soapy Dishwater

i'm an american and chris' story about the fire poker holder and shoveling coal is so fucking cartoonishly irish to me, that made me laugh my ass off i had a wood fired stove as a kid and loved melting snow on it, stoves are fun when you're a kid

Jake Kortum

On Tom Holland: I listen to a ton of his and his cohosts podcast, and it may not surprise you that he is a JBP fan and listener. His obsession with Christiandom and its fundamental necessity to interpreting history is a running gag on the show

Tom Wheatley

As much as Jordan is frustrating, I think Richard is a problem - he continues to go on these podcasts etc with Peterson types. It’s clear it ain’t gonna work

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Oh man, I can’t believe that I was listening to shower and toilet stories for a good 15 minutes but i actually found it fascinating lol! Keep them coming boys. And having experienced horrific Indian public toilets, the ones in Australia & UK are like million miles better! Although should say that the situation has improved somewhat in India too with the shopping mall toilets these days being very good. Plus 9 months of the year, you are sweating everything out anyways 😝

Nina J.

Excellent episode. More importantly, a request for Matt on his trans-American odyssey: if you come to Milwaukee, please don’t broadcast about how surprisingly awesome it is. The weather has been keeping people at bay for centuries, and we’d like to keep it that way.

Mike

My pseudo-profound bullshit detector overheated and exploded while listening to JP outtakes. Anyone know where I can get a good deal on a new one?

David

The more our decoders suffer listening to a piece of content, the more entertaining the episode - this one was great

Daniel Reed Miller

Furnaces in American houses were typically coal fired up through the WWIi era, coal would be delivered to a chute/bin at the side of the house and you’d have to shovel it from there into the furnace. My dad grew up with that in Seattle. As for myself (57) we lived for 5 years in an apartment building in southern Germany in the 1970’s (my dad worked for the US military) that was heated by a coal fired boiler and radiators. We kids used to love playing with the burnt out “klinkers”.

Maytree

Really great episode.

Maytree

Three month trip to New Zealand a few years ago and was impressed with the number and tidiness of the public restrooms there. Even so in small towns. Not quite Japan level but still ranks high in all my travels. As an American, there is usually a dread when headed to a public restroom.

Trees

So Bilbo is Jesus, right? Or is he Moses? We need answers JBP!

Dial-1-2-enter-in-2-diaLOGOS

Chris mentions jokingly that JBP should write science fiction. I feel like that’s a big part of the story with him and the Weinsteins. They should be refining the fun sci-fi stuff and just go full retard in the world of fiction.

Raysofmarie

Christ Jordan is exhausting. Multiple times shouted, “oh my god, shut the F up.”

Recalcitrant Goat

‘Lazy speculative wank’ 😂 excellent episode!

Anna

Loved this episode. Had a couple of thoughts throughout - one was during the convo around the Anti-Woke advertisements - it's funny how conservatives get angry about corporations "virtue signaling" or taking woke stances, when they are entirely okay with this type of thing from their side. Like, why was Jordan Peterson so angry about Sports Illustrated having a plus sized model, but he would be totally fine with some conservative magazine promoting what they see as a beautiful woman? Just bizarre. Second thought was during the convo around scientific enterprise - Peterson says science was limited to Europe???? What about the invention of the abacus and all that, and I'm sure there are many more such examples. Comments such as this really reveal what a daft unserious loon Peterson is. Third thought was the stuff about encoding meaning in drama and art and about whether or not some character from the Brother's Karamazov was real....why does he give more credence to the Bible in encoding fundamental truths in comparison to any other book or piece of art? I get that the stories in the Bible are widely dispersed and very early on but why turn that into a spiritual thing or like you say not give the same credence to Greek myths and so forth. I mean, there are a lot of theories as to why Christianity became so popular including some stuff about the birth rate at the time https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-rise-of-christianity?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email and there are a lot of early human societies that we wouldn't want to take "fundamental truths" from but are just as old and relatively common like human sacrifices by the Aztecs? Which is also part of the bible.... I just don't get it.

Colin Farrelly

Growing up in Melbourne Australia did not at all prepare me for the variety of shower spigots and taps that exist in North America and Europe. I did, however, get experience in lugging the briquettes (compressed brown coal) up the back stairs for our hot water service. However, I wanted to comment on the Dragon myth origins. A brief search indicates that dragon motifs originate in most early civilizations, including China, India, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia. The Romans picked it up from the Greeks, including the role of dragons in guarding treasure, which is not common to the other dragon myths. The dragon is usually depicted as a symbol of chaos and danger. St George slaying the dragon is usually interpreted as a metaphor of Christianity defeating pagan religions and nothing more. A Jordan Peterson explanation can be described as the opposite of Occam’s Razor.

ketracel-white 🧁

gosh peterson sure is the apex post-modernist huh? it's all aboot the hyperreal abstractions.. didn't he used to shit on post-modernism a lot?

Frances goulart

Jesus Mary and Joseph! When does Peterson ever stop the obfuscatory drivel? I recommend a silent retreat. And none too soon!

Frances goulart

I'm waiting for Dr Peterson to show up in spats. He's covered all the other academic pretensions!