Mondays of Meaning

September 6th, 2021 | Dr Jordan B. Peterson
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Hello,

In this week's edition, we'll be discussing the "tyrannical patriarchy", whether influence is more important than power, and dealing with past trauma.

On The “Tyrannical Patriarchy”

I had a superb mentor at McGill University, my graduate supervisor, Dr. Robert O. Pihl, now Professor Emeritus. Dr. Pihl had an encyclopedic knowledge of the psychological research literature. There was almost no research topic that I could touch upon in all my reading that he could not expand upon with a relevant reference. His door was always open. He was singularly unaffected by any intellectual jealousy. If his students had a better idea, he encouraged it.

He had an incredibly prolific research career, publishing more than 300 research papers. In 2009, Bob was awarded the Canadian Psychological Association’s Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology. But this only told a very small part of the story.

I was privileged to be at his retirement party, which was attended by a good number of his collaborators and friends and, more to the point, his former graduate students. Each of them had a tale, often told emotionally, of the tremendous support that Bob had provided to the development of their careers—always professionally, sometimes psychologically, sometimes financially—and of the times he went far out of his way to lay out a path for success to those he mentored. There were dozens of people in attendance whose lives he had transformed completely, including mine.

I really didn’t know anything about graduate school when I was accepted. I wrote a rather creative letter, explaining to potential supervisors what I was like. I remember pointing out that I could drink copious amounts of red wine, that I could type like a mad dog, that I read everything I could get my hands on, and that I was possessed by a deadly and perhaps somewhat manic curiosity.

I had a good academic record, and the GRE scores necessary to acceptance into a clinical program, but it took a man of daring and courage to accept me as a student. We’ve had a thirty-five-year collaboration, and I love him like a father. And I was not the only one at his retirement party who felt that way. Far from it. Is that the tyrannical patriarchy, based on the misuse and exploitation of the worker? I can’t imagine a more cynical way of conceptualizing such a relationship.

Monday Reflections

"Say only things that make you strong. Do only those things that you could speak of with honour." (Share this on Twitter)

"Dare, instead, to be dangerous. Dare to be truthful. Dare to articulate yourself, and express what would really justify your life." (Share this on Twitter)

"It's a good thing, not a selfish thing to choose people who are good for you." (Share this on Twitter)

This Week On The Podcast

No Safe Spaces? | Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager | The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - S4: E:44
 

I sit down with Dennis Prager and Adam Carolla to get into the controversies surrounding their work in the movie ‘No Safe Spaces’. We get into the topic of religious, social, and political issues going on around the world. 

No Safe Spaces? | Prager and Carolla | The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - S4: E44

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson:

“I do believe, in some sense, it is more difficult for people on the left to draw distinctions between acceptable leftist ideas than it is to people on the right. I mean, on the right, you draw the line claim with racist superiority; on the left, there is obviously trouble brewing on the extreme, but defining exactly where it is and drawing a border around it, seems to me to be a rather complex task.”


Dennis Prager:

“America is the greatest attempt at a nonracial, multi-ethnic, multi-racial country in the history of the world.”

From The Archives

How to Deal with Past Trauma and Get Past It | Jordan B Peterson
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Jordan B. Peterson:

"What were the causal pathways that put me in that position of vulnerability and inferiority? You want to specify them as carefully as possible because the part of you that's hanging on to that wants to know is, have you changed enough so that that won't happen again?

And if the answer to that is yes, even though thinking you realize well I'm not that person anymore, or you go back to the experience and you figure out, this is what I did and I could stop doing that, then you will be released from the icy hands of the traumatic experiment."


Thank you for reading, 

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
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