Mohammed Hijab – Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Inner Struggle

			pens on what is interesting see people need kind of structure and guidance and stuff. Yeah, that was
his main kind of messages about.
		

			Yeah, I mean, that's what his books are about 12 rules and 12 more rules. It's all about rules for
life. That's what they are, how, and the things that he mentioned, almost all of them in the first
book, okay with Islam. In the second book, there's a couple of things that he's like abandoned
ideology, which like this, to be frank, ridiculous, because what do we mean by these ideologies? Is
it a system of a set of ideas? Or what is it we're talking about? And obviously, you can argue that
there's nothing that does not have an ideology, everything is driven by some sort of lens that
you're looking at the world through.
		

			So for him to right, abandon ideology.
		

			But in actually other places, he talks about individualism, and he speaks about individualism, you
know, in a positive sense,
		

			you know, how does that weigh with you? Because that's an ideology. individualism, I'm not saying
that he, I mean, that is you can't really put him in a box Peterson, it would be wrong to say that
he's indifferent. He's an individualist, just like it would probably be wrong to somebody will call
him a classical liberal, liberal. There's truth in that they there, he obviously believes in aspects
of the liberal tradition and aspects of individualism.
		

			However, you know,
		

			he's not easily put into a box, because if you look at his latest book, he talks a lot about
institutions.
		

			I think one of his rules was something to do with preserving institutions and following them. So
that's more of a collectivist discourse or communitarian, you could say, not collective space as
communitarian discourse. So from that perspective, you know, I mean, liberals aren't traditionally
anti communitarian institution. No, no, I'm with you. But what I'm saying is, you know, it's
difficult to put them in that kind of easy box. But what I will say is that,
		

			saying abandon ideology is almost an untenable venture from the probably there's probably some
specific meaning he must.
		

			He meant it that way. He definitely meant it in that way. Which is about an ideology, even my own.
		

			Abandoned I think about it, it's it's ironic, because it's prescriptive itself. And ideologies are
more normative
		

			and prescriptive. So if you say abandon ideology. The irony in it is that well, that could be an
ideological statement, the statement itself. What do you think his detractors and kind of dislike
about him? And did you have any backlash from your discussion with him? I'm sure some, I mean, he
has different detractors. Not everyone that disagrees with him was wrong. I mean, like I said, these
kinds of things that we're just talking about here, there's some, if you look at his philosophical
thoughts, and, you know, ideas, some of them are really malfa, you know, dysfunctional. They don't,
they don't work together. For example, His pragmatism on the one hand,
		

			I don't like games, it's very long story. But he has ideas which don't, he's, he's a pragmatist on
the one hand, but on the other on the other pragmatism is basically saying that truth with a capital
T is not doesn't exist out there in the real world, in a correspondence serotype way. But on the
other hand, if you look at his books, and how he expresses psychological discussion, he will
critique a theory based on his lack of evidence, but that presupposes a correspondence theory of
		

			some kind of outside outside, yeah, correspondence theory of the world as you might. So his
epistemology is pragmatism when he talks about religion. But for all intents and purposes, although
it doesn't spill out in this way, it's correspondence when he's doing a psychology. So there is
there is a tension there. And I don't think he's got it all mapped out. And in fact, there was one
particular discussion with Sam Harris that he had not the three or four major ones I had, because I
watched all these things. And there was one particular one where he was actually speaking about
		

			Sam Harris actually brought this up to him is that, you know, you're he can want to try and remember
exactly the words he used.
		

			He said, You can believe in what you believe in, but it will be at your peril.
		

			And then John Jordan Peterson responded, and this is by the way, it's not even a fitness. There's no
video of this. It's all audio to podcasts on Sam Harris's and then Jordan Peterson responds to it
and he says it has been at my peril. It's very interesting, one of the most telling things I've ever
seen or heard from Jordan Peterson, because he's admitting a toil situation where he
		

			In a toile, because he doesn't have his epistemology worked out. And you can see that he works in
this way where, for example, he approaches religion in a certain manner
		

			where he wants truth to be malleable and flexible. But then, once again, in his practice, he's not
like that, you know, talk about psychology. He's not like that. And I think this is causing him some
level of cognitive dissonance. There is there is a problem here and the way in which he
conceptualized his face. I remember saying that, yeah, yeah, I did say that, but I didn't spell it
out. And that's why you'll see that, for example, in his,
		

			his Genesis series, which I watched, actually, you know, his biblical series and stuff, because, you
know, I was preparing for him actually prepared.
		

			I watched him. And in his biblical series, you'll see that his metaphor writing the text, okay. And
at one point, he actually does, quote, origin of Alexandria
		

			was that origin of Alexandria is, was an ecclesiastical church writer, one of the most voluminous of
his kind in the first 300 years of Christianity. I think he died 250 After the disappearance of
Jesus, and he was representative of the Alexandrian School of exegesis. And this school was known
for spiritual people that were called spiritualizing the text doing that we'll basically, you know,
majeste that the text is metaphoric.
		

			And origin of Alexander I did some work on him. When I was at the University of Oxford, actually, I
did one particular study on him and looking at how he compared to others church, right, as they
conceive of the text. Yeah. And basically, the Alexandrian school was atypicals operational compared
to the other schools, in exegesis
		

			in Tafseer. heretical? Well, I mean, there was, there was something called the origin crisis. So he
was not made the same in the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church, which is why he's referred to
not as a church father, but as an ecclesiastic church writer.
		

			Having said that, that origin crisis happened, by the way after his death, I think, somewhere in the
fourth century, about what the point is that he quoted him, Peterson quoted origin of Alexandria,
		

			maybe the third or fourth lecture on the topic, because he was aware of the spiritualizing impact,
or approach that origin of ozone as a text. However,
		

			I came across a particular
		

			I came across a particular
		

			extract,
		

			were origin of Alexandria was having a discussion
		

			with an apologist who was a Greek,
		

			someone who believed in Platonism, I think, right, no, Platanus, who wasn't a Christian? And he said
to him, he then was Celsus. CLC su s. Yeah. And he said to him, how could it be that you know, I'm
paraphrasing, but how could it be that your God died on the cross? Basically? Oh, come on, Carla.
Yes, I'm gonna write that he said. And then origin of Alexandria, he said.
		

			He said, The events of the crucifixion, not all of them must be read.
		

			Like literally, some of it has to be spiritualist, basically. The point is, I'm making if you do
spiritualize, the text, if you spiritualize, the text, meaning metaphors it at the rate and the
frequency and the degree, and using the same kind of a musical approach, someone like Origen of
Alexandria was using in the early days, because that's the only precedent they really have. He had
the surgical fellows do, by the way. But he had the same kind of approach, standard approach to
biblical texts. But if you follow that line of reasoning, then the crucifixion itself could be
something which is called into question, the crucifixion itself. Which means Christianity becomes a
		

			myth, the entire religion of Christianity becomes a myth, the crucifixion, the resurrection,
		

			the ascension, all these doctrines that we have to the incarnation. So why is that all not
mythological?
		

			In fact, what makes us think that one is mythological, and the other one is not? If these are all,
it is all etiology. The idea of myth, you know,
		

			and then why do we discriminate in what we render as a myth and what we render is possible. So I
think that Jordan Peele, because he mentioned this in maps of meaning. The beginning of one of his
books, he mentioned that when he was a young man, you know, he he kind of like, he got doubts of
Christianity because of the biblical narrative of Genesis in particular.
		

			And
		

			there's a reason for that. The reason for that is because it's obviously not commensurate with the
scientific
		

			method or anything scientific?
		

			But what? What brought us completely away from it? So this is I'm thinking to myself, because he's a
religious man in many ways, right? He doesn't say it. And if it doesn't answer never answered once,
whether he believes in God in a yes or no fashion, never. He's the maximum has ever said is, I act
as if I believe that's why I never asked him that question. We'll never even engaged him. Because I
know he doesn't want to answer that question. You see. But having said that,
		

			that's his answer. His answer is I act as if I believe in or I act as if God exists. But despite
that, he's a religious man, in the sense that he does obviously see, there's a meaningfulness to the
Christian tradition in particular, comparative to other traditions, you see,
		

			so why is he not speaking about the Vedas? For example? Why is he not speaking about Hercules and
Zeus? That why are these sets of myths, Western myths better than these other sets of myths? Because
that's his background, there must be there must be something about these myths which make, there
must be a truth about these myths which make that the, these other sets of myth, less truthful, or
not as valuable or not as worthy of being executed, or studied. That's the assumption here, why of
why you spend X amount of time speaking about the Bible comparative to for example, the Bhagavad
Gita could be just that says, This is a Western. Yeah, well, so it's Hercules. Zeus, right. That's
		

			Western as well. Right. Miss resume. That's,
		

			that's how its projected. Now back projected is claimed. But the point is, these are myths that he's
chosen, you know, aside from other myths, and other Western myths out there, right. Having said all
and by the way, sorry to say Christianity is not a Western religion. It's a Western Christianity.
Yeah. But Christianity started off in the Middle East, if you want something cleanly Western than
the ancient Greek tradition is more noise. Because you know, Jesus Christ was a Middle Eastern man.
Right? They worship a Middle Eastern man. So let's not lose sight of where Christianity actually
sight which is in the Middle East, in Jerusalem, and these places Bethlehem. Anyway. So the point
		

			is, is
		

			why these myths and not others?
		

			For whatever reason, yeah, there must be some added value of these myths and not other myths. But
then,
		

			the question is, are we how are we going to execute the Bible? If we execute it all as mythological?
Then it's, for instance, if it's not true, but remember, he's a pragmatist. And there's a reason
this is because we have, I don't want to because I do not want to be conspiratorial here. Yeah. But
if you're a pragmatist, then you accept different kinds of truth.
		

			But if you accept different kinds of so you're, you're able to accept the religious truth as a
separate substratum of different kinds of truth.
		

			But he's a pragmatist when it comes to this, as I've mentioned, but clearly not when it comes to
even speaking about language itself. He speaks about language and in correspondence terms, speaks
about and he's very, and he seems to be very anti deconstructionism, and that that, some argue
posit, you know,
		

			argue against, okay. Let me put this clutter in your mind. Right? pragmatism, Neo pragmatism, people
like Richard Rorty, who are the foremost proponents of it,
		

			are the Neo pragmatists of today, people like Susan tack has written a critical inquiry. She's a new
pragmatist that historically there was a group called the American pragmatists in the early 20th
century, they kind of sign off, if you like the method within the school of thought.
		

			But so pragmatism is like that. Now, if you're a pragmatist, you don't believe in a truth that is
out there. Okay. Richard Rorty, who is one of the most the foremost pragmatist of today was also a
postmodernist, just to put this in perspective. They tend to go, yeah, no, he's a foremost post
modernists and he's a foremost pragmatist. Can you see the tension here? Richard, sorry, not Jordan
Peterson. In other places of his book, he attacks post modernism,
		

			because post modernism, clearly is against kind of the neocon like conservative values, which he
espouses in other places, that he doesn't call it that. And once again, it wouldn't be right to call
him a conservative, all these caveats in place, yet. He's clearly against post modernism, clearly.
		

			And he's clearly against nihilism. But his pragmatist views are actually so commensurate with those
things, that it's almost inconceivable to try and differentiate the difference he's holding to Yes.
So I actually think that Richard Dawkins and others must think about whether or not they are
cognitively dissonant because, on the one hand, you said Richard Dawkins, that Jordan Peterson
		

			As the heck is
		

			Jordan Peterson on your mind? Could be because when he said that time, when he was speaking to Sam
Harris, when Sam Harris said to him, it will be at your peril. And he said, it has been at my peril.
What does it mean when he said, in the first person, it has been at my peril.
		

			That means to say that he's already found this stuff hard to consolidate.
		

			And that is causing him discomfort, which is a, which is an exact definition practically, of
cognitive dissonance is where you come in with the guard up, which is where we come in as Muslims
and say, there's a solution to this problem, which is a firm encourage 123, which I've already
explained to him in the discussion, but we have to first diagnose the issue a bit more.
		

			You know, and that's why I do think, you know, that there is added value in the Islamic discourse,
which which Christianity cannot get it cannot actually compete with it. So this has got to be so
we're talking about him why people gravitate towards him because he's an anchor in the age of chaos.
And that's the truth in that he offers rules and organization and all these kinds of self control
tactic tactics. That's all true and good.
		

			But he hasn't yet sorted out his own epistemology. Yeah, he himself is
		

			in peril, according to his own discussion.