Stuck On An Elevator With RFK Jr & Jordan Peterson

What is it with RFK Jr and animals by the way?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Oh Caleb, what are you doing here? I could ask you the same thing. Oh! Dr. Peterson, you too? Well, I got a lecture to get to, guys. Let's go. Alright, uh, what floor? 16. 18. Alright, let's go. Well, uh, I could start a conversation with y'all, but this is probably gonna be a quick ride. Wait, the elevator just stopped. Are we stuck? Oh shit. Well that's just great. Could be worse, I guess. It could be in a motorcade in downtown Dallas. Well, what you're experiencing isn't just mechanical failure. It's a confrontation with chaos. Elevators are fascinating because they represent vertical hierarchy. Movement between levels. And now there is no movement. Yeah, it's been like 45 seconds. But that's exactly right. Your sense of time is expanding under stress. That's a deeply archetypal experience. You're in a confined space, cut off from order. And now the question is, who do you become in that moment? Who do I become? I think I'll be myself until this gets sorted out. I just hope I can get out of here soon because I have a dead bear cup in my car trunk and I don't want it to decompose before I can get it cleaned up. Let me ask you something. Have either of you taken responsibility for your immediate environment? You mean in the elevator? Yes, but even in an elevator, there's order you can impose. You could stand up straighter, for example. I am standing. Stand better. You hear that? What, the humming? Yeah, that's not random. Hope it's nothing bad. It's interesting though, the hum. It's like a reminder that there's still structure beneath the chaos. The system hasn't collapsed entirely, it's just paused. You know what this is. It's a test! Systems fail and people either panic or they start asking questions. I got a question. Um do either of you know how long it normally takes for an elevator to get fixed? Uh well, here's the thing. Waiting is not passive. Waiting is an active confrontation with the unknown. I've been in situations like this before. You just stay calm, take your shirt off, conserve energy. You ever notice animals don't get stuck in elevators? Well they don't use elevators, exactly. They don't need them. A raccoon, for example, if it gets trapped, it adapts immediately. It finds a way out. Well, that's actually very interesting. Because what you're describing is the difference between instinct and abstraction. Humans build systems, you see. Animals operate within them. And now your system has failed you. That flicker? That flicker, that stress on the system. Animals sense that kind of thing instantly. Horses, horses would already be reacting. If there was a horse in here, we'd have bigger problems. But imagine the horse, right? Because that's a powerful archetypal image. The horse represents raw, untamed energy. And what you're dealing with here is constrained energy. You're the horse metaphorically in the elevator. I don't feel like a horse. Well that's the problem. Maybe if we thought like an animal would think, we'd be able to get the hell out of here faster. If a fox were in here, it would already know what the weak point is. There's always a weak point. Structurally, psychologically. Systems fail at their margins. And right now, you're at the margin of your own patience. That margin is getting thinner by the second, I assure you. Starting to sound a little different in here. Animals would have picked up on that immediately. Birds, especially. Birds are incredibly sensitive to shifts and frequency. But are birds real, Bobby? I know they are because I've dissected hundreds of them. You know what this situation really reminds me of? Dolphins. How does this remind you of dolphins? And what is it with you and animals, by the way? Dolphins communicate through pressure changes. They'd be coordinating a solution. Bobby, we're just stuck in an elevator, okay? It's a box. It's gotta be opened up from the outside. But that's precisely it. It's not just a box. It's a confined hierarchy. You're between levels. You're not where you were, and you're not where you're going. Silence can be more destabilizing than noise. At least noise implies structure. Silence. That's the void. We are not in the void, Dr. Peterson. We are in an elevator. You know what we survived this? Oh what now? Cockroaches! That's actually quite profound. The things that persist aren't always the things you expect. Resilience often looks unpleasant. I don't feel like we are making any progress here. You know, this is actually a perfect metaphor for life. You think you're moving upward, progressing, and then suddenly you're halted. And in that moment, you're forced to reckon with who you are. Absent of progress. Oh, awesome. See? There you go! Order reasserting itself out of chaos. Well, I guess I better put my shirt back on. I am never taking an elevator ever again.