DoctorOz: Jordan Peterson on Loneliness & Human Connection

People can't tolerate isolation. You know, it's a very rare person who can be on their own and stay together. Why is the need for human connection so fundamental to who we are? Well, a huge part of it is a consequence of the fact that our children are so dependent. You know, human beings have the longest... Human children have the longest dependency period of any creatures. And the connection between mother and child is obviously of primary importance as a consequence of that. But then there needs to be a scaffold around that as well, in order for it even to be possible for children to survive the very dangerous early stages, and then to become properly enculturated, which takes a minimum of something approximating 16 to 18 years. And that's the price, I think, that we pay biologically for our massive cortical capacity, our intelligence, which takes that long to program. And so the cooperation is absolutely necessary to allow that to occur. It seems so fundamental biologically, but you can also tell when we're not connected, because we get really unhappy. And in a society like today's, where people are progressively more disconnected, how do you foster genuine relationships? You've got every temptation not to. Well, I think one of the things you have to do first is decide that genuine relationships are necessary. I think there was a Pew research poll done not very long ago, I think it was Pew, that showed that about 75% of Americans regarded their familial and intimate relationships as the most meaningful part of their lives. And so you need to know that first, is that there probably isn't going to be anything more important to you over the course of your life than your family and your intimate relationships. And so making them of high quality is not optional. It's also not optional because psychoanalysts used to think about sanity as something that was a consequence of a well-structured internal psyche, something that you sort of carried around with you in your soul, let's say. And there's some truth in that. But what's even more true is that if you're embedded in a functional social community, so you have family members, you have friends, you have a broader community, then everyone around you is constantly reminding you how to be sane. They let you know when your jokes aren't funny. They let you know when you're too irritable and arrogant. And so that holds you together. It's like a marketplace. It's a distributed cognitive marketplace for sanity. And people can't tolerate isolation. It's a very rare person who can be on their own and stay together. And it's funny to think of sanity as a distributed property, but it's definitely the case. Why so often do we naturally tend to form pair bonds? It's not just that we're a member of a group. You've got your family, obviously, and they're there, but then you also go off on your own. There's a whole process where you separate from your family. But it's almost as though we're directly attracted to one other living entity to bond with. Yeah, well, I mean, pair bonding is a fairly common strategy in the animal kingdom overall, especially for child rearing. It seems to be what you might describe as the minimal viable unit. It seems to be biologically an elaboration of the same circuits that bond a mother to a child, which is often why people refer to their intimate partner as baby or honey or some diminutive. So that circuit seems to have elaborated to pull in pair bonding, but it's to facilitate the long-term relationships that are necessary, I would say fundamentally, to ensure that children are raised properly and stably across time, so that society stabilizes. If we have that biologic need and the societal need, as you outlined, why does it end up being in the form of marriage? And if that is the best way to pair bond, how do the other options compare to it? Well, the thing about pair bonding with someone is that even though it might be necessary, there's another element to it, and it has to do with this social distribution of sanity, is that there's lots of things wrong with you, and there's lots of things wrong with your marital partner. But hopefully, if you join together, the things that are wrong can be worked out through dialogue across time, dialogue and negotiation, and conflict. It's not an easy thing to do. And plus, the two of you are going to have to face the vicissitudes of life, and so that mere attraction that's love, let's say, or sexual attraction, it's not sufficient to bond you together across times of extreme difficulty. Because you'll find times in your marriage where you're not sexually attracted to one another, and where you're not getting along. And so you need the community around you to say, look, you have to think about this over the decades and not over the weeks and the months, or even sometimes the years, that it's important for you to adopt the responsibility to maintain this long-term relationship, because all things considered, it's better for everyone. It gives you the narrative of your life. It provides you with a companion who knows who you are. It helps you maintain your sanity because you have someone to contend to. It provides a stable environment for the raising of children. It's like the minimal necessary social structure that other complex social structures can be built upon, too. But you need this society in there to say, stay together. It's an accomplishment. It's not just a responsibility and a necessity and a love affair. It's also an accomplishment. It's something you should be celebrated for. It always seemed to me that marriage offered the only covenant that we have with society, the only contract that's legally binding that we sign with everybody. We don't sign a birth certificate. We don't sign our death certificate. Right, it's a choice. But it's a choice. And because of that, it's wrapped into a lot of traditions and cultures. And in a society where we don't seem to respect that covenant as much. I'll give you one example. You're living together before you're married. Many people do. The data seems to suggest that does not help marriage. It makes it worse. You're much more likely to get divorced if you live together beforehand. And I think part of the reason for that is that you don't get to try on people for size. Because the problem with living together is the message that it sends implicitly. People know this. And living together is, well, I'll check you out and see if you're okay for me. But I reserve the right to trade you in for a better partner if someone comes along. And that doesn't work. It's an insult to some degree. It's also an arrogant insult. Because it assumes that you're the person who has the superior role in the relationship. I mean, both people are assuming that. But it's not a good assumption. The right assumption is that you're clueless. And your partner is clueless. And you both have a lot to learn. And you're damn lucky you've got anyone else. And to find out what that person is like and to find out what you're like, you have to go all in. And you have to go all in early. Because otherwise there's going to be something in reserve. And marriage is so difficult. The process of conflict that puts you together as a unified pair, let's say. And then maybe as integrated people. It's so difficult that without going all in, you're just not going to manage it. And that's why not only are people who live together more likely to get divorced. But common law couples are also much more likely to separate. So when people say, well, it's just a piece of paper. It's like that's an unbelievably clichéd and unsophisticated response to something as complicated and necessary as merit, socially sanctioned marriage. Take it one step further. Because I've heard you address your fear that we're becoming a polygamist society. Most Americans repel at that thought. We think of that as something other cultures have perhaps embraced. It's supposed to be illegal here. But we sort of back away into polygamy if there's no marriage. Well, we're already a polygamist society before marriage. Because people have sequential partners. And what happens, generally speaking, is that a small number of males have a large number of female partners. And then the vast majority of males have virtually no partners. And, you know, you can make a case for that. Because women should be allowed to choose whoever they want as partners. But one of the things you see happening in the colleges where females dominate, say 70% females. You think, well, the males would be making out like bandits because of the sex ratio difference. But what happens is a tiny proportion of the men attract all the women. A huge proportion of the men are just as isolated as they would be under normal circumstances. And the men who are popular have absolutely no motivation whatsoever to form a genuine relationship with any single woman. And so it doesn't work for the women because they don't get to have a relationship. They get to have a series of casual affairs with high-demand men. It doesn't work for the majority of men because they don't have any relationships at all. And it turns the high-demand men, I think, into psychopaths. I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But I don't believe that you can separate sexual intimacy from emotion. I don't think you can separate it from the rest of life. From emotional intimacy and the necessity for considering someone in their totality as a person. You don't get that with a series of one-night stands. And there's no way that you can reduce sex, if you have access to a lot of it, to mere casual pleasure repeatedly without denigrating what it means to be a human being. In terms of the women that you're sleeping with, but also with regards to yourself. It's not as if you treat someone else, some other human beings, casually, repeatedly. You're telling yourself that human beings are the sorts of creatures that can be treated casually, repeatedly. And if you don't think that will reflect on yourself, then you're not thinking. It's not a good solution. Which is why, across the world, cultures tend towards monogamy. You know, it's partly because, on average, that does better for everyone. But particularly for children. Right. So, yeah. One tip as a practicing psychologist that you would give a patient of yours who's having trouble finding intimacy. Yeah. They think that hanging out with people is the same as being truly intimate. Yeah. How do you cross into true intimacy? Well, you know, it doesn't hurt to try to do good things for someone. You know, as a habit. It doesn't hurt to try to tell the truth. That's probably the fundamental issue. It doesn't hurt to begin to trust someone, and that's very tightly associated with the willingness to tell the truth. You know, the truth is what produces intimacy. Obviously, because how could you have an intimate relationship that's based on either the shallowness of half-truths or lies? There can't be intimacy there. And so, you know, the first step is to risk trust. And I say risk, I really mean that in a specific sense. Naive people trust naively and automatically. Because they think that people are basically good and they won't get hurt. And then everyone gets burned. And burned people get cynical, and then cynical people don't trust, and then that's a barrier to intimacy. But you can go beyond the cynicism, and you have to do that. And you do that by understanding that if you put your hand out in a gesture of trust, you call to the best in that person to respond properly. And there's a big risk in that. That's why you're supposed to be, what is it? I'm going to get the phrase wrong. It's something like, as soft as doves, but as wise as serpents. It's in the Testament statement. But that's what it means. It means to risk the trust with your eyes open, knowing that you can be betrayed, but being willing to have the courage to trust regardless. And that's the beginning of intimacy. So, that and truth. And, you know, the truth is necessary. Well, they say the truth will set you free. It will usually drag you through the mud a fair distance before it sets you free. But, you know, if you start to tell someone the truth, you start to have the advantage of their viewpoint. And, you know, you have a parochial viewpoint. You're full of ignorance and biases and blind spots. You don't know about any of them. I mean, you may have all sorts of wonderful qualities as well. But the other person, hopefully, doesn't have the same biases and blind spots and so forth. Although they'll have some of them. As scary as it is, it beats the alternative, which is not having intimacy, no matter how much it hurts you. Yes, yes. Dr. Peterson, thank you very much. No problem. My pleasure.