Jordan Peterson Comments on the Queen's Passing

How could the death of the queen affect the boundaries between English-speaking communities around the world?

Well, I suppose it could go one of two ways. You know, one is that, and this would be a terrible thing, it's such bad timing in some sense, you know. I think for what happened today to have happened—I'm a great admirer of the constitutional monarchy system. I think there's a wisdom about it, especially the way that your country has managed it, which has worked better than how any other country has managed it, maybe ever. That's really something.

You know, there are obviously monarchical systems, constitutional monarchies still left in Europe, but they're kind of a pale reflection of what you've got in the UK. When Tammy and I were in Kentucky a couple of months ago, we were invited there by the former ambassador from the U.S. to Canada, and she was—and her husband were fundraisers for Donald Trump. Um, and he runs a coal mine, so you can imagine why he’s Republican.

And so we were at the Kentucky Derby, which is quite the show. The Americans, they're very theatrical. Man, they can put on a show like no one else, and the Kentucky Derby is definitely a show. People wear the most preposterous outfits, you know, these wild lime-green suits and these amazing sort of Victorian costumes for the women. And they're all dressed up. There's like 160,000 people at the racetrack, and it's quite the spectacle.

We were up above the racetrack about three floors in this glassed-in café, and the second day we were there, Trump was going to come to the café, to the restaurant. I had flown out that morning to give a commencement address at this conservative college in Northern Michigan, and then I flew back. Just after I got there, they closed the airport.

So I just got in, they closed the airports because the president is coming to town—the former president, but they still call him the president. So really, the whole city in some real sense was locked down. Then I go out to the Derby, back to the Derby, and just in time because they were going to lock down the whole Derby. So that meant no one, 160,000 people—no one gets in or out.

Then the army came in, and there were like 300 guys in camouflage, quite armed, and they were taking up their stations. This is like three hours before Trump showed up, and then the Secret Service came in. By that time, I had made it upstairs to the restaurant where Tammy was, and she'd been there waiting.

Everyone was buzzing away about the fact that Trump was coming, and the atmosphere was electric, you know. I thought sitting there, I thought this must have been what it was like to be, well, around the Kennedys, say in the 1960s—that level of fame. I've been around famous people a lot now, and there are definitely tiers of fame. You know, there’s not famous, and that's normal, and then there are celebrities that are maybe known locally and nationally, and then there are celebrities that are known internationally. Then there are celebrities like the queen, who everyone everywhere in the world knows.

Among famous people, they're hyper-famous, and Trump is in that category. He's a very strange person in that category, I would say, because he's not just famous for being president, which is already something that makes you pretty damn famous. But he was really famous as a businessman before that, as a nouveau riche sort of businessman and a kind of brash entrepreneur and a character. He was very famous for that, but then he got even more famous as a TV celebrity for like 15 years.

That's actually really hard, you know, regardless of what you think about it ethically or whether you think the kind of entertainment that he did—that he involved himself in was worthwhile. I don't care about that; that's not my point. My point is that managing that successfully for 15 years is exceptionally unlikely and difficult, and he was extremely famous as a consequence. That was sort of laden on top of his fame on the business front, and then he became president. So that's a lot of fame, man.

And when that much fame surrounds you, your life is very weird, and the probability that people are going to respond to you in a normal way that helps keep you sane is very low. Especially maybe if you're also an intimidating person to begin with, with a bit of a proclivity, let's say, towards disagreeableness. Because maybe then you chase away the people who would have enough sense to tell you when you go a little bit too far.

Anyways, we were up there in the restaurant; the place was just buzzing, and then Trump came in. You could just feel the energy, the electric energy, and I thought, this is not good—this is too much, man; this is too much for anybody to bear.

The thing about the monarchy that's so cool, you know, in the United States, there's the judiciary and the legislative branch and the executive—that separation of powers and the checks and balances that are part and parcel of that. And that's a bright system.

Then you also have the states, and they have their power against the federal government, and that stops anything from becoming too tyrannical in principle. But here, and in Canada, although less so in Canada because we're modern and trying to dispense with the monarchy—modern, confused, dim-witted, untraditional, um, and casual, and careless.

And then we have the French-English problem, which makes things more complicated. On the monarchical front, you have four divisions; you have executive, legislative, judicial, and symbolic. And the monarch holds the symbolic weight, and that's really smart because it separates it to some degree from the political weight.

You know, you see what happens in the United States is, well, first of all, the president tends to turn into this czar, you know, because they have this idea in the United States now, like "First Lady"—it's like, what the hell is that? We don't have that in Canada. Nobody knows anything about Justin Trudeau's wife, and that's been the history of Canadian politicians.

It's like, just because you're Justin Trudeau's wife doesn't mean you're queen. But in the United States, it's like, well, you know, Hillery Clinton, maybe she's queen. And that's partly because there is that demand for the symbolic weight that the leader should manifest.

You also see that to some degree in the United States, which is a star-worshiping culture, obviously, with the glitterati and the royalty of Hollywood. It's better put there in the entertainment section, even though that's also somewhat dangerous because it tends to elevate actors into pronouncements of ethical virtues, say. But better there than in the political realm.

Trump, he's like king and president all rolled up into one, and that's just too much. So, I really admire the monarchical system, and I think that for whatever reason, the UK has done a wonderful job of maintaining that, and I think a very economically canny job too.

Because I know the economic analysis indicates that the royal family generates way more income than they spend. You know, because they're a major—everything they're associated with here is a major tourist attraction.

This tradition that you have here, this monarchical tradition, is something that's tremendously attractive to people who don't have that—Canadians, for example, Americans—because it's just so theatrical and so unique. And then you had Queen Elizabeth, who man, I mean, that's quite the woman there.

How many? Thirteen prime ministers? And so you had someone around to intimidate all your prime ministers; that's a really good idea, and I'm sure she did a fine job of that, you know. And so, yeah, you know, and you can imagine how useful it was psychologically in some sense for the prime minister, who has monarchical temptations in some sense like Trump did, to have to go on a regular basis to this remarkable person who'd seen this immense span of political history and confess in some real sense, right?

To be subject to her cautious and wise judgment because I think she was a woman who was traditional and cautious and wise in the highest degree. There were scandals in her family, but like, you have a family—if people knew what your family was doing, don't you think there'd be scandals? And so, but she was remarkably free of scandals over that entire period. And that's a hell of a thing to manage for 70 years.

And so, well, what will happen now? Well, the most likely thing is that your monarchy will disintegrate like most of the other ones have. I'm not saying that will happen, I'm certainly not saying I want it to happen, but because that sort of thing is so hard to maintain, especially in the modern world.

Because you need someone so remarkable to manage it, the probability that you'll get another one is relatively low. And so I wish your new king the best, that's for sure. But, you know, maybe, maybe you'll get lucky, and maybe your monarch, and maybe with your support, will rise to the occasion, and your country and the rest of the British Commonwealth will recognize that what they have in the shared bonds that unite them based on English common law and the great democratic tradition, that's so much a function of this country—and this country really in particular.

I mean, you're the birthplace of both Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, India—these amazing countries, these free, democratic, productive, generous societies. It's quite the accomplishment.

And I see in England and Europe, but in England too, in Great Britain, such apprehension about that, such refusal to note the greatness of your country and its contributions. I mean, you know, no one in the United States ever talks about the fact that the UK was the country that eradicated slavery. Like that's—that only happened once in the whole history of the human race, you know, when your country did it.

It took 175 years and a huge economic—yeah, you know, it was your country and the great people who were spearheading that movement at the time that established once and for all on the political and economic front that that was not to be tolerated.

And then, you know, it took a while for that idea to spread everywhere; it still hasn't. Because there's plenty of slaves in the world; the estimate's 30 million at the moment, by the way. But there are very few people who will come out forthrightly and say that it's, that it's right, that it's okay—that, you know, might makes right.

And your country was definitely one of the moral forces in the world, the primary moral force on the political front, who established once and for all that that was no longer acceptable. And yet, mostly what characterizes a fair bit of self-image in Great Britain is shame.

And, you know, every country has things to be ashamed of, but not every country also has things to be proud of. So, so what do we think? What's going to happen with the Commonwealth? Well, maybe we'll wise up and recognize that we have something absolutely precious to guard.

And then maybe we'll guard it, but to do that we're going to have to defend ourselves against unwarranted accusations of guilt—not that there's not something to be guilty about, you know, because we're all the beneficiaries of the atrocities of history, and we have to atone for that in our personal behavior.

But by the same token, man, you're supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff and not just call it all chaff. And when you look at your own history, you think, we stumbled plenty, you know, but we still walked uphill. And you in your country you can say that more than most.