Jordan Peterson on European Pride

another taboo is to celebrate european culture multiculturalists get pretty unhappy when europeans start expressing pride in their culture or heritage many especially on the left do not draw much of a distinction at least in practice between european pride and white supremacy you care about freedom of the individual 's freedom to think to speak to associate in short to act as he sees fit without external compulsion as long as he doesn't infringe on the similar liberties of others professor ricardo duchaine a historical sociologist and professor at the university of new brunswick argues that quote individualism is a unique attribute of european peoples quote it has been exported to some degree to other nations but in my view it is not something that comes to them naturally so he continues quote you can't play the game of we're all individuals we have to affirm and be proud of our ethnic identity and heritage to preserve the west's curious individualism if europeans become minorities in the west he argues the founding idea of the west that no entity not an individual not a community not the state can justly deprive an individual of life liberty or property by force no matter what the individual's race class or religion i wouldn't be surprised if duchene when he made this statement had you in mind look the medieval europeans identified seven deadly sins for a reason and one of them was pride it's like let's make the presumption i do believe for reasons that aren't obvious that the west has got some things right we've got the sovereignty of the individual right that's the most fundamental thing we've got right we've articulated that i think in a remarkable way not only theologically philosophically in our body of laws in our societies and one of the consequences of that as it's had its effect on the rest of the world is that everyone is getting richer quite fast and that's a really good thing okay having said that it's like am i proud of it's like i didn't do that what the hell pride what's that that's not the right response how about responsibility for that how would that be it's like you're part of this great and unlikely set of propositions this strange set of propositions that says that in some ineffable manner the poorest person is as valuable as the king it's like how the hell did we ever figure that out that's an impossible thing to think and yet that's the bedrock of our legal system that's nothing to be proud of that's something to tremble before to take on as a an ethical burden and not to wave a flag for how wonderful you are that you happen to have the same skin color as some of the people who thought that up it's not the right response it's like it's to open your eyes and recognize that as a miracle and a relatively new miracle on the world stage and to participate in the process of upholding that in your personal and your public life that's not pride in european tradition like when i go to europe and i love going to europe and the european cities are they're unbelievable masterpieces which is why they're completely flooded by pilgrims right tourists who go there to look at the beauty it's like i don't feel pride about that i feel like i have something to live up to that's not the same thing man and so these right-wingers in this it's like look what we've done it's like no it's not you that did that that's something man you gotta have your act together before you would dare to say well that was me it's like yeah sure it was you yeah right no it's hard to stand up and take your place in that kind of historical process that unlikely miraculous historical process not to just feel ashamed at the way that you're presently constituted in the face of that means that you're deluded and you're using your your great fortune at being a beneficiary of that system look at what we've got here this great peace that we're inhabiting right now you're using your unearned the unearned gift that's been granted to you as a source of personal pride in your accomplishments

due to your skin it's like no not good not a good argument so and that doesn't mean that well there's nothing valuable about european culture there's plenty about it that's valuable it's not even so clear to what degree it's european i mean it came out of the middle east you know i mean who it's so muddle-headed that you hardly know where to start