People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive

Host: The rain had just ended, leaving the city slick with reflections and neon light. A thin mist still clung to the windows of the small downtown diner, where the smell of coffee and fried eggs hung in the air like a familiar ghost. Outside, the traffic hummed — a slow, metallic heartbeat of the night.
Inside, Jack and Jeeny sat by the window, their faces caught between the glow of a streetlamp and the flicker of a neon sign that read Open 24 Hours. The clock above the counter ticked lazily, as if even time were tired of pretending to care.

Jack stirred his coffee, his grey eyes narrowed in thought. Jeeny watched him, her hands wrapped around her mug, steam rising between them like a curtain of unspoken truths.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet for too long tonight. What’s on your mind, Jack?”

Jack: “Just a thought. Something I heard earlier — Jordan Peterson said, ‘People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.’”

Jeeny: “That sounds like him. Always trying to stir the hornet’s nest.”

Jack: “Maybe. But he’s right, isn’t he? We’ve gorged ourselves on the idea that freedom means doing whatever we want, whenever we want, without responsibility. It’s like a society of children, shouting about rights while forgetting their duties.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes narrowed slightly, the reflected neon pulsing like a heartbeat across her face. She leaned forward, her voice soft but steady.

Jeeny: “You talk about duties as if people haven’t already been crushed by them, Jack. As if the world doesn’t already weigh enough on their shoulders. Rights aren’t pabulum — they’re oxygen for those who’ve been suffocating under power and oppression.”

Jack: “Sure. But oxygen can become poison if you breathe too much of it. Look around — everyone demands, no one builds. Everyone protests, no one sacrifices. It’s a culture of consumption, not creation.”

Jeeny: “And yet, those protests gave you the freedom to even say that. Do you forget the marches in the ‘60s? Civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights — they were born from that same impulse for freedom you’re dismissing as childish.”

Jack: “I don’t forget. I just think we’ve lost the balance. Freedom used to have a purpose — now it’s just appetite. Look at social media: everyone’s a critic, no one’s a craftsman. Everyone’s entitled, but few are accountable. People confuse ‘feeling free’ with being mature.”

Host: A truck passed outside, its headlights slicing through the mist and painting their faces in quick, cold light. The silence that followed was thick, filled with the weight of half-formed confessions.

Jeeny: “So what’s the other side of the story, Jack? The one we’re supposedly starving for?”

Jack: “Discipline. Restraint. Responsibility. The side where you earn meaning through sacrifice, not through expression. We’ve fed people the illusion that they can have everything — and when reality doesn’t deliver, they call it oppression.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that just another way of controlling people? Of telling them to stay quiet, work harder, and obey? You can’t build a just world out of obedience.”

Jack: “You can’t build one out of chaos, either.”

Host: The air between them crackled, as if the neon sign itself had absorbed their tension. Jeeny’s hands tightened around her cup, and Jack’s jaw set, the muscle in his cheek twitching like a restrained pulse.

Jeeny: “You sound like every system that’s ever tried to chain the human spirit. Every time people stand up, there’s someone like you saying, ‘Sit down, be grateful, be disciplined.’ Do you hear yourself?”

Jack: “And you sound like every revolution that burned down cities and called it progress. Freedom without order is just a riot with better PR.”

Jeeny: “That’s not fair. Freedom isn’t the enemy of order — it’s the soul of it. Without freedom, order turns into tyranny. Look at East Germany, the Soviet Union — order without liberty turns humans into machines.”

Jack: “And look at what unfettered liberty has done to the West. Depression, disconnection, loneliness. People parade their individuality, but they’ve forgotten who they are. We’ve got more comfort than any generation in history, and somehow we’re the most miserable.”

Host: The rain started again — softly at first, like fingers tapping on the glass. The diner had emptied; only the faint sound of an old jukebox played in the background, a slow, melancholic tune that hung between their words.

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not freedom that’s making people miserable. Maybe it’s the emptiness that comes from living in a world where connection is an illusion. You say people have too much freedom — I say they don’t know what to do with it because we never taught them how to feel, only how to function.”

Jack: “So what — we just hand them more rights and hope they figure it out?”

Jeeny: “No. We teach them to be human again. To care, to listen, to forgive. You talk about discipline — but what about compassion as a discipline? What about empathy as a form of responsibility?”

Host: Jack paused, his fingers resting on the rim of his cup. His eyes softened, but his voice stayed measured.

Jack: “That sounds nice, Jeeny. But it’s not reality. The world doesn’t reward empathy. It rewards those who perform, who produce, who adapt. Try telling compassion to a market that’s collapsing.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the market is what’s sick, not the people.”

Jack: “And who’s going to fix it? The same people who can’t hold a job for six months without blaming society? The same ones who think that feelings are truth?”

Jeeny: “You make it sound so hopeless.”

Jack: “It’s not hopeless. It’s just honest.”

Host: The word hung there — honest — like the edge of a knife between them. Jeeny looked at him for a long moment, her eyes shimmering with the kind of sadness that comes from understanding too much.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the real starvation Peterson was talking about. Not for discipline, not for rules, but for meaning. For the truth that sits between the rights and the responsibilities. Between what we want and what we owe.”

Jack: “Meaning, huh? Maybe. But meaning isn’t something you find in your heart — it’s something you build, one burden at a time.”

Jeeny: “And yet, even the strongest builders collapse without love.”

Host: A long silence followed — the kind that changes the room. The rain had stopped, and a faint glow from the streetlight spilled through the window, illuminating the steam from their coffee like ghosts rising.

Jack sighed, leaning back, the fight slowly leaving his voice.

Jack: “Maybe we’ve both been fed the wrong diet, Jeeny. Freedom without responsibility — or responsibility without freedom — either one will starve the soul.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the answer isn’t in choosing sides, but in remembering the hunger itself. Because only the hungry ever seek what’s real.”

Host: The light shifted, and for a moment, their faces looked softer — the hardness in his eyes, the tension in hers, both melting under the quiet truth that sat between them.

Outside, the city breathed, and the neon flickered, painting the word Open one last time — as if to remind them that some doors are never truly closed, only waiting to be entered with new eyes.