Within all religions and the great philosophies of the world is a shared universal truth that leads to God. The goal of this blog is to search for value and meaning on the journey across the straight path.
You can see his perspective in the video above. He starts out with a discussion about how the advent of birth control in the 1960’s dramatically changed society. Women could have sex without the burden of an unwanted pregnancy. The response to that in the 1960s was basically to have a party. The era of “free love” began where there was much open sex and sexual experimentation.
Peterson comments that the results of this were hard on the family. And then there was the HIV epidemic.
And now in our time, there seems to be a cultural paradox where the old taboos about sex are seeping back in through the radical left, rather than the radical right.
There are two ideas contrasting each other here. One idea is that consensual sex is harmless fun. Another idea is that if consent is misunderstood, sex can become extremely harmful.
What makes sex okay and what makes sex not okay is a bit more complicated than merely voicing consent.
There’s this idea in our culture that we can extract sex from emotional intimacy, or that we can extract sex from psychological intimacy. And now we’re seeing the backlash to that idea. People feel used. If someone has intercourse and then regrets it the next day, that’s evidence that it wasn’t consensual.
So the question is, What constitutes consent?
Can we really do whatever we want to whoever we want with no consequences and have there be no trouble about consent? It is Peterson’s argument that sex doesn’t work well outside of committed relationships.
Across all cultures historically, there has been a strong proclivity for a social enforcement of monogamy. Peterson argues that you deviate from that at your peril.
Peterson also brings up the problem of alcohol and says that if people were serious about reducing rapes on campus, they would get rid of alcohol. Most date rapes occur when the victim is intoxicated.
Peterson ultimately says, Don’t do anything physically with anyone you wouldn’t talk to them about. There is emotional harm in it. There’s the cheapening of both parties. It’s gonna take a long time to sort this out. But hopefully we can do this in a serious manner, and it won’t be a matter of mobbing those who made an error.
BEN SHAPIRO GIVES DATING ADVICE TO FANS
In the video above, Ben Shapiro gives advice about dating, marriage, and sex to his fans.
In this video, he states that consent should be the first step when it comes to sex, but certainly not the only step.
In short, if you are dating just for fun, then you don’t care about the person. Women generally crave intimacy more than men. And this idea that people can just have a one-night stand that doesn’t mean anything isn’t realistic.
It’s human nature to form emotional attachments to the people they have sex with. And once sex happens, it’s very difficult to detach from the person. That doesn’t mean an attachment will happen every time, but it can happen a lot of the time. According to a study published in the Journal of Sex and Research about half of people who hooked up wanted to hook up again, and about a third expressed an interest in forming a long-term romantic relationship. So it might not be a good idea to hook up with someone you don’t even like as a friend. Because there’s a one in three chance they could feel romantically attached to you.
The purpose of dating should be to find someone to marry. Pure and simple. Dating someone for fun is like starting a business with one of your friends for fun instead of seeking out a reliable business partner. If you date someone you don’t see as compatible in the long term, you could still get stuck with them (because of feelings and sex) and before you know it, you’re attempting to build a life with someone who has completely different values, with someone you’re not even compatible with. And that’s pretty much a waste of time and emotional energy.
Also, for women, we have a much smaller window of opportunity to get pregnant. So if we put off the marriage search to our 30s, that’s going to make it pretty difficult to find the right guy, get married, and then get pregnant all before our biological clocks stop ticking. Not a politically correct statement, but it’s the biological truth.
Some people want to wait until they’re economically stable before marriage, but Ben Shapiro says that’s not necessary. Yes, you want to be economically stable for your kids, but this isn’t necessary for marriage. Marriage and finances are a lot more separate than children and finances. People don’t even have to live together to be married. They simply have to be committed.
Many Muslims I’ve talked to seem to like Jordan Peterson, and yet Dr. Peterson has said little about Islam. The values in his book 12 Rules for Life An Antidote to Chaos connect to Christianity and Taoism. Can they connect to Islam?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Dr. Jordan Peterson, allow me to give a brief introduction:
The Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson became an internet celebrity when he released a series of YouTube videos criticizing the Canadian C-16 bill, which is a bill that is attempting to protect gender expression and gender identity by making hate propaganda and incitement to genocide illegal. While the intentions of C-16 may be to protect people, Jordan Peterson (along with others) have criticized the bill for giving the Canadian government the right to police speech itself.
Since then, Doctor Peterson has received both praise and condemnation world wide.
Yet Doctor Peterson’s main work isn’t just talking about C-16. As a clinical psychologist, he delves into theories and thoughts on behavior and consciousness, going back into ancient history, even as ancient as lobster hierarchies that formed millions of years ago. Much of his work deals with archetypes. And he makes frequent reference to the theories of Sigmund Frued, Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche
Peterson’s 12 Rules – An Antidote to Chaos and Nihilism
Dr. Peterson has spoken out much about the scourge of nihilism in today’s world (in the form of postmodernism), and has written a guide that is a sort of antidote to modern nihilism and chaos.
His book became an international bestseller and even did well in several Muslim countries.
So why do so many Muslims like Dr. Peterson?
I don’t agree with everything that YouTuber Saajid Lipham says in general. But I still enjoy a lot of his videos, since Saajid is very articulate and insightful, and says many things that even non-muslims can agree with.
But Saajid’s point is that historically in the West, people have either found knowledge from philosophy or divine revelation (religion). And that Jordan Peterson, as a modern-day philosopher, has spoken out against the lies in our time that have been propagated as truth (postmodernism), and what Dr. Peterson preaches is closer to the eternal truths of the great philosophies and religions of the world.
For an ideology or religion to be helpful to human beings, it must be grounded in the truth, in fundamental truths about reality, about what it means to be human, and how human beings can overcome the suffering of existence.
Islam emphasizes the point that life is a test, a test where one will suffer, and one must overcome that suffering by killing their ego and devoting themselves to God.
And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient. (Qur’an 2:155)
Recall that Moses said to his people, “O my people, you have wronged your souls by worshiping the calf. You must repent to your Creator. You shall kill your egos. This is better for you in the sight of your Creator.” He did redeem you. He is the Redeemer, Most Merciful. (Qur’an 2:54)
This is the fundamental truth of most of the world’s religions and philosophies.
Ideologies that Pull People Away From The Truth
Ideologies that lie about the fundamentals of reality and human nature benefit no one, and can only lead to disaster.
Communism is such an ideology. It puts forth the idea that there should be no hierarchies and that everybody is the same. Such an idea would be great for ants, but it doesn’t work for human beings. Communism lasted around 70 years before falling apart and killing 100 million of its own people.
Yet today (as Jordan Peterson states in his book) Post Modernism is a sort of backdoor to communism. He discusses this more on pg. 300 of 12 Rules For Life in the section titled, “Postmodernism and the Long Arm of Marx.” This is also discussed in the intro.
Postmodernism, which has been the defining ideology of the West since the 1960s, putting tolerance forward as the ultimate value, that all ideologies must be accepted. And all ideologies are supposed to be considered fundamentally equal. Yet when all things are the same, then there is nothing important or special that is above everything else. There is nothing to strive toward. Everything becomes meaningless.
The first idea or teaching is that morality is relative, at best a personal “value judgment.” Relative means that there is no absolute right or wrong in anything; instead, morality and the rules associated with it are just a matter of personal opinion or happenstance…And, since we don’t know right from wrong, or what is good, just about the most inappropriate thing an adult can do is give a young person advice about how to live. (12 Rules for Life, Norman Doidge, page 11)
(Still from the Foreward, by Norman Doidge) But it turns out that many people cannot tolerate the vacuum—the chaos—which is inherent in life, but made worse by this moral relativism; they cannot live without a moral compass, without an ideal at which to aim in their lives. (For relativists, ideals are values too, and like all values, they are merely “relative” and hardly worth sacrificing for.) So, right alongside relativism, we find the spread of nihilism and despair, and also the opposite of moral relativism: the blind certainty offered by ideologies that claim to have an answer for everything. (12 Rules for Life, Norman Doidge, page 12)
As mentioned above, the main ideology of Islam is that one overcomes the suffering of life by killing their egos and submitting to God.
However, what does Jordan Peterson say? And can his rules be applicable to the Qur’an?
I’m not saying that Dr. Peterson’s rules fit in perfectly with the Qur’an in all ways. I’m just going to highlight the similarities for the curious.
RULE 1 – STAND UP STRAIGHT WITH YOUR SHOULDERS BACK
In this chapter, Dr. Peterson talks A LOT about lobsters and lobster hierarchies. I have never heard so much in my life about lobsters until I read this chapter of Dr. Peterson’s book. But I digress, his point is that it is important for one to stand up straight with their shoulders back, to assume the position of a winner, the kind of person who is at the top of dominance hierarchies. Because when you are the kind of person who would be at the top of a hierarchy, your body makes more serotonin, you’re happier, more confident, more energetic, less people pick fights with you, and you’re more capable of taking on the challenges of life.
Whereas if you take on the posture and bearing of loser, someone who slouches, who looks nervous, who avoids eye contact and mumbles and acts afraid, people will not have confidence in you, people will pick more fights with you and try to dominate you. As you start to feel more like a loser, your body will generate less serotonin, you’ll have less mental and physical energy to take on the challenges of life, keeping you in the bottom of whatever hierarchy you may occupy.
“If you have a high status, on the other hand…the serotonin flows plentifully. This renders you confident and calm, standing tall and straight, and much less on constant alert.” (12 Rules for Life, pg. 17)
What does the Qur’an say about this?
The Qur’an refers to Abraham as the “upright,” ḥanīfan. (Qur’an 4:125)
So as long as they are upright toward you, be upright toward them. Indeed, Allah loves the righteous [who fear Him]. (Qur’an 9:7)
Verse 9:36 refers to Islam as the “religion of the upright.”
I won’t cite all the verses, but there are about 14 verses that implore people to be “upright.” You can read them here.
The Qur’an also talks much about making a stand, or standing up for, or standing firm. Check out these 34 verses.
The Qur’an does not offer a “turn the other cheek” morality. It is one that encourages those (who are able) to stand up for others. To stand firm against evil. This matches much of the message of Dr. Peterson himself when he says that goodness is not so much being kind, but having the courage to say “no” or “speak out” when it’s necessary. To stand up against evil, rather than bowing down and cowering just to make everyone happy. (Peterson Video, “A Good Man is Dangerous“)
So the sort of morality in the Qur’an is not of one who is passive and acquiesces, but of one who stands up straight with courage and confidence.
RULE 2 – TREAT YOURSELF LIKE SOMEONE YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HELPING
I myself am a Quranist, but I will include some good hadith on this site sometimes, for those Muslims who still follow the hadith.
The Prophet (saws) said, “Observe the fast sometimes and also leave them (the fast) at other times; stand up for the prayer at night and also sleep at night. Your body has a right over you, your eyes have a right over you and your wife has a right over you.” [Narrated in Bukhari]
In Islam it is important for people to take care of their own bodies, because their bodies are a gift from God. The Qur’an encourages many healthy habits, like wudu (ritual washing and sanitation), fasting (which science has now shown the health benefits of), avoiding gambling and drinking (science has now shown that no amount of alcohol is good for you), and eating good healthy food.
“Eat of the good things we have provided for your sustenance, but commit no excess therein, lest my wrath should justly descend on you, and those on whom descends my wrath do perish indeed” (Quran 20:81).
“And from the fruits of date palm and grapes you get wholesome drink and nutrition: Behold in this is a sign for those who are wise” (Quran 16:67).
RULE 3 – MAKE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO WANT THE BEST FOR YOU
The Prophet (saws) said, “The likeness of a righteous friend and an evil friend, is the likeness of a perfume seller and a blacksmith. As for the perfume seller, he may either bestow something on you, or you may purchase something from him, or you may benefit from his sweet smell. And as for the blacksmith, he may either burn your clothes, or you may be exposed to his awful smell.” [Narrated in Bukhari]
The Qur’an preaches tolerance for those who have different faiths. “There is no compulsion in religion (2:256).” And Surah 60 talks more about tolerance toward disbelievers. However, despite that, the Qur’an encourages certain kinds of behavior among the believers in regards to each other.
They are supposed to be compassionate and patient toward one another. (90:17)
And they are not supposed to backbite and snoop on each other. (49:12)
And they are not supposed to ridicule, mock and insult each other (49:11)
Co-operate with one another in good and virtuous matters consistent with the Divine Laws and DO NOT co-operate in evil and bad matters.”(5:2)
Such is a good code for friendship in general. Good friends will not mock you or talk about you behind your back. Such friends are people who want the best for you.
RULE 4 – COMPARE YOURSELF TO WHO YOU WERE YESTERDAY, NOT TO WHO SOMEONE ELSE IS TODAY
Focus on your self growth. Don’t invalidate that growth by comparing yourself to others.
God made us all different, with different capabilities and different backgrounds. Some of us will be better looking. Some of us will have more money. Some of us will be more articulate. All you can do is be the best you.
And the best among you is the most righteous.
O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted. (49:13)
The Qur’an also emphasizes that people need to focus on their own behavior first, before they focus on that of others.
You should enjoin right conduct on others but mend your own ways first. Actions speak louder than words. You must first practice good deeds yourself, then preach (2:44)
Though the above quote also fits in with Rule 6, which I will get to below.
RULE 5 – DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN DO ANYTHING THAT MAKES YOU DISLIKE THEM
“My Lord, grant me from Yourself a good offspring. Indeed, You are the Hearer of supplication.” (3:38)
“And those who say, “Our Lord, grant us from among our wives and offspring comfort to our eyes and make us an example for the righteous.”(25:74)
In Dr. Peterson’s chapter about Rule 5, he says that it’s important for parents to enjoy being around their children. When parents enjoy being around their children, the child will be properly socialized. When a parent does not like being around their child, the child will become antisocial and start to dislike themself and others. A parent who refuses to discipline their child creates a person who the world will ultimately punish (because that child will be unfit to face the trials of this life).
Verse 25:74 tells people that their children should be a “comfort” to them, meaning, they should LIKE being around their child. And it says that a good child makes a parent an example for the righteous. A parent who is raising their child with manners and discipline makes the world a better place. Whereas a parent who shirks that responsibility and lets their child behave however they want is not being a righteous person themselves.
RULE 6 – SET YOUR HOUSE IN PERFECT ORDER BEFORE YOU CRITICIZE THE WORLD
Once again
You should enjoin right conduct on others but mend your own ways first. Actions speak louder than words. You must first practice good deeds yourself, then preach (2:44)
I think that speaks for itself. Make sure your own conduct is good before you go around criticizing others. Also, as mentioned in (49:11), people are not supposed to ridicule each other.
RULE 7 – PURSUE WHAT IS MEANINGFUL (NOT WHAT IS EXPEDIENT)
What should people do with their lives? How do they exist in a world where life is suffering?
“What in the world should be done about that? The simplest, most obvious, and most direct answer? Pursue pleasure. Follow your impulses. Live for the moment. Do what’s expedient. Lie, cheat, steal, decieve, manipulate-but don’t get caught. In an ultimately meaningles unverse, what possible difference could it make? (12 Rules for Life, pg 158)…Or is there an alternative, more powerful and more compelling? (12 Rules for Life, pg 159)
Dr. Peterson goes on to say that the alternative to pursuing short term pleasure is delayed gratification, in short, patience.
The Qur’an addresses the fact that life is suffering. But life is suffering because it is a test from our Lord. We’re not supposed to be excessive in our indulgence in this world. One can enjoy relations with their spouse and their children and their friends. But ultimately, one’s focus should be on God and the world to come.
And keep yourself patient [by being] with those who call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening, seeking His countenance. And let not your eyes pass beyond them, desiring adornments of the worldly life, and do not obey one whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance and who follows his desire and whose affair is ever [in] neglect.(18:28)
Take this for a philosophical exercise. Let’s say you had a group of people who were just living for the moment and a group who were working hard to build a better tomorrow. Which society would be better? The first society would probably extinguish themselves quickly. The second would lay the foundations for a long term future, for both themselves and their children.
RULE 8 – TELL THE TRUTH – OR AT LEAST, DON’T LIE
Telling the truth is very important in the Quran. In fact, the word “truth” is mentioned 193 times.
Here are some other key verses.
“For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for truthful men and women, for patient men and women, for humble men and women, for charitable men and women, for fasting men and women, for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God’s praise: for them has God prepared forgiveness and a great reward.” (Quran 33:35)
“The believers are but those people who believed in God and His Messenger without ever feeling doubt thereafter, and strove with their souls and possessions in the way of God; those are the ones who are the truthful.” (Quran 49:15)
“And whosoever obeys God and His Messenger, such will be in the company of those whom God has blessed: the Prophets, the truthful ones, the martyrs, and the righteous. And how excellent a company are such people!” (Quran 4:69)
Many of the prophets who are praised in the Quran are called “truthful.” Believers are called “truthful.” And one of the key meanings of a “kuffar,” or disbeliever, is that they are someone who conceals the truth.
But most importantly… “God is the Truth” (Quran 22:6)
God is truth itself. Those who align themselves with the truth, align themselves with God.
RULE 9 – ASSUME THAT THE PERSON YOU ARE LISTENING TO MIGHT KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON’T
The Quran implores us not to rush to judgement, not to make assumptions, but to hear people out before rushing to conclusions.
The first example I can think of comes from the tale of King David and two men who came to him for judgment. (Quran 38:22). Kind David hears the tale of one of the men, but not the other, and rushes to pronounce judgment on one of the men. But then the men both disappear, like a cloud into thin air. David realizes this was a test from his Lord, that he failed (because he rushed to judgment and did not listen completely). So David begs his Lord for forgiveness.
The second example comes in Quran verse 18:60-18:82, when Moses travels with the companion Al Khidr who does a number of things that Moses disagrees with and judges, without realizing that the man had his own reasons which ended up being legitimate.
RULE 10 – BE PRECISE IN YOUR SPEECH
Okay, I’m not sure if there is anything about precision in speech in the Quran (let me know if there is), but there is much about one being careful in how they speak to others. Speaking to others kindly and avoiding anger in one’s tone.
And they had been guided [in worldly life] to good speech, and they were guided to the path of the Praiseworthy. (Quran 22:24)
And We strengthened his kingdom and gave him wisdom and discernment in speech. (Quran 38:20)
And if We willed, We could show them to you, and you would know them by their mark; but you will surely know them by the tone of [their] speech. And Allah knows your deeds. (Quran 47:30)
Dr. Peterson’s point was more that people should be very careful about what they say because they have a responsibility for the information that they put out into the world.
RULE 11 – DO NOT BOTHER CHILDREN WHEN THEY ARE SKATEBOARDING
I don’t know if there is anything about this in the Qur’an, but Dr. Peterson’s point in regards to this rule was that adults shouldn’t prevent children from achieving mastery over danger. To do so would be to leave children coddled and unfit for dealing with the trials of the world. (i.e. helicopter parenting).
All people will inevitably suffer. You can’t protect your children from the suffering of this dunya.
I posted the verse before but I will post it again:
And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient. (Qur’an 2:155)
RULE 12 – PET A CAT WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER ONE ON THE STREET
So, a chapter that I thought would be focused primarily on our furry animal companions ended up being a lot about suffering, being, and the difficulties of existence. However, the chapter (and really the whole book) ultimately boils down to this point
“People are very tough. People can survive through much pain and loss. But to preserve they must see the good in Being. If they lose that, they are truly lost.” (12 Rules for Life, pg. 345)
I would like to address Dr. Peterson’s concluding point with the opening of the Qur’an, Al Fatiha.
In the name of God, the infinitely Compassionate and Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds. The Compassionate, the Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning. You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help. Guide us on the straight path, the path of those who have received your grace; not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray.
(Quran, Al Fatihah)
This verse beautifully encapsulates the essence of the Qur’an and Islam itself. God is our creator. God is good. God is compassionate and merciful. And surely the creation must have the essence of its creator. After all, the Qur’an implores us frequently to admire the awesome beauty of the natural world as signs of God Himself. Verse 3:191 implores us to think deeply about the wonders and creation of the universe.
But more than that, if our Creator is the ultimate good, than Being itself is fundamentally good. If you do not believe in the fundamental goodness of Being, what else is there? How can you survive? Such a person is lost. And as people today embrace nihilism via post-modernism, they themselves become lost.
If you can’t enjoy life enough to pet a cute cat or dog when you see one, what else is there?
CODA – WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MY NEWFOUND PEN OF LIGHT?
So why did Jordan Peterson pick 12 rules for his book? And then why did he add a Coda after that? (There is a final chapter after all the 12 rules are mentioned).
By the time I got to this point in the article, the brilliance of the answer struck me like the light of a glowing pen. Jesus had 12 disciples and the 13th chapter is about Jesus himself.
TL;DR: Dr. Peterson talks about a glowing light pen he has. He asks questions, and uses the pen to answer his own questions (finding answers within himself).
Here are the critical questions he writes with his pen of light:
“What shall I do with my wife? Treat her as if she is the Holy Mother of God, so that she may give birth to the world-redeeming hero. What shall I do with my daughter? Stand behind her, listen to her, guard her, train her mind, and let her know it’s OK if she wants to be a mother. What shall I do with my parents? Act such that your actions justify the suffering they endured. What shall I do with my son? Encourage him to be a true Son of God (12 Rules for Life, pg. 352)”
Dr. Peterson talks about the importance of holding up Christ and his mother as an archetype for human behavior.
Well, this may surprise many Christians (and Muslims) but the Qur’an says something similar.
We made the son of Mary and his mother a symbol [of Our grace], and provided for both an abode in a lofty place of lasting restfulness and unsullied springs. (23:50)
AND [remember] her who guarded her chastity, whereupon We breathed into her of Our spirit and caused her, together with her son, to become a symbol [of Our grace] unto all people. (21:91)
The Qur’an itself states that the Prophet Isa (Jesus Christ) and his mother are an archetype for all the people. In Islam, these figures are most certainly not Gods, as that would be shirk (the sin of associating partners with God). But they are humans that play a powerful role. Jesus is called the “Messiah” in the Qur’an, so clearly he’s important. The Messiah in most religions is the redeemer, the one who will come back in the darkest times to ultimately fight evil with goodness.
And the Mother Mary is actually mentioned quite a bit in the Qur’an. Her powerful role is that she is the mother of the Messiah. She is one who was pure and honest and speech. Even for those who do not believe in the literal virgin birth and are more interested in the metaphor of it, her virginity could be a metaphor of her purity as a person. But ultimately, the importance of the Virgin Mary is she asserts the powerful role of motherhood, and its potential to do good in the world.
As to remembering the suffering of one’s parents, the Qur’an addresses that as well.
And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months. [He grows] until, when he reaches maturity and reaches [the age of] forty years, he says, “My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to work righteousness of which You will approve and make righteous for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am of the Muslims.” (Qur’an 46:15)
Disclaimer: By writing this article I’m not saying I agree with all of Doctor Peterson’s views. I’m merely trying to provide an unbiased analysis of one of the more controversial aspects of his books and teachings, which is that chaos is archetypally female and that order is archetypally male. It is difficult to find a balanced and in depth analysis of this topic, so I have decided to provide one myself.
The Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has become an internet celebrity in recent years. He started getting a lot more attention when he released a series of YouTube videos criticizing the Canadian C-16 bill, which is a bill that is attempting to protect gender expression and gender identity by making hate propaganda and incitement to genocide illegal. While the intentions of C-16 may be to protect people, Jordan Peterson (along with others) have criticized the bill for giving the Canadian government the right to police speech itself.
Since then, Doctor Peterson has received both praise and condemnation world wide. He has been called many things, including a “custodian of the patriarchy.”
Yet Doctor Peterson’s main work isn’t just talking about C-16. As a clinical psychologist, he delves into theories and thoughts on behavior and consciousness, going back into ancient history, even as ancient as lobster hierarchies that formed millions of years ago. Much of his work deals with archetypes. And he makes frequent reference to the theories of Sigmund Frued, Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche
Jordan Peterson has published two books, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999) and 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018).
In this article, I will focus more on his 12 Rules for Life, since that’s the book I’ve actually read.
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos is exactly as the title describes, a guidebook to escaping the chaos of modern life.
The beginning of the book talks much about life in our Post Modern Era, where tolerance is the highest value. (To be fair, this part is in the Foreward, by Norman Doidge, not Doctor Peterson, but it’s still in the book nevertheless, so it must be important.) Norman Doidge is the son of Jewish holocaust survivors, and a friend of Doctor Peterson.
The first idea or teaching is that morality is relative, at best a personal “value judgment.” Relative means that there is no absolute right or wrong in anything; instead, morality and the rules associated with it are just a matter of personal opinion or happenstance…And, since we don’t know right from wrong, or what is good, just about the most inappropriate thing an adult can do is give a young person advice about how to live. (Norman Doidge, page 11)
This serves as a good springboard for understanding the basic philosophy of the book, and its core theme. Today we live in an era where morality is relative, and there is no absolute right or wrong. The highest value is tolerance, and the worst value is to be intolerant. While such a philosophy is certainly liberating, all things in life exist in balance, like the Yin Yang pictured above. And sometimes too much freedom can lead to too much chaos.
For many millennials (like myself) who grew up in this era of post-modernism, we find ourselves aimless. And when there is no ultimate good to aim for, nihilism takes over. The effects of nihilism can be seen in the growth of mass shooters, and the spread of internet communities for incels and MGTOW. Many people are deciding that this society is fundamentally negative. That being itself is fundamentally pointless, or worse than that, evil. And when there is no ultimate good to aim towards, the destruction or abandonment of the system itself becomes a potential conclusion.
(Still from the Foreward, by Norman Doidge) But it turns out that many people cannot tolerate the vacuum—the chaos—which is inherent in life, but made worse by this moral relativism; they cannot live without a moral compass, without an ideal at which to aim in their lives. (For relativists, ideals are values too, and like all values, they are merely “relative” and hardly worth sacrificing for.) So, right alongside relativism, we find the spread of nihilism and despair, and also the opposite of moral relativism: the blind certainty offered by ideologies that claim to have an answer for everything. (Norman Doidge, page 12)
If there is an antagonist in Doctor Peterson’s book, I would say that it is chaos itself. The title literally says, “An antidote to chaos.”
Yet what many people have found contentious about this fact (including his interviewers) is that he frames chaos as a female archetype and order as a male archetype. So if chaos is the thing to be avoided, and it is female, is that a problem? Is that a fundamentally misogynistic point of view? Let’s delve into that and see.
Below are the summaries of the principles of Yin and Yang in 12 Rules for Life.
(Still from the Foreward, by Norman Doidge) Order and chaos are the yang and yin of the famous Taoist symbol: two serpents, head to tail. Order is the white, masculine serpent; Chaos, its black, feminine counterpart. The black dot in the white—and the white in the black—indicate the possibility of transformation: just when things seem secure, the unknown can loom, unexpectedly and large. Conversely, just when everything seems lost, new order can emerge from catastrophe and chaos. (Norman Doidge, page 16)
(No longer in the Foreward, this part is by Doctor Peterson) The famous yin and yang symbols of the Taoists capture this beautifully. Being, for the Taoists—reality itself—is composed of two opposing principles, often translated as feminine and masculine, or even more narrowly as female and male. However, yin and yang are more accurately understood as chaos and order. The Taoist symbol is a circle enclosing twin serpents, head to tail. The black serpent, chaos, has a white dot in its head. The white serpent, order, has a black dot in its head. This is because chaos and order are interchangeable, as well as eternally juxtaposed. There is nothing so certain that it cannot vary. Even the sun itself has its cycles of instability. Likewise, there is nothing so mutable that it cannot be fixed. Every revolution produces a new order. Every death is, simultaneously, a metamorphosis. (Jordan Peterson, page 29)
So as you can see, this idea of chaos being a female archetype and order being a male archetype is nothing new. It was not invented by Doctor Peterson. It is from Taoist philosophy. But it is worth noting that Doctor Peterson makes reference to it repeatedly throughout his book.
He even has a section called “Chaos and Order: Personality, Female and Male” on page 46.
Chaos and Order: Personality, Female and Male:
Chaos and order are two of the most fundamental elements of lived experience—two of the most basic subdivisions of Being itself. But they’re not things, or objects, and they’re not experienced as such. Things or objects are part of the objective world. They’re inanimate; spiritless. They’re dead. This is not true of chaos and order. Those are perceived, experienced and understood (to the degree that they are understood at all) as personalities—and that is just as true of the perceptions, experiences and understanding of modern people as their ancient forebears. It’s just that moderners don’t notice. (Jordan Peterson, page 46)
Our brains are deeply social. (Jordan Peterson, page 46)
Here he makes the point that human beings understand elements of existence as archetypes, because we are deeply social creatures. This is a fundamental part of the human experience. After all, we do have “Mother Nature,” “Father Time,” “Old Man Winter.”
So when Doctor Peterson says that order is masculine and that chaos is feminine, he’s not saying these are personality traits inherent to men and women. Men can certainly be messier than women. Women can often be more structured and orderly than men. What he’s saying is that this is the archetype that people have created in their subconscious minds in order to understand being itself.
To me, this makes sense. Human beings have, at least for the last 5,000 years, existed in predominantly patriarchal civilizations. I’m not saying this is good or bad. This is just how it’s been. The foundations of order have been enforced by men. Today the government is predominantly male, as is the military, the police, and the priestly caste of a majority of the worlds religions. Thus, if we were to give order a personality that matches our own lived and historical experience, does it not make sense that this personality would be male?
And when you look at the forces that have resisted that patriarchal order, the creative forces of nature, wise women, and the witch who goes out into the darkness of the woods to commune with primordial forces, does it not make sense that this is a female archetype?
What is Order according to Doctor Peterson?
Order, the known, appears symbolically associated with masculinity (as illustrated in the aforementioned yang of the Taoist yin-yang symbol). This is perhaps because the primary hierarchical structure of human society is masculine, as it is among most animals, including the chimpanzees who are our closest genetic and, arguably, behavioural match. It is because men are and throughout history have been the builders of towns and cities, the engineers, stonemasons, bricklayers, and lumberjacks, the operators of heavy machinery. Order is God the Father, the eternal Judge, ledger-keeper and dispenser of rewards and punishments. Order is the peacetime army of policemen and soldiers. It’s the political culture, the corporate environment, and the system. It’s the “they” in “you know what they say.” It’s credit cards, classrooms, supermarket checkout lineups, turn-taking, traffic lights, and the familiar routes of daily commuters. Order, when pushed too far, when imbalanced, can also manifest itself destructively and terribly. It does so as the forced migration, the concentration camp, and the soul-devouring uniformity of the goose-step. (Jordan Peterson, page 47).
What is Chaos according to Doctor Peterson?
Chaos—the unknown—is symbolically associated with the feminine. This is partly because all the things we have come to know were born, originally, of the unknown, just as all beings we encounter were born of mothers. Chaos is mater, origin, source, mother; materia, the substance from which all things are made. It is also what matters, or what is the matter —the very subject matter of thought and communication. In its positive guise, chaos is possibility itself, the source of ideas, the mysterious realm of gestation and birth. As a negative force, it’s the impenetrable darkness of a cave and the accident by the side of the road. It’s the mother grizzly, all compassion to her cubs, who marks you as potential predator and tears you to pieces. (Jordan Peterson, page 47).
The Need for a Balance Between Order and Chaos
Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found. (Jordan Peterson, page 49).
While chaos may be an antagonist in 12 Rules for Life, that is not the same thing as being “evil.” The trouble for Westerners in conceptualizing of Yin and Yang, Feminine and Masculine, Chaos and Order, is that it is our tendency to bifurcate ideas into the category of “Good” and “Evil.” So the fact Doctor Peterson is providing an antidote to chaos (which he presents as archetypally feminine) may make the average Westerner assume that he’s presenting the feminine as something that is evil, which naturally leads to some quite misogynistic conclusions.
Yet what is interesting to me about 12 Rules for Life, is that even though Doctor Peterson defines himself as a Christian, and uses much Christian lore and theology as source material in his book, his conceptualization of chaos and order is not fundamentally Christian, but Taoist. Chaos and order are both fundamental qualities in nature and in life. The ideal is for them to exist in balance.
Too much chaos creates anarchy.
Too much order creates authoritarianism.
And in a society where chaos gets out of control, people begin to become more accepting of authoritarianism, to crave it even. We see the rise of it today around the world. This is a development that Doctor Peterson, the so called “custodian of the patriarchy,” is categorically against.
He dedicates much time in 12 Rules for Life speaking out against the evils of totalitarianism and the importance of freedom.
In conclusion, I recommend that people read the book for themselves and form their own opinions.
CHRIST LOVING MUSLIM 