Maps of Meaning (1999) Jordan Peterson

Physician, Heal Thyself

I (mostly) like Jordan Peterson and think he is a very much maligned public intellectual by shrieking everything-is-awful types on the political left. This book... brings a lot of stuff together, the gist of which is, "physician heal thyself," stemming from the author's own nightmares of Stalin, gulags and Chairman Mao. I listened to the audiobook because, quite frankly, I think it is poorly written; I appreciate that Dr. Peterson took the time to actually read his own book, though. I think I listened to about 65% of the book. My notes are below.

As a sidebar, there are a ton of excellent books linked to on Jordan Peterson's website, which he somewhat synthesizes in this book https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/books/book-list/ https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/great-books/ .

Judging a system by its results, in the words of Sowell, can be applied to how Peterson thinks about myth, religion, and the political systems of the Western tradition.  The result is a form of relative freedom, where the individual is left the ability to pursue their creative abilities, that which leads to happiness.  In the Judeo Christian tradition, the individual is divine; many people embody this belief, without necessarily believing that Christ is our savior.  Explicitly “good” political systems, like Communist China or the USSR, “good” intentions on paper, result in bad outcomes.  The idea is that we cannot fully comprehend the adaptability of all of human history, which has gotten us to where we are now; despite its lack of explicit reasoning, it has great utility, procedural knowledge.  However, society must not be fully static, or it cannot adapt to changes, arising from this or that, and it will eventually fail; indeed, the USSR was too rigid, and its inability to adopt led to its demise.  Traditions for a culture are how they choose to deal with life.  New ways of being are explored by “the hero”, the creative person, who goes into the unknown, chaos, “the Great Mother”, and figures out something new that works, and they bring it back, to incorporate into the tradition, ways of being.  The hero identifies with meaning, their own structures of value, stands outside the group.  The unknown is just that; it can produce new greatness (promise), or it can wreak havoc (anxiety).  Too much order, authority, preserves what already is, in the name of security (which is learned behavior, vs. Innate fear), but does not allow for progress.  Too much order is called for by the rival of the hero, the adversary; horrified by limited comprehension, they are rigid and authoritarian, cling to the stable, have contempt for life.  The adversary manifests as the Fascist, surrendering to the group, or the decadent, saying it should all burn to the ground.  Evil is the rejection of the social world, hatred of courage and virtue.  Order is necessary for psychological stability; regulation of emotions depends on stability and predictability of the social environment.  Fear of unknown is an instinctual response, antedating intellectual (conscious) responses.  Thus, people are hostile to those things which they perceive as threatening, things that can destabilize: environmental shifts, foreigners, strange ideas, and revolutionary activity.  Strangers are not fixed in the existing way of being, and do not behave predictably.  The Ubermensche would be a super culture, when all cultures combined to make a mega-culture; cultures side by side, however, produce anxiety.  Literate individuals can undermine the stability of society through words, causing people to act, and uproot everything.  People label all change as bad, all novelty as threat, as it produces anxiety, resulting in avoidance.  People observe others to know how to behave.  A story is a narrative, how to act in a given circumstance; stories are not questioned when they “work”, that is, produce desired results, habits or general rules.  Small inconveniences in circumstance may require small alterations to the story.  The simplest solution is what wins for us, that which doesn’t generate more problems.  Thus, culture are maps for action, how to behave; we cannot always articulate the why behind it (I.e. not having sex with a dead chicken).  There are patterns in narratives across cultures (like language); cultures can only be understood from the perspective of the culture, thus, values and goals are relative between cultures.  The “good” narrative tells you what to do when you do not know what to do, to be “good”, cross culturally.  How to order value or motivations is the question of morality.  Those protected by a culture have the capacity to bring it down, I.e. USSR.  We naturally focus on differences, not similarities.  It is dangerous to denigrate all culture or tradition because it causes great defensiveness, and thus promotes instability; the great heroes, the creative man, suffers great psychological damage.  We have a morality based on religion; what happens when it is yanked away; perhaps we should be less certain of everything we think.  The creative person is necessary when cultural adaptation fails, to update cognitive models.  We learn through imitation, and know how to do something before we can even articulate the why (as children) -- we inherit language and moral behavior, we are apprentices on how to be adults.  One day, we may become free, and have the ability to transcend the culture.  Identity with groups removes dependence on parents, and tells us how to be; it is a stopgap between standing on your own two feet.  Law provides the borders which allow for the maturation of individuals.  “The adoption of group identity – the apprenticeship of the adolescent --- disciplines the individual, and brings necessary predictability to his or her actions, within the social group.  Group identity, however, is a construct of the past, fashioned to deal with events characteristic of the past.  Although it is reasonable to view such identity as a necessary developmental stage, it is pathological to view it as the end-point of human development.  The present consists in large part of new problems, and reliance on the wisdom of the dead – no matter how heroic – eventually compromises the integrity of the living.  The well-trained apprentice, however, has the skills of the dead, and the dynamic intelligence of the living.  This means that he can benefit from – even welcome – inevitable contact with anomaly, in its many guises.  The highest level of morality therefore governs behavior in those spaces where tradition does not rule.  The exploratory hero is at home in unexplored territory – is friend of the stranger, welcoming ear for the new idea, and cautious, disciplined social revolutionary.”  Maturation is both growth but also not growth; accepting the limitation of possibilities, reality, seeing the unreality of utopia.  Thus, adaptive behavior comes first, patterns are seen after the fact, and stories emerge.  We are both incredibly social and exploratory.  We can achieve the other’s goal simply by emulating him.  Myth encapsulates moral stories for social control; moral philosophy emerges after culture already exists, and is thus a re-discovery.  Societies work to the extent they provide protection, stability, and desired results for its members; cultures must self-maintain, and be flexible in the fact of extenuating circumstances.  Thus, we need to pursue “the third way”, which is the balance between the two, Yin and Yang in the Eastern tradition, so we do not over-change (chaos), but so that we do not stagnate (under-change). We may not be socially fully adapted; the hero suggests this, and is hated by all those who feel inferior. “man who stands outside of culture, necessarily, places himself against nature and the world. This seems a hopeless position. But man knows little of his true potential – and in that ignorance lies his hope.” Humility says, I am not yet what I could be.  Says that for humans, the instinctual response to the unknown, novelty, is fear, which is why it plays so prominently amongst people even today.  Something can be The unknown causes us to have to think, which as  Kahneman points out, most people try to avoid; what is known does not require consciousness.  People are lazy and crave comfort (Nietzsche) “When a great thinker despises men, it is their laziness that he despises: for it is on account of this that they have the appearance of factory products and seem indifferent and unworthy of companionship or instruction. The human being who does not wish to belong to the mass must merely cease being comfortable with himself; let him follow his conscience, which shouts at him: 'Be yourself! What you are at present doing, opining, and desiring, that is not really you'” Categorization makes the world comprehensible, and makes it so our daily lives are not debilitating – we are very good at it.  People know a dog when they see one, but may have a hard time articulating its actual features; identifying a dog requires no effort.  We associate actions when we see things, cats and petting, flowers and smelling.  We categorize based on how things relate to us, “Should I fear it?”; this process can be irrational and involve imagination.  Meaning is context-dependent, I.e. fire, it can cook, and it can burn down houses; winter storms in Florida are disastrous, but run-of-the-mill in Montreal.  Cultures socially learn us to know that things will be okay; they provide protection, and knowing how someone else or something else is going to go or behave.  Traditions, adaptive ways of being, are codified as myths or religions.  That which we find interesting is that which we find meaningful.  Thus, we must pursue those things which interest us.  Author puts forth that if all people pursued what truly interested them, we would reduce neurotic suffering, psychological issues, resulting in a better society.  “Risk your security. Face the unknown. Quit lying to yourself, and do what your heart truly tells you to do. You will be better for it, and so will the world.” Nietzsche.  Instead of getting ones own house in order, people decide that they want to “rule the city,” for that is easier than being a good person.  Sees value in the teachings of Christ, that we should treat our neighbor as we ourselves would truly want to be treated; that we do not do so out of a feeling of superiority, or to make the person feel bad.  We need to focus on our character.  “A man who has put his faith in what he owns, rather than what he stands for, will be unable to sacrifice what he owns, for what he is; will necessarily choose – when the re-emergence of uncertainty forces choice – what he has gathered around him instead of what he could be. This decision will weaken his nature, and make him unable to cope with the tragic weight of his consciousness; will turn him towards the lie, and make him an active agent in production of his own and his society’s pathology.”“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:17-26).  The danger of ideology is that it says everything which there is to be known is known; thus, there is no room for progress, and no room for error, and stagnation results.  Ideology is a hatred of existence, people think they can know all because of pride and “Reason”, there is no humility, and this is cowardice, the idea that you might be wrong.  Evil is shrinking from other ideas; “It is voluntary willingness to do what is known to be wrong, despite the capacity to understand and avoid such action, that most particularly characterizes evil.”  “The human tendency to flee into false havens of security can therefore be viewed with sympathy and understanding.”  Evil is denying anomaly, denying what is true; perpetrating evil degrades character.  People do not self-comprehend; many have the capacity to be a Pol Pot, Hitler, or Stalin.  There are two sides to every story, and ideology only tell part of a story, as if it were complete. Natural environments and nature can be beautiful; it can also embody painful death.  For many people, individualism is a manifestation of the collective, because they do not know how to be individual; but, the environment which allows for individuality creates the environment for the creative person to explore and find better ways of being, which can often arise from exposure with other cultures (attributed to gifts from the Gods in primitive cultures).  Diversity enhances the potential solutions to problems.  The known, explored, vs the unknown, the unexplored, is the great challenge of life; reality is a forum for action.  We have what is, and we have what we think should be (moral), and we need to chart how to get from A to B.  We imagine things about the ideal state, B, and thus have expectations.  Things which get in the way of our steps to the goal are perceived as obstacles, and are thus frustrating; I.e. a bicycle on the road is an obstacle to my getting where I want to go in my car.  Points out that something like a termination from your job ruins both your understanding of point A, what is, and point B, that you deserve to be promoted; this is a traumatic event for the person.  Everything is about ones perspective, however.  Points to a story about being in Auschwitz vs Dachau – one meant you would die, the other meant you would not; thus, even though the relative conditions of Dachau vs. Freedom are horrendous, they are better than being at Auschwitz, and thus are cause for celebration.  “Good” and “Bad” are subjective; cheesecake is not going to help you lose weight, but it may bring you happiness.  Thus, our goals for the future can contradict; meaning can shift when our goals change.  Some may change their approach to a goal, some may change the goal, some may give up altogether.  Certain things must occur for survival (eating, drinking, etc); we select what we should value from those things we must value, we can never know for certain what someone will want; from the anorexic to the power-hungry man, our belief determines all our actions.  Things have objective qualities, and then have a status associated with them – its perceived value.  Thus, the value of things is a social construct, and has motivational qualities.  Everything both is and means.  Pre-scientific history, which is to say the thinking for the majority of mankind, was all about moral qualities, whatever moral qualities that thing had, the evil darkness, the good light.  Experimental man has the capacity to articulate thing; it is easy, in so doing, to throw out elements of culture left and right, without necessarily understanding the long term implications, which will be revealed over time.  We do not know what the “death of God” will result in, leaving gaping holes in the hearts of humanity.  Points out that our Western structures of morality and justice are based on Christian culture and values; thou shall not kill, not steal, etc; mythological conventions guide our actions.  Man “wants to be more than a piano key” -- he wants to believe he matters, he can do things; this is human nature – the need for redemption is a common myth, and this can be achieved through actions.  Authoritarian societies want to negate life, out of hatred for it.  If everyone was all knowing and immortal everything would be the same; difference between things allows them to exist at all.  Grief presupposes having loved, life was valuable to us.  Nothing can exist without preconditions; borders and rules protect us to pursue our gifts.  If we all used our gifts, perhaps the World would be a better place.  Good and evil must coexist, for good to have value, for there to be choice.  “Serve truth above all else, and treat your fellow man as if he were yourself – not with the pity that undermines his self-respect, and not with the justice that elevates yourself above him – but as a divinity, heavily burdened, who could yet see the light.”Abandonment of interest and meaning will lead to destructive adaptation, as individuals hate pointless pain and frustration.  Belief determines value; thus, life and action are given meaning, by choosing to do something good.  “It is said, it is more difficult to rule oneself, than a city – and this is no metaphor.  This is truth, as literal as it can be made.  It is precisely for this reason that we are always trying to rule the city.  It is a perversion of pride to cease praying in public, and to clean up the dust under our feet, instead; seems too mundane to treat those we actually face with respect and dignity, when we could be active, against, in the street.  Maybe it is more important to strengthen our characters, than to repair the world.  So much of that reparation seems selfish, anyway; is selfishness and intellectual pride masquerading as love, creating a world polluted with good works, that don’t work.”