A Chapter from Our Forthcoming Book Critiquing Jordan Peterson

“Peterson consistently invokes the Schopenhauerian-Nietzschean trope that the most important thing is to strengthen the self against the suffering of the world. The stronger one becomes, the greater and more worthy of respect and emulation by those around him.”

Author’s note: The following is excerpted from an early chapter in our forthcoming book Myth and Mayhem, which analyzes 12 Rules for Life.

Introduction

Alongside Chapter One, the most important political ruminations in 12 Rules for Life appear in Chapter Six “Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World.” This is a theme Peterson comes back to quite consistently, particularly with regard to youthful social justice advocates. This is also the Chapter where Peterson’s inclinations towards a Burkean-style ordered liberty approach to politics become most transparent. He continuously insists that the complexity of the world is so vast that individuals who do not fully even have their own lives in order have no right to assume they can improve it. Thus, it is far better to adopt the cautious approach of conforming to the expectations of the external social world, while working to develop one’s self worth and success from within.

Peterson’s justification for this position is, in fact, highly consonant with the cautious and even pessimistic conservative philosophies articulated by figures like Leo Strauss, Russell Kirk, and others. Though as always, political dimensions of such inclinations are less explicitly brought to the surface than in the work of those seminal thinkers. Chapter Six opens with a chilling analysis of the Columbine killers’ motivation, echoing the concluding sections of Maps of Meaning on the problem of evil. He points out how the killers appointed themselves judges of existence itself (and the human race in particular) and found them wanting. Their response was to take revenge against existence through a spectacularly impotent act of violence. Peterson points out that these figures (and evil in general) emerge because life in the world is invariably hard. Like the pessimistic conservative Schopenhauer before him, at points, Peterson comes very close to accepting the wisdom of Silenus: that the best thing in life would be to have never been born—and the next best thing would be to die quickly. As Peterson puts it early in the Chapter:

“Life is in truth very hard. Everyone is destined for pain and slated for destruction. Sometimes suffering is clearly the result of a personal fault such as willful blindness, poor decision-making or malevolence. In such cases, when it appears to be self-inflicted, it may even seem just. People get what they deserve, you might contend. That’s cold comfort, however, even when true. Sometimes, if those who are suffering changed their behavior, then their lives would unfold less tragically. But human control is limited. Susceptibility to despair, disease, aging and death is universal.”

Given all this, it is understandable that some people may come away from the evils of life with a desire to do great evil themselves. But Peterson also points out that some may emerge from even tremendous tragedy without being defined by resentment and anger. They may come away with the conviction to do good, though what that means is not necessarily clear.