Beyond Order

A while ago I read Beyond Order by Jordan Peterson. It is very much like his previous book, Twelve Rules For Life. He rambles, going down every possible tangent, and it is not always obvious how the content of a chapter relates to its theme. Furthermore, there were parts I did not understand. For example, he first talks about how order can be good or bad (the wise king versus the tyrant) and about how chaos can be good or bad (the feminine potential versus the witch), giving us four character archetypes, but then he suddenly starts talking about seven characters, of which chaos itself is one (not two) of the characters.

There are many delicious ideas. Here are only a few:

Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement. Conservatives recognize the value of institutions. Any solution to a social problem must work well enough that most agree with it over long periods of time. Thus, such things are hard to build and easy to lose. Liberals recognize the value of creativity. It allows us to find new solutions. There must be balance between order and chaos. Do not mistake competence for tyranny or tyranny for competence.

Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that. This is the highest calling and it will give you purpose. It will give you a reason not to give up when things are difficult.

Do not hide unwanted things in the fog. The truth may be unpleasant, but we are better knowing it. A conflict may be unpleasant, but we are better off having the argument than pretending that everything in the relationship is okay. Avoiding a problem teaches you to avoid problems. Giving in to pleasure reinforces the neural pathways that led to it. Addiction works through feedback. Willingly facing fears resets our anxiety. The first step is to really look. Looking at evil helps us to better appreciate good, to understand where evil is limited and not all-encompassing, and to understand how to avoid evil.

Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated. This is a great way to start a business or get a promotion.

Do not do what you hate, or else you may end up hating yourself. Then you will slack off and self-sabotage.

Abandon ideology. Instead remain childlike, ready to learn new things, hoping to have been wrong before. Be an explorer rather than a hero.

Work as hard as you can on at least one thing and see what happens. You will change. You will lose some of your potential, but you will make something out of yourself.

Make one room in your house as beautiful as possible. Art inspires gratitude and connects us to the transcendent. Experience brings simplification in perception, but art can bring us back to childhood. Making friends also gets harder with age because we become more rigid in who we are with experience. Artists contend with the unknown and are themselves on a learning journey even while they teach (otherwise they are propagandists).

If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely. Your brain won’t let you forget trauma until it has reason to think it won’t happen again. This requires learning from the experience and learning how it can be avoided. Writing it all down helps us to understand the causal relationships.

Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship. Your partner might not deserve you, but marriage is a higher calling than either of you. The job of a spouse is to bring out the best in the other by speaking truth above all else.

Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. These are bad things.

Be grateful in spite of your suffering. Suffering is only made worse by resentment.

We love because of the limitations of those we love; we do not love omnipotent beings.

Our perception is imbedded in our goals and our morality. Recognizing objects require values. Values make things detachable for different purposes. Otherwise, it’s all just “matter.” This is why AIs still can’t get around CAPTCHAS.

Living together before marriage sends the signal that the other is just an “experiment” not worth committing to.

Adam might have been a hermaphrodite before Eve was taken out of him. Jesus might have also been a hermaphrodite.

Lions coordinate to take down wildebeest when they can focus on the same one, requiring it have something that makes it stand out from the group. Human ancestors were also prey animals and would likely have an instinct to conform. In modern society, this instinct now manifests as a hatred of anything different. It is no longer helpful.

Something being more difficult makes it worth more.

Nihilists claim all is meaningless, yet some will find meaning in music.

Repeated annoyances are never minor.

Socrates believed that learning was actually remembering the knowledge we had in our omniscient, pre-carnal state.

We can’t help but see the world as gendered personalities. Gender is hard-wired into us. This is the sentiment behind polytheism.

We think not only as individuals, but in groups. The collective knowledge of society is greater than any one person could hold. This is one reason why speech (and freedom of speech) is so vital.

In the beginning, the primary adversary of humans were predator animals, especially snakes. Eventually, the human psyche and cultural storytelling grew to see other humans as the adversary, sometimes associating them with snakes. In time, this concept became broadened to include evil wherever it might be found, including in oneself. It was personified as the author of sin and father of lies, Satan, often taking the form of a snake.

There were also two quotes I thought were especially poignant and concise:

“Ideologues are the intellectual equivalent of fundamentalists, unyielding and rigid…It might be even worse…Right-wing Jews, Islamic hard-liners, and ultra-conservative Christians must admit, if pushed, that God is essentially mysterious. This concession provides at least some boundary for their claims…For the ideologue, however, nothing remains outside understanding or mastery…There is no claim more totalitarian and no situation in which the worst excesses of pride are more likely to manifest themselves.” – Beyond Order, pages 173-174

“Everywhere, the cynic despairs, are bad decisions. But someone who has transcended that cynicism…objects: the worst decision of all is none.” – Beyond Order, page 188

Overall, five stars.

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