Over the past year, a surprising number of people have asked me, “What do you think of Jordan B. Peterson?” He’s made quite a stir.
A few weeks ago, I took some time to listen to some of his podcasts. You can get a good summary of his views (2.5 hours worth!) in his interview with Dr. Oz. If you like thinking deeply about ideas and how to implement them in the world, you will enjoy this podcast, probably irrespective of your view of Peterson.
I’m sure that I’ll have some critiques of Peterson later, but, for now, I’m trying to understand what he’s saying and learn what I can from him. Here’s what I heard.
Peterson’s greatest concern is how do we keep the world from turning into an awful, soul-crushing tyranny like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany? He spent a lot of time thinking through this problem. He tried to analyze it from a political and economic perspective, but he did not believe that it gave an adequate explanation of why these societies became hell on earth.
His analysis led him to believe that the problem existed on an individual level. It wasn’t just a problem with the system. It was a problem with individuals taking responsibility for themselves and for doing good in their society.
Thus, in Peterson’s mind, the place to attack the problem of making society better is at the level of the individual. Each individual needs to take responsibility for him or herself and for doing good in their own area. That’s the best strategy for making society better.
At one point, Dr. Oz asked Peterson why he thought his ideas had resonated so much with the public. Peterson explained that taking responsibility is not easy. When you seek to take responsibility for yourself and to be better, it involves suffering and challenges. To confront our own demons and make ourselves better is daunting. Things will not be handed to you on a silver platter. You will have to work at them, and it will not be easy. Suffering is part of life.
Peterson observes that people know in the depths of their being that life is hard. When you tell them that it is, they can face reality more squarely. They can see that the difficulties they have faced are not some problem with them but the inherent challenge of living in this world. In an ironic way, this is an encouraging message as well as a helpful one.
If changing ourselves is important and difficult, how do we do it? Peterson suggests that we need to figure out what we want to be. We need to tell ourselves a story about what we could be and should be. Then, we need to develop a story of what life would be like if we don’t become what we could be and should be or even let our own pathology run amok. For example, if we work on developing skills, we will have a future self that can make a contribution. If we devote ourselves to drinking alcohol, we will not only not accomplish things but ruin our lives and our families and waste a bunch of money. We need the positive reinforcement of getting closer to our goals as well as the fear of what life could be like if it went the wrong way to motivate us to move beyond simply enjoying ourselves in the moment.
Once we have a clear vision of where we want to be, we must ask, what are the things I can do to help me get there? What do we need to do each day and week in order to move us toward our vision?
Here’s one way this has helped me think a bit better about about my goals. I took guitar lessons when I was in junior high. I have often wanted to pick the guitar back up, but I have often gotten discouraged at how much work or time it would take to get where I’d like to be. If I begin, however, by asking, what kind of guitarist can I be if I work on it 3-4 times a week over the course of 5 years, then the work is not so daunting. So, I’ve been doing that, and I can see that I’ve made progress since I took the guitar back up a couple of months ago. The long-term vision helps sustain us through the work that has to take place week by week, which is still far from our goals. One of my favorite quotes from Peterson is, “Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday.”
In attempting to fulfill a vision for our lives, we will find that things are stacked up against us and that many things are unfair. At one point, Peterson compares life to a poker game. The cards are dealt, and it is not fair. You just have to play your own hand because that’s the only strategy you have. You can’t manufacture another life in which things will be fairer or easier than they are for you.
This does not mean that Peterson does not believe that there are structural inequities in what he calls the “hierarchies” of society. There are. Hierarchies dispossess people. It’s just that changing hierarchies is not the most significant aspect of societal change. The individual is.
Peterson also does not reject efforts to make the hierarchies more equitable. However, he suggests that in regard to systems, when you change them, you should be aware that changing them will result in unintended consequences. So, it takes tremendous wisdom and patience to change the structures of society. That’s why Peterson proposes that if you want to change the structures of society, have at it, but you might want to devote your life to careful thought about it and recognize that the progress will be very slow.
In contrast, working on yourself is relatively easy and much more effective. That’s why the individual is the focus for changing society.
It’s easy to see why Peterson’s ideas are compelling to so many. Peterson has a forceful and clear presentation that challenges the irresponsibility of our age and speaks truth about the difficulties of life. He also presents hope for society because each person can work on that over which they have the most control, their selves.
Obviously, an evangelical Christian will have issues with Peterson, but there is much to learn from him. There is also much more to explore in his thought. I have not even touched on his approach to literature or the Bible, which is something I want to explore and think about. In thinking about society, however, his emphasis on individual transformation is an encouraging one that is worth considering. Even if it is more necessary to change societal structures than Peterson suggests, the course of action he suggests for an individual would still have many positive benefits for the individual and those in contact with that individual.
