Here's an essay I wrote several years ago.
Over the past year or so I’ve spent a great deal of time watching Jordan Peterson lectures on Youtube, and I am now about to finish reading his book 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos. The book is interesting. It goes into great detail discussing the dominance hierarchy (which can be called a “competence hierarchy” as it applies to humans). The idea is that society is ranked according to a pecking order of power as it relates to competence. But with humans that pecking order is based on how well certain individuals are at performing useful tasks. That sounds benign, but one of the examples he gives is of chickens in a barnyard fighting for food. The alpha males get the first opportunity to eat the corn, then the second-ranking males get a chance to eat, then the third-ranked chickens, and so forth, until finally the totally bedraggled chickens at the bottom of the hierarchy get a chance to come in and peck at the scraps. In the animal kingdom this is harrowing, but Peterson lets us know that it is no less harrowing for humans. In fact, it may be more harrowing.
Peterson says, “I like to scare my students.” And, indeed, much of what he reveals about life is scary. And while Peterson is a top-shelf psychologist, as a philosopher he is incoherent. Everything he says derives from presuppositions (his word). What he won’t tell you is that these presuppositions define his outlook in a way that is inflexible. He claims to be opposed to ideology and ideologues, but I have noticed that he refuses to give at all on certain key points.
His two favorite presuppositions are as follows: 1.) Being is good. (Hence, reproduction is generally good.) And 2.) Life is suffering. If you think these are at stark odds with each other (or that, at least, the second doesn’t support the first), then you’re not alone. Peterson might tell you that his first presupposition is that responsibility is good, but that is beside the point, as responsibility can’t be good as a rule unless being is good as a rule. It’s this need for principle which underlies much of his approach. Jordan Peterson is a man of principle, and that is his biggest fault.
As Hamlet famously stated, “Nothing is either good or bad except that thinking makes it so.” Peterson’s insistence that being is good—and that being itself is never at fault—is one of his “Darwinian Truths.” According to him, a Darwinian Truth is something one must believe in order to survive. It doesn’t necessarily have to be factual. This is what came out in his debate with Sam Harris, and it stands in sharp contrast to his eighth rule of life: Tell the truth—or, at least, don’t lie. What is a convenient lie but a statement which isn’t factual but which I am telling in order to get by? I think abortion is often immoral, but if I go to an extreme and say, “Abortion is murder,” I have to deal with the consequences. If abortion is murder it follows that abortion should be punished with a life sentence, and certainly that is absurd. Saying abortion is murder may help me get through life, but it is an untruth, a lie—and for me it would be a convenient one.
Is life suffering? Certainly not, otherwise it couldn’t possibly be worth living. He claims that he gets this from religion in general and Buddhism particularly, but the Buddha simply said, “Life is dukkha.” Dukkha is a Sanskrit word which refers to a general unsatisfactoriness or suffering. The word has more than one connotation. Life has a strong undercurrent of suffering, but whatever else the case may be with religion, life is not, in its sum, suffering. Most of my time is spent in a state that is not suffering—a neutral state. To simply say, “Life is suffering,” is to be guilty of a Darwinian Truth—to lie for the sake of convenience. —Not that I necessarily have a problem with lying. Mark Twain said that lying was a forgotten art in his day, and besides, I’m a poet.
Whenever Peterson is confronted with world overpopulation he says that having children is good on principle and that anyone who is against having children is against life, against being. Such irresponsible, unyielding thinking is not going to save us or the planet. I think life is good, but I am not a man of principle, and you might be able to talk me out of it. I’m not adhering to any Darwinian Truth here. I think life is worth preserving, but for reasons which are inchoate and beyond analysis. Having children might be good and it might be bad, depending on the circumstances. This is why I’m not a man of principle.
Instead of having 12 unyielding rules for life I have rules of thumb—things I can take or toss at will, as the circumstances of life dictate. One of them comes from Taoism: “Know the male / but hold to the female.” In all of Peterson’s talk about Taoism he leaves out this jewel. Doubtless it would conflict with whatever else he’s said about masculine order and feminine chaos. But how could he talk about Taoism and leave out one of the crowning jewels? Is he, after all, an ideologue of some kind?
Finally, it is important to point out that humans can and have transcended the dominance hierarchy. In hunter-gatherer societies it is usually a practice to distribute the food from a kill so that everyone gets the same amount. So while there may be an alpha male, it doesn’t necessarily entitle him to more food. That is something that only comes into play with the advent of property and civilization.
Joel Fry
*Update: I definitely believe that intelligent people should produce more children, as there is a birth rate crisis.
*If you want to read more of my poetry Google "Late Alabama Joel Fry" to purchase my book.
No comments:
Post a Comment