12 Rules for Life Lessons
Jordan Peterson Key Videos
“Millennials, Depression, and Success”
“Millennials, Overprotective Parents, and His Own Courage”
“The Lies Behind Getting a Career”
“Jordan Peterson’s Life Advice Will Change Your Future”
“Do What the 99% Aren’t Doing”
Essay Options
Option A:
Develop a argumentative thesis that addresses this question: How persuasive is Jordan Peterson’s use of a lobster allegory as behavior code for humans?
Option B:
In the Vox article “A feminist author makes the case against Jordan Peterson,” author of Kate Manne says of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life: “Peterson’s book has numerous sections which I would characterize as sexist because they naturalize and rationalize a patriarchal social order.” Develop a thesis that supports, refutes, or complicates Manne’s claim.
Option C:
Based on the Vox article “A feminist author makes the case against Jordan Peterson,” refute, support, or complicate the claim that Peterson’s argument for enforced monogamy is a misogynistic principle.
Lesson One
One. Why do we need rules?
- Rules make us accountable to an objective standard, without which we will live a life of aimless chaos and emptiness.
- Rules make us judged by society, and to be judged is to be held accountable, and to be held accountable is a sign that we matter as human beings. Ironically, not being held accountable makes us invisible and diminished as human beings.
- Without rules, we would be slaves to unbridled passions. Without rules, our passions grow in unnatural ways that warp and pervert our nature. Imagine people on social media who have no boundaries and who are addicted to having millions of followers and no number, however great, can cure them of their misery.
- Rules are the antidote to the chaos and emptiness of moral relativism, the false tolerance that says, “No one is right or wrong. Everyone just as their own opinion.”
- Rules give us order in which people act within expected, “well-understood cultural norms.”
- Order and chaos are the yin and yang of existence, and we need to find balance through rules. The kids who got kicked out of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory were spoiled brats who had no sense of rules. They were pure chaos.
- Rules prevent us from the worst kind of pain life has to offer. Peterson asks us to imagine being betrayed by a trusted lover. How would we feel? What happens when married couples cheat on each other and they have children? Are the results desirable?
- Rules give us a “hierarchy of value.” For example, I prioritize my finances for my daughters’ college education before I spend that money on a luxury car or a luxury timepiece.
- Rules organize our lives so we can improve and progress in whatever skills or talents we have. Without this sense of progress, we will be miserable.
- Rules give us meaning and repel the disease of nihilism (belief that nothing in life matters). Why? Because rules are based on values, and values are the cornerstone of meaning.
Two. How do lobsters’ struggle for territory mirror our condition?
We compete for territory because territory (zip code, if you will) determines our quality of life. The rich live in premium locations and enjoy longest, healthy lives. The poor live in high-stress areas and live shorter, more sickly, more brutal lives.
We are in a constant competition for resources in a fight to win ranking on what Peterson calls a “pecking order” for quality of life and reproductive success.
Pecking order, largely based on income, for humans, determines neurochemistry, which elevates serotonin in lobster victory and elevates octopamine in defeat. These hormones affect body language, either bold and proud or cowering and ashamed.
Principle of Unequal Distribution (Pareto Rule)
The competition for resources has high stakes and is grossly unfair, as determined by Darwinian selection or Nature. The Top 1% have equal to the bottom 50%.
The world’s richest 85 people have as much wealth as the world’s bottom 3.5 billion people. The world as of May 2018 has 7.8 billion people.
Dominance and Societal Hierarchies ae nature, not a political system (24). We see this in the lobster world and human world.
Jordan Peterson video on societal hierarchy and dominance
Constant Feedback Loop
Our ranking affects others’ perception of us and how we see others perceive us affects our hormones, and our hormones, manifest in body language, affect how people perceive us, so that we exist in a constant feedback loop.
Peterson uses example of an adolescent who was bullied and who reacts to life’s challenges based on being a bullying victim. These over reactions affect the person even later in adult life.
Depressed people feel useless. They give depressed vibes to others who turn away from the depressed who in turn feel unloved, a perception that makes them even more depressed, and so the cycle continues to reinforce itself.
As Ariel Levy, a child of abuse, writes in her book An Abbreviated Life, we tend to react to conflict using a mallet when we should use a scalpel. The mallet does more harm than good.
Three. How does Peterson defend his claim that there are appropriate circumstances for aggression?
What Peterson is talking about is self-defense from tyrants, bullies, racist thugs, sexist misogynists, trolls, and others who commit acts of evil against us must be met with retaliation. We cannot countenance (tolerate) evil behavior with passivity (37).
Passivity invites more abuse from the aforementioned thugs.
We have to be like lobsters and defend our territory, so to speak.
Four. What is the Basic Goodness Fallacy?
Peterson observes that it is naive and dangerous to assume that people “are basically good” because in fact people have an Inner Lobster that will take advantage and invade our territory if given the chance (37).
Knowing that there are some people who would take advantage of us, Peterson urges us to disavow a victim’s helpless posture and assume strong body language. Such stand-tall body language is the beginning of rejecting a victim mentality.
Positive Feedback Loop
Taking care of yourself, your fitness, your nutrition, your sleep, your limited screen time on social media, your body posture, to name some examples, can create a positive feedback loop. Respecting yourself causes others to respect you, which in turn reinforces your self-respect.
“People, like lobsters, size each other up” (40), so you need to take care of yourself.
Self-care is the first step in the road to achieving a positive feedback loop.
Examples of Self-Care
By posting too much on social media, you’re advertising your loneliness and neediness. You’re making yourself appear like a weak lobster in the social media universe, and others will avoid you, causing you to feel rejected, ensuing more feelings of loneliness, neediness, and depression, which will create a negative feedback loop.
Social Media Excess
Defend your honor and your self-respect by cutting back on social media, achieving excellence in your fitness and studies, and creating a positive feedback loop through those pursuits.
Diet and Exercise
Defend your honor and your self-respect by no longer larding your diet with excessive sugars and processed foods and getting “punk fed, which will result in metabolic syndrome, dyspepsia, fatigue, and diabetes, having the cumulative effects of being a Weak Lobster. Instead, eat whole foods and find exercise that you enjoy doing consistently so that you show yourself and others that you care about yourself so that you can create a positive feedback loop.
College Studies
Defend your honor and your self-respect by “going all in” your college studies instead of approaching college with a sullen, half-hearted, slovenly cowardice that tells yourself and the world that you’re too scared and weak-hearted to be successful.
In the realm of social media, diet, exercise, and college studies, you need to cultivate Lobster Strength and Dignity to protect your territory.
Jordan Peterson reminds us that physical and attitudinal changes mentioned in the above examples don’t just alter our body and change our body language; they change our spirit and psychology in a way that steers us toward success.
Making the above changes is the first step in “responding to a challenge rather than bracing for a catastrophe” (40).
To stand up straight with your shoulders back is not just a physical posture; it is a position you take with your mind to defend your honor and self-respect. Such a posture is the first responsibility: To take charge of how you react to a world rife with challenges, competition, and evil.
To stand up straight with your shoulders back makes you attentive to others so you can read social cues and respond appropriately.
To slouch like a sad sack sends your brain signals deep inside your head so you become oblivious to the outside world around you and clueless you become a victim.
Reject the victim mentality and replace the victim with a more heroic version of yourself. This is the essence of Peterson’s message in this chapter.
The lobster has survived for 350 million years for a reason: Its instincts are correct, and we’d be wise to learn from those instincts.
Rule 2: Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible for Helping
Five. Why don’t sick people comply with their physicians’ orders and take their medication correctly if at all?
Up to 30% of patients never get their prescriptions and of those who do up to 50% don’t take the drugs according to instructions.
People follow prescription instructions better for their pets than they do themselves, Peterson observes, because people don’t love themselves enough to take care of themselves properly.
Six. How much shame must people suffer before they comply with rules that are in their own best interests?
In the pre-scientific world reality was seen as a place of actions, not things as evident in the ancient story of Genesis.
Before science, existence was not defined by things but by experience, subjective experience such as love, connection, alienation, fear, and shame. Ancient stories provided fables to explain the psychological underpinnings that explained the causes of these subject experiences.
These stories were moral fables that looked at the moral character of the human race.
A lot of ancient stories help are designed to help us avoid pain, the pain of rejection, the pain of being ostracized by the community, the pain of not living up to our expectations.
Anguish of Manque (person who has failed to reach his or her potential; a human being who has squandered his or her talents on BS)
Here is a word intense pain and anguish of personal failure: Manque: used to describe what a person could or should have been but never was.
A person with the awareness that he could have been something but whose foolish behavior made him fall short of his potential has a soul-crushing despair that can only be described as hell.
If people aren’t familiar with moral stories and language to describe their spiritual condition, then they exist in unspoken, unarticulated despair, resulting in a lack of self-love that makes them neglect themselves.
This neglect can manifest in many ways: not eating right, not being disciplined, not taking one’s medicine according to the prescription. All of these are depressive behaviors.
Falling in love, being crushed by the shame of betraying our commitments to others, and experiencing the despair of manque are examples of human experience that are better explained through stories than they are scientific explanations.
Chaos, the terror of being thrown into unexplored territory, and order, the comfort, of being in familiar terrain, are experience described by stories (48).
Order is a faithful marriage with loving children.
Chaos is a husband who binges on all sorts of self-indulgent tomfoolery while embarking on a “mid-life crisis” as he “tries to find himself.”
Order is keeping to a study routine for your college success while chaos is partying the night before a calculus exam.
The two fundamental experiences of Being are order and chaos.
The Bible’s Genesis contains Paradise, which is order, and the serpent, which is chaos.
Even in the richest foliage of paradise fecund with sweet, deliquescing fruits, the serpent within us can strike and bring chaos to our psyches and spirits.
Jordan observes we can never create a Paradise safe enough to protect our children from their own inner serpents and the serpents that slither across Planet Earth. He then writes: “It is far better to render Beings in your care competent than to protect them” (62).
We need to know how to battle our serpents rather than expect us to be able to wall ourselves off from them.
Serpents, which are challenge and danger, are what make people stronger, smarter, and more innovative.
Finding Balance Between Order and Chaos
Order is security but too much order is life-killing authoritarianism.
Chaos is fear, but some chaos is essential for giving us change and allowing us to explore new possibilities.
Wisdom is in part finding balance between order and chaos.
Seven. How does Peterson describe that Genesis is a story about how shame and self-consciousness motivateus to be responsible?
Peterson observes that after Eve bites the fruit of knowledge and she has full awareness, she cannot let Adam be a ignoramus. He must bite from the fruit also and be aware and ashamed of his condition so that he can be a fully realized, responsible man.
Peterson observes that throughout time women shame men by rejecting them and men’s rejection motivates men to improve their intellect, body, and spirit.
Shame means being able to see our faults so that we can be accountable for our actions.
Shame is the cure.
The person who doesn’t take his medication is blind to shame and he lacks the cure for his pathological behavior.
Self-Respect Requires the Shame of Knowing We’re Fallen Creatures
We have a dark side, a serpent, that can trick us, deceive us, intoxicate us with our own vanity and sense of self-rectitude. Humility is being able to acknowledge our limitations as we must battle with this dark side.
Your Self Is Not Yours, But Belongs to the Human Race in Their Service
This is a powerful religious idea that compels you to avoid abusing yourself because your self is not free for you to do to it as you please. You have boundaries and responsibilities to yourself just as you have expectations of others.
Shame and *****ing the bed
To **** the bed means to make a mess of things, to make a car crash of things, because you became unhinged, out of control, and blind to the fact that you were in a free fall.
Metaphorically speaking, you will **** the bed from time to time, causing chaos for yourself and others, but it is your moral obligation to forgive yourself, move forward, and become stronger from the humbling lesson of having **** the bed so that you won’t shame yourself again.
*****ing the bed happens to the best of us.
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