Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Rule #1: Stand up Straight with your shoulders back

Unless you have been living under a rock you have heard of Dr. Jordan Peterson. He is everywhere these days, and it seems everybody has an opinion of him. The Far, Far Left screams he is the incarnation of Hitler, the Far, Far Right just as loudly proclaims he is our political messiah. Apart from the outlier screamers, most of us in the quiet middle have found him to be extremely well-spoken with some very pragmatic and practical views… at least in the deluge of his short-video clips that we wade through every day in our social media accounts! We might not agree with everything he has to say, and sometimes disagree quite strongly, but his method of laying out his arguments invite us to understand both our agreements and disagreements in a sane and logical manner.

So I wanted to actually dive into Dr. Peterson’s philosophy by reading his book ‘12 Rules for Life – an antidote to chaos’. We complain that the world has been reduced to 10-second sound bites with no real depth, right? So lets step into the deep-end and see what the world looks like to Dr. Peterson.

I should note that I am publishing these ‘reaction’ blogs as I read. I just finished chapter 1: ‘Rule #1: Stand up Straight with your shoulders back’ and have not begun ‘Rule #2‘, that is for tomorrow. Doing it this way, chapter by chapter, risks responding to something that Dr. Peterson covers in later chapters. If that happens, I will certainly attempt to acknowledge that!

But, into the deep end!

Rule #1: Stand up Straight with your shoulders back

Thesis:

Be mindful in how you present your self. Your posture, your gaze, your walk should all shout ‘bold and dangerous’ to the world. ‘Dare to be Dangerous’!

Summary:

This chapter has a bit of ‘fake it till you make it’ in it. But it is much more than that, really. Dr. Peterson breaks down the dynamics of hierarchy here, of enhancing your position in society through management of how we appear to others. He exhorts us to ‘stand up tall’ and ‘gaze forthrightly ahead’ to appear confident to others and yourself. Dare to be dangerous! In doing so, others will begin treating you as if you are that (whether you are or aren’t is another matter, apparently) and you yourself will start to believe it and your future prospects, based on your hierarchical position in society, will be enhanced as you build more confidence in yourself. A positive feedback loop – you believe you are ‘bold and dangerous’ so you act ‘bold and dangerous’ therefore people treat you as ‘bold and dangerous’ which reinforces what you believe about yourself, and so forth.

My reaction:

I like this approach, with some misgivings. Surely everything Dr. Peterson says is true, I have no direct disagreement with his basic premise here. Stand up for who you are and fight for what you know is right. Be strong and be bold… but… based on what?

The truth of the matter

is that not everybody has a reason to be ‘strong and bold’. You must know what your strength is based on. I am not a computer programmer, so if I find myself in a discussion about computer logic, Artificial Intelligence, and algorithms, I know I have very little to offer and so will naturally hold back, regardless of what I think my opinion is, simply because I have no basis to be ‘bold and dangerous’. However, I AM a retired Navy Submarine Officer. If I find myself in a conversation about Navy culture, Submarine history, the advisability of social engineering in the services, or warfare tactics and strategy, then I have a great deal to base my ‘bold and dangerous’ stance on – and would be doing myself and those around me a disservice by holding back in a timid manner.

So what is Dr. Peterson assuming?

Certainly he knows that we all have our areas of expertise and would want us to boldly declare our positions on them, but what about the people who don’t have a base of strength? I suspect he would argue that those people are experts on themselves. That they should stand up for the issues and matters that effect them, as people, as male/female, as citizens. And I would agree with that, but would add that if all you are is an ‘expert’ on your own interests, than you aren’t an expert at all, only a self-interested narcissist (intentionally or not). So my own addition to this chapter would be to insist that a person feeling ‘small and timid’ either identify an area of expertise they already possess, or develop an area of expertise outside themselves and work to continually expand that mastery. A skill, career, an identity that has as its locus a point outside of oneself. Yes, by all means be bold on issues that matter. But “the opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” – Marcus Aurelius

So become a man/woman of value, of mastery of a subject, become someone whose ‘bold and dangerous’ opinion has some weight, some authority. After all, my toddler is extremely ‘bold and dangerous’ when protesting the tyranny of bedtime…but nobody listens to those purely self-interested protests – not at all.

A final note:

I believe the good Doctor takes Matthew 25:29 severely out of context. He uses this verse as part of his ‘law of unequal distribution’ argument – which I wholeheartedly agree with – but using this verse as a demonstration of that principle is improper. Matthew 25:29 is part of the parable of the servants who were given a talent (a unit of money) to invest and ‘work’ for their boss. The diligent servant invested it and earned 10 talents, while the foolish servant buried his one talent and offered it back to his boss seeming to think he deserved a reward for not risking, and possibly losing, the one talent. The boss was mad because the foolish servant did not use his ‘grubstake’ to invest and build more like the wise servant did. So the boss took the money from the foolish worker and gave it to the wise worker to better use and invest. It is a poor example of ‘unequal distribution’ and better illustrates that we are to use our resources that God gave us to further God’s kingdom. After all, all that money went back to the boss (God), not left for the wealth and privilege, nor ‘all of the girls’, of that one wise servant!

On to Rule #2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping —->