Review: Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Rule #2: Treat Yourself like someone you are Responsible for helping

continuing our review of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life: an antidote to Chaos, we move on from Rule #1: Stand up Straight with your shoulders back, and continue to Rule #2: Treat Yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

Now, if you remember, I found Rule#1 to be a great rule, only relatively unsupported by the chapter designed to support it. My response – ‘Based on what?’ reflects my opinion that confidence based on nothing more than attitude and conditioned response is hollow and you will end up a fool. Moving on to Rule #2, I fine myself with a similar response – ‘Why?’. Again, I agree completely with the rule and have arrived at that opinion largely from a Judeo-Christian value schema, but I was interested in how Dr. Peterson arrives at the conclusion that we are ‘worth valuing’. Read below for my thoughts on Rule #2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

Rule #2: treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping

Thesis:

Find and define your meaning in life – that will help you realize your own self-worth, your divine Being- as someone worth taking care of.

Summary:

We, people, refuse to see ourselves as worth taking care of. Even when we value other people, we neglect our own worth and intrinsic value. We are deeply deeply ashamed of our fallen nature and are attempting to ‘hide from God’. We have gotten so good at ‘hiding from God’ that we have hidden our own divine Being from ourselves. Without that value, that intrinsic divinity, planted within and part of our soul – we have no meaning no purpose in life. Our purpose lies in emulating our divine creator, by forming Order from the Chaos that surrounds and threatens to engulf us. To forge Order from Chaos we must walk that narrow path that separates the two – one foot in Order, the other in Chaos. We are not infinite beings and cannot solve every problem, so we must decide what our own personal mission is in this life, our meaning, only then we internalize our value, can we begin to truly care for ourselves as divinely-inspired beings.

My reaction:

Have you ever watched someone, perhaps your Mother or Grandmother, knit? They probably used two or more threads of yarn and created a beautiful ‘something’ out of it, perhaps a scarf or a sweater. Did you ever see them use two completely different yarns to knit together? Say, a thick heavy wool yarn and a fine delicate silk thread? No? Why not? Both are completely useful yarns – but they don’t go together do they? They don’t work together in the same garment. I felt the same way with this second chapter on Rule#2: treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. Dr. Peterson spends a great deal of this chapter on why people don’t take care of themselves – but he goes about it in a very odd way, a way that left me feeling very dissatisfied- like I had missed a whole section.

He talks about our elemental feelings of worthlessness and ashamedness

at what horrible creatures we are and uses that discussion as the base of why we don’t feel worthy of the same care we give other Beings, animals/pets included. Fair enough – though I think Dr. Peterson falls into the ever-present trap of all psychiatrists, Overthinking. (A trait shared by Dr. Frasier Crane… but I digress 🙂 But then he dives down an endless rabbit hole of trying to knit together an evolutionary-based argument for our religious (primarily Christian – but applicable to many different religious bases) reasons for feeling ‘naked and afraid’ before God. How our shame when exposed (naked) to pure Goodness is related to our fear of snakes in our far-distant evolutionary past…? If that sounds confusing to you, then good, I am conveying the right tone!
There are many valid reasons to take care of ourselves if we are ‘just’ an evolutionary phenomenon with no eternal future. There are many more very valid reasons to take care of ourselves if we are divinely created Beings responsible for forging Order out of Chaos – but in attempting to knit the two arguments together, Dr. Peterson takes us on a carousal ride that leaves one wondering if they got on at the exit and off at the entrance. Finally, as if in recognition of the bottomless rabbit hole, Dr. Peterson throws in a final, quick, paragraph saying ‘Find your meaning in life’ so that you have a reason to take care of yourself. It felt contrived, abrupt, and completely unsupported by the entire chapter.

To be honest, I have a hard time characterizing the chapter.

It certainly wasn’t a ‘persuasive argument’ as it never fully attempted to explain WHY we should take care of ourselves. He spends too much time with one foot in Order – explaining the religious reasons why we are too shamed to walk with God – and one foot in Chaos – trying to link the Religious metaphors to our distant evolutionary foundations. He tries to walk this Taoist ‘Way’, one foot in both camps, so hard that he doesn’t present a cohesive argument for or against anything.
So if not a persuasive argument, was it ‘inspirational’? No, not really. Dr. Peterson, in a very psychiatric manner, seems reluctant to go all-in on a line of reasoning. He doesn’t raise an inspiring ‘we are the result of evolution’ so be all that you can be (in the Army – don’t lie, you sang that in your head…), nor does he implore us to ‘lift our gaze’ to Heaven and stand by God’s side as his purchased children, as a Christian theologian might. Argument? Inspiration? I don’t know.
Don’t get me wrong! I agree with Rule #2 being of critical importance! I agree with all the fine threads of this chapter – beautifully spoken with passion and eloquence! But the final product – the sweater made of thick heavy wool and fine Japanese silk…. leaves me feeling unsettled, incomplete – like I read the words in the wrong order or missed 10 pages in the middle.

And another note:

I find myself again strongly disagreeing with Dr. Peterson’s use of Biblical references. He references John 14:6 “And Jesus said to him, I am the Way the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” He explicitly connects that ‘Way’, Jesus, to the Taoist ‘Way’ of walking the narrow path between Order and Chaos. I can’t refute that equivalence enough. To bring that verse into Dr. Peterson’s world, Jesus was more accurately declaring that He was the loincloth, the Apron, given by God to humanity to cover their nakedness and shame so that Humanity could once again ‘walk with God’ unashamed of their fallen nature, their nakedness. Jesus was claiming to be the ‘Way’ back to fellowship with God – not the Taoist ideal of walking with ‘One foot in Order and one foot in Chaos’!

And another ‘nuther note:

Dr. Peterson makes a bold claim that Humanity is the only species capable of evil, capable of inflicting suffering for the sake of suffering. Rubbish. Own a cat for goodness sake and watch it torture a mouse for the fun of it – only to leave it, uneaten, once dead. Or just about any predator that kills for fun when not hungry or threatened. Act in a cowering scared manner around just about any predator, or even a lot of ‘prey’ animals – it will draw an aggressive reaction akin to bullying for the fun of bullying. Own chickens and watch them peck a peer (rolls off the tongue nicely) to death just… because. While we don’t know what goes on inside the heads of these creatures, it looks an awfully lot like cruelty for the fun of cruelty. We say some dogs are as smart as a 5-year-old child, and chimpanzees/dolphins even smarter. If a child is capable of great cruelty, and they most certainly are, then why would we argue that animals are not? But they don’t know right from wrong? Oh really? Ever catch your dog ‘un-stuffing’ your couch? That look at being caught looks a lot like shame, doesn’t it?
Or look at the reverse argument. If an animal is not capable of ‘evil’, than it isn’t capable of ‘good’ either – but a quick YouTube search refutes that. We find lioness’ protecting a baby gazelle, or baby monkey. We see a Polar bear casually stroll over and rescue a drowning crow. A whole video collection of animals acting out of character to protect other animals, not even of their own species. If that isn’t a demonstration of animals demonstrating ‘goodness’, than we don’t have our heads wrapped around good and evil yet (a distinct probability, actually). You might argue that these are actions taken out of instinct and aren’t from the exercise of free will. Perhaps. We don’t know what is going on in those animals head. But, for that matter, you don’t know what is going on in another human’s head either – so how are you judging Hitler’s or Lenin’s or Mao’s actions as ‘evil’, not just an instinctual reaction to their environment? We use observable action to give a hint of that Being’s internal world – there is no way around that chasm, leap or don’t. And if those ARE examples of animals acting ‘good’, than the existence of this ‘good’ is proof of its opposite in the animal world – evil.
I disagree, fundamentally, with Dr. Peterson that cruelty for the sake of cruelty (evil- in his definition) is unique to the human experience.

My response to this Chapter, ‘Why?’ is awfully similar to my response to his first Rule, ‘Based on what?”. Well written, passionate, eloquent even… but he isn’t taking a stand yet. Not planting his flag and stating ‘This is the truth and here’s why’ yet. Let’s see where this goes-—> Rule #3