We should view the world through a narrative lens because the fundamental question humans have is, “How do I act in the world in relation to myself and others over time.” It’s a viciously difficult problem to solve.
We have evolved to be social and live in dominance hierarchies. Even non-social animals live in dominance hierarchies. The dominance hierarchy is older than trees. But humans cannot live simply by power. How do we organize ourselves in both small and large social units without undo conflict?
The way we solve this problem isn’t primarily conscious. Social knowledge is in your being because you’ve practiced it over time. We have implicit, coded social behavior. For instance, the way the classroom is arranged has all of the chairs facing Peterson. He is the teacher, they are the students, and they will do what he says in order to graduate and find work. Everyone knows how to behave in this social context.
Beliefs have both psychological and sociological expectations, or better, desires, and we don’t want them destabilized or we will start fighting with each other, which could lead to death. Your beliefs protect you from both death and anxiety.
Rousseau believed nature was good and society corrupts us, but Hobbes believed the opposite, that in nature we are after each other, so we need social contract to create order. They were both right. Both together complete the picture.
Most of the time we are tranquil and satisfied in a well-meaning and ordered society, but put in the right situation, this will change. Primates are territorial, violent, and prone to war. Our emotional systems are on, but our brain tamps them down. We have reflexes ready to go, like jumping when we see something snake-like in the periphery of our vision before we even form of conscious image of snake in our mind.
Toddlers are manic with impulsive, positive emotions. We tell them to calm down because as adults we can’t be impulsive and manic or we become out of control. When toddlers have tantrums, they are lost in blind rage. In adults, people with borderline personality disorder do this. Your own kids are hard to like. They are little monsters. They are provocative. You think you’ll like your kids because you’re a good person, but you won’t and you’re not. Teach them to do things that make you and other people like them.
If you don’t have your kids socialized by age 4, forget it. The literature is clear that they will be hopelessly antisocial, feeling isolated, bitter, angry, and alone. By 3, they should be able to run simulations where they work together with others to play house—be Mom, Dad, build a fort, make tea, etc.
When we teach children to play well with others, they will be invited to play more. If they don’t play well with others, no one will want to play with them. They will become antisocial. We are built by evolution to play these games of getting along with others. Animals do this as well. It’s inborn, not a social construct.
Why have goals? Because without goals, you won’t have positive emotions. Start with any goal, then shape it into a goal other people care about, in which they might want to assist you. Find goals that suit your temperament: the extroverted want to play extroverted games, highly neurotic people want to play safe games, agreeable people want to play generous games, and disagreeable people want to play competitive games. You need a hierarchy of goals so you can aim up and set higher goals. This provides your life with meaning.
Life is like a hydra. You cut off a head and another one grows. You kill snakes and more keep coming. That’s life. A child having a dream of being attacked by dwarfs coming out of a fire breathing dragon must confront them and the dragon, taking on a hero archetype, because if he doesn’t, they just keep getting bigger and he keeps getting smaller until there is no way back. This is a lesson to deal with issues in your life while they are small and not to run from them or they will grow out of control and consume you.
In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is a good citizen and is harmless, but to find the dragon he has to become a thief. He can’t be harmless. Harry Potter has to break the rules to attain the highest goal. The hero has to be a monster, but a controlled monster, like Batman.
If you’re a nice, compassionate person, you let other people win, and that’s no good. You need to win too. As a basis for negotiation between adults, you have to be a bit of a monster so you can learn to say no—to be assertive and stand up for yourself. Being a monster makes you a better person.
Chaos is both potential and a place of not knowing what to do. It’s symbolized as a dragon, a predatory beast that’s been after us forever.
Is life really meaningless or do people want to shun responsibility and goal-setting to drift through life meaninglessly, then rationalize that life is meaningless after the fact?
Orient yourself toward the highest good you can possibly imagine and aim for that, and you’ll get the best possible outcome.
The Jungian notion is that motivation, emotions, reason, and body should be integrated holistically.
Peterson explores the movie Pinocchio for its archetypes. Pinocchio’s conscience is Jiminy Cricket. Conscience can be defined both as a feeling and an inner voice. Freud would say it’s the voice of society speaking to you. We have a conscience, but the contents of our conscience differ from person to person. Pinocchio could have a perfect conscience and do what it says, but that would be a boring movie. You have to develop and dialogue with your conscience, which is imperfect. You have free will and can ignore your conscience.
You are the deterministic product of both nature and culture, but myth says there is a “you” that gets to negotiate between them with free will. Sam Harris says all is determined, including every seemingly free choice we think we make. Peterson disagrees. We can’t yet account for the experience of consciousness and the experience of free will, but we nevertheless experience it.
No comments:
Post a Comment