Insights from Jordan Peterson on the Old and New Testament

My book club is reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life; An Antidote to Chaos. As part of this reading program I have been listening to various interviews of Peterson and a recent one, taken from a talk and interview at Lafayette College , caught my particular interest.

After a lengthy and colorful introduction by the moderator, Peterson posed a question to the audience. I am going to tell you what I heard in my own words, but I highly recommend you listen to his comments for yourself.

In my paraphrase and summary, his preamble and question went like this:

So called “right wing thinking” is concerned about establishing hierarchies (which are necessary for survival and for society to function), while “left wing thinking” focuses on equality and fights for the bottom tier of the hierarchies that have been established (which is also necessary).

He went on to say that we know where “right wing thinking” crosses the line into extremism: when they claim one group (usually their own) is intrinsically superior to other groups. Peterson then asked the question: Where is the line for extremism on the left?

He went on to answer his own question. The line is crossed on the left when their zeal for equality for the lowest tier in a hierarchy causes them:

1. To focus on equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity
2. To compel a certain kind of speech and thinking because it’s the only way to get people to comply with their demand for equality of outcome.

What Has This to Do With the Old and the New Testament?

Note: I’m not especially interested into entering into political discourse, important as that may be, but I am interested in how Peterson’s comments affect my thinking about the history of Judaism and Christianity described in the Old and New Testaments. I will confine my remarks to that subject.

I thought about the points Peterson made, and it struck me how this analysis parallels what I see in the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, when primarily describing God’s dealing with His chosen people Israel, he clearly sets up hierarchies: indeed he set up a political one and a religious one each of which acted as a balances to the another. This structure enabled the Israelites to survive despite encountering many enemies and suffering under the afflictions they caused whether it be slavery in Egypt or captivity by Babylon. Even under the heel of the Roman Empire, their identity and cohesion as a people was preserved. When I look at it, the hierarchies in their culture and in their relationship to outsiders contributed positively to their survival and cultural cohesion. However, there was potentially the possibility of crossing the hierarchical line that Peterson articulated.

When Jesus came, he seemed to turn everything on its head. He came in at the lowest tier—as many thought—the illegitimate son of a Galilean carpenter. Yet Christ, while not destroying the Jewish hierarchy, taught that to be a leader in His Kingdom, the leader has to be servant of all. This seems very much like fighting for the lowest tier.

Given Peterson’s analysis, it’s striking to me how Christ came to restore a sense of balance to the hierarchies and keep the Jewish people (and hopefully Christians as well) from crossing the line into extremism where “chosen people” comes to mean “as a people we are superior.” This has been helpful to me because it shows a natural progression in the Old and New Testaments and shows how hierarchies and fighting for the lowest tier are both essential for balance.

Disclaimer: I know Professor Peterson has delivered some lectures on biblical topics. I have not listened to any of them.

©Peter Kazmaier 2018

What I Learned from G. K. Chesterton’s WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD

What Chesterton Said

I recently read G. K. Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World. He wrote this book in 1900. Although some of the later segments are not directed toward questions that are not under consideration today (for example: Why would women want the vote?), the very first part, the part that gave rise to the title, I found very helpful in guiding my thinking and proved very relevant to the questions that seem to confront me at every turn.

His discussion focuses on mistakes made by those who advocate for some the elimination of a perceived ill through social change.

Chesterton begins by pointing out that those who advocate for some social change explicitly or implicitly use the metaphor of a physician treating a disease. This is a false assumption because in disease we all know what health looks like and so the only dispute is about the nature of the disease and the proper treatment to return the individual to health.

However, in discussing social ills and their cure, we give little or no consideration to what health looks like and if we did we would likely have broad disagreement on the goal. Chesterton says:

But social science is by no means always content with the normal human soul; it has all sorts of fancy souls for sale. Man as a social idealist will say “I am tired of being a Puritan; I want to be a Pagan,” or “Beyond this dark probation of Individualism I see the shining paradise of Collectivism.” Now in bodily ills there is none of this difference about the ultimate ideal. The patient may or may not want quinine; but he certainly wants health.

Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith). What’s Wrong with the World (p. 3). Kindle Edition.

Chesterton going on about this point:

The social case is exactly the opposite of the medical case. We do not disagree, like doctors, about the precise nature of the illness, while agreeing about the nature of health. On the contrary, we all agree that England is unhealthy, but half of us would not look at her in what the other half would call blooming health.

Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith). What’s Wrong with the World (p. 3). Kindle Edition.

I think Chesterton would say the first step in this discussion would be to talk about our private ideal of social health and defend why everyone should want to get there. We might agree that the current situation is bad, but that doesn’t mean the proposed change won’t make things worse.

Chesterton again:

The only way to discuss the social evil is to get at once to the social ideal. We can all see the national madness; but what is national sanity? I have called this book “What Is Wrong with the World?” and the upshot of the title can be easily and clearly stated. What is wrong is that we do not ask what is right.

Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith). What’s Wrong with the World (pp. 3-4). Kindle Edition.

What Chesterton Taught Me

So how do I apply this? When I read about the identification of a sociological problem along with a proposed solution, I’ve come up for a series of questions that I think Chesterton might have asked:

If I applied this proposed solution what would our society look like? Would our freedoms be enhanced? Would I still be able to speak freely and follow my convictions? Would my freedom to choose what I think is best for myself, my family, and community be unimpaired? Would there truly be equality of opportunity? Would competence be recognized and rewarded?

Is the proposed solution tyrannical or draconian? Would I be setting up a new kind of oppression? Am I restricting people’s employment or their ability to go into business for themselves? Does the solution implementation consist of convincing people by argument and example that the new proposal is a better way to a worthy end or am I legislating and punishing to get there?

These two clusters of questions have been most helpful in thinking about these social remedies that I see on Twitter, Facebook, in the news, or spoken about over coffee. They also help me as a science fiction writer.

How Chesterton Impacts My SF Writing

As I write my novels I am often confronted with painting, using words, a future world. One way to get the painting right would be to use the Chesterton questions to extrapolate into the future. If I do that, I can often see how these questions illuminate the difficulties in the proposals and lead to dysfunction and unintended consequences.

If you have any thoughts on this, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Peter Kazmaier is the author of the science fiction series, THE HALCYON CYCLE. His books can be found on Amazon, Chapter/Indigo, iBooks, Google Play, and at your local library through Overdrive.

A Review of William D. Gairdner’s THE WAR AGAINST THE FAMILY

I had read this book a while ago but was revisiting it as I frequently do and realized I had never written a review. If you have read my Science Fiction book about a university that is transported to a parallel world (The Halcyon Dislocation) I think you will see some of the “what if” elements in my book were influenced by Gairdner’s thesis.

The War Against The Family: A Parent Speaks Out by William D. Gairdner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This well-referenced, thought-provoking book caused me to re-evaluate a number of events happening in Canada. Gairdner makes the case that it is in the interest of the more controlling and totalitarian political elements to destroy the family. The well-functioning family is self-contained, self-sufficient, and becomes a source of stability for citizens developing independent ideas.

In contrast, as Gairdner argues, if the family unit is broken down, then individuals are forced to develop a co-dependency with the government. They must look to the government and its agencies for social help, financial help, and all other things a family would ordinarily provide. They will therefore be strongly motivated to not only expand the influence of government, but also, of necessity, expose themselves to whatever new wave of teaching and thinking that their government wants to impress upon them. Gairdner would argue this makes these citizens much easier to control.

Whether you agree with Gairdner’s thesis or not, his book is filled with so much data that it’s worth the read in my view. The book was written in 1992. A great many events have happened since then. It is very interesting to see which of Gairdner’s predictions have come true and which have not.

View all my reviews

A Response to Stuart Aken’s Blog on “Why are we required to respect religion?”

Images of Religious Symbols courtesy of Wikimedia

Writer Stuart Aken, in his blog entitled I’d Like to Know: Why? #3 Religion, asks the provocative question: “Why are We Required to Respect Religion?” This question is of interest to me as a Christ-follower (even though I would not characterize myself as religious—I know other people would characterize me in that way).
As I thought about Mr. Aken’s blog, it led me to think about how the phrasing of the question channels the responses that this question elicits. It’s always handy to set up a contest or a discussion so that only one side is given the bows and arrows while the other is left only with a shield. It’s like a Canadian or American football game where the rules of the contest allow only one team to play offence (and hence is best set up to score points) while the other is perpetually on defense. I think such a rule-based asymmetry is neither sporting nor does it readily necessarily let the better team prevail.

If one looks at the question in its current form, then Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and other adherents of a religion are on trial to justify their beliefs and explain why their beliefs merit respect, but atheists, agnostics, materialists, and secularists are excluded from scrutiny by the form of the question itself.
It seems to me a more instructive and fairer form of the question would be: “Why should I respect the World View of others when their World View differs from my own?” In this context I use “World View” to mean how I and others view reality. I think this re-configuring of the question has important advantages:

1. Now everyone, religious and agnostic alike has a chip in the game and has beliefs that may be called into question.
2. It ought to be understood that everyone intrinsically believes that their World View best explains the real world (material and spiritual).
3. Any criticism that is leveled at another World View can also properly be asked of one’s own. So if one asks if religious world views are prone to violence, one has to ask if one’s own World View is different in this regard and why.
4. In this kind of a discussion, if one begins to believe that many of the key things one genuinely believes about the nature of reality are wrong, this will be a very unsettling development for everyone who experiences it—not just religious people.
5. Finally, I think it prevents participants in the discussion from making the disastrous mistake of assuming that all religions are really the same, merely because they are religions. Even within a religion there may be substantial differences in World View by adherents because of differences in emphasis, in interpretation of sacred texts, in theology, or by reconciliation with other sources of evidence.

Thank you Mr. Aken for raising this important topic. Perhaps as time becomes available, I will be able to give my perspective on some of the other follow-on questions you raised in your post.