Introduction
Jordan B. Peterson's "Maps of Meaning" is a profound exploration of how humans create meaning in a chaotic world. Drawing from mythology, psychology, and history, Peterson investigates the power of stories, particularly ancient myths, in shaping our understanding of human nature and culture. This book delves into the intricate ways our minds construct meaning, how myths transmit that meaning across generations, and what these age-old narratives can teach us in our modern, rational era.
The Known and the Unknown
At the heart of Peterson's analysis is the fundamental division of human experience into two realms: the known and the unknown. This concept is illustrated through a simple yet powerful analogy:
When a rat is placed in a new cage, its initial reaction is to freeze in fear. This response is understandable, as potential dangers could be lurking in this unfamiliar territory. Gradually, the rat begins to explore its new environment, cautiously sniffing, licking, and scratching its way around. As it becomes more accustomed to its surroundings, the rat's anxiety diminishes.
Humans, despite our complexity, navigate the world in a remarkably similar fashion. We too divide our world into the familiar (the known) and the unfamiliar (the unknown). The known comprises everything we can easily comprehend, either through personal experience or shared cultural knowledge. In this explored territory, we feel safe and at ease.
The unknown, on the other hand, encompasses all that we don't yet understand: novel situations, unexplained phenomena, or unexpected behaviors. These anomalies, like the new cage for the rat, tend to stop us in our tracks.
Encountering the unknown evokes dual feelings in humans. It is both threatening and promising, much like receiving a mysterious letter marked "Open at your own risk." The contents could be either menacing or exciting, and this uncertainty creates a mix of anxiety and curiosity.
Our response to the unknown depends on how unexpected and unfamiliar it truly is. If the letter were from a known friend, for instance, we'd likely feel less apprehensive about opening it.
Regardless of our initial reaction, humans, like rats, have a natural inclination to explore the unknown once we overcome our initial fear. This exploration serves to transform the unfamiliar into the familiar, helping us reduce emotional tension and regain a sense of safety.
Unlike rats, however, humans can explore the unknown not just through physical action but also through thought. We might spend as much time theorizing about who sent the mysterious letter and why as we would examining its contents.
Our thoughts and actions are the tools we use to convert the unknown into the known. Through this process, we actively create the world we know and understand.
The Power of Stories
In the Western world, we often pride ourselves on our scientific worldview, believing that modern science allows us to see the world as it truly is: a place of facts rather than feelings. However, as Peterson argues, emotions play a crucial role in our day-to-day understanding of the world.
Our feelings help us determine whether something is beneficial or harmful to us, and consequently whether we should approach or avoid it. This process often occurs without conscious effort. The meaning we derive from things - whether it's a loved one, a job we dislike, or a favorite food - stems from the emotions we associate with them.
This emotional, or affective, meaning is context-dependent, influenced by our current goals, preferences, and social and cultural environment. For example, the meaning a piece of cheesecake holds for you depends not only on whether you like cheesecake, but also on whether you're dieting, and whether it's offered by your grandmother or a stranger on the street.
From a purely scientific standpoint, the piece of cheesecake remains constant. However, it's the affective meaning that determines our thoughts and behaviors towards it. This is why the strict rationalism of modern science often falls short in helping us navigate the real world, where facts and feelings frequently intertwine.
Fortunately, humans have developed an ingenious cultural tool to interpret meaning: stories. Shared narratives about the sun and stars, gods and kings, heroes and monsters have been an integral part of human culture since the dawn of history. The great myths of human civilization are the oldest and most significant of these stories, including the cosmology of ancient Egyptians, the tales of Greek and Roman gods, and the passion of Christ.
From our modern perspective, it's easy to dismiss these ancient myths as superstitious fabrications. However, they served a profound psychological purpose. By providing narratives about the origin of the cosmos, the creation of humanity, and the forces of nature, these shared stories gave meaning to vast areas of human experience that would otherwise have been inexplicable.
For instance, in ancient Mesopotamia, people believed that the great hero Marduk created the cosmos from the pieces of Tiamat, the dragon of chaos and mother of all life. Before Marduk slew Tiamat, she created eleven species of monsters to aid her in battle, including vipers, lions, and storm demons. This creation myth helped Mesopotamians explain some of life's more unpleasant aspects, such as storms and snake bites.
In this way, myths transformed the unknown into something more familiar and less frightening, providing a framework for understanding the world.
The Universal Structure of Myths
Peterson argues that myths are not simply pre-scientific nonsense, but valid and valuable tools for navigating the world. Given our shared human nature, it's perhaps unsurprising that these tools have some universal characteristics.
Across cultures, myths describe the story of the Way: a brave hero's journey into the unknown and their triumphant return. This structure is evident in diverse narratives, from the Mesopotamian creation myth to the story of the Egyptian gods Horus, Isis, and Osiris, to the passion of Christ.
In most myths, the unknown is represented as the primal, all-encompassing force of nature from which all life originates. This creative and destructive force is often depicted as feminine. In the Mesopotamian creation myth, for example, the unknown is represented by the ferocious mother dragon Tiamat, whose pieces form the basis of the cosmos. In the Sumerian creation myth, it's the sea goddess Nammu, who gives birth to the earth and the sky.
Peterson refers to this mythical archetype of the unknown as the Great and Terrible Mother. The "great" and "terrible" aspects of the Mother, representing the threatening and promising sides of the unknown, are sometimes incorporated into different characters. The Terrible Mother often appears as a monster, a storm, or an evil stepmother, while the Great Mother is frequently represented as a hidden treasure, a magical place, or a fairy godmother.
Opposing the Great and Terrible Mother is the Great and Terrible Father. He represents the explored territory of culture and all the structures humans have erected to protect themselves from the unknown. In mythology, he's often personified as an old king. Sometimes this king is wise, just, and protective, embodying the "great" aspect of culture. At other times, he's stuck in his ways, tyrannical, and oppressive, representing the "terrible" aspect of culture.
Finally, there's the hero of the story, caught between the forces of the unknown and the known, Mother and Father, nature and culture. The hero is the creative explorer who bravely ventures into the unknown, defeats the negative aspects of nature and culture, and unites the positive ones. An example is the Egyptian god Horus, who ventures into the underworld to rescue his father Osiris, so the two can reclaim the throne from his evil uncle Seth and restore order to Egypt.
The hero serves as a powerful role model for human behavior, embodying the ideal of courage in the face of the unknown and the ability to bring positive change to both nature and culture.
Myths as Social and Behavioral Models
Peterson points out that it's no coincidence that the characters in ancient myths are often kings, queens, and princes battling for the throne. Many cultures used myths to justify the authoritarian power of their rulers. For instance, the Mesopotamian emperor was thought to be an emissary of the mythical hero Marduk.
However, myths didn't simply legitimize power; they also provided templates for how that power should be used. Just as Marduk constructed the cosmos from the pieces of Tiamat, the job of the Mesopotamian emperor was to create order from chaos.
Many myths grapple with the dual aspect of the unknown - the creative versus the destructive power of the Great and Terrible Mother. But many also tell of a battle between the dual aspects of culture - the protective versus the tyrannical side of the Great and Terrible Father.
Often, these different aspects are represented by different generations of kings or gods. In Egyptian cosmology, for example, the divine king Osiris represents the overly traditionalist side of the Terrible Father. Osiris isn't a tyrant, but he's too stuck in his ways to recognize the evil in his brother Seth, who later kills him to claim the throne. The hero of the story is Osiris's son Horus, an "updated" version of the old king. Horus ventures into the underworld to bring back his father. He finds him blind and lends him one of his eyes so he can see again. Together, father and son emerge from the underworld to reclaim the throne.
This story of father and son offers a powerful lesson on the delicate balance between tradition and innovation that a culture must strike to survive.
But myths didn't just serve as models for society; they also provided guidelines for individual behavior. The hero's courageous act of creative exploration sets an example for how to conquer the unknown: not by hiding or running away, but by facing the challenge head-on.
Often, the hero is opposed by an evil counterpart who demonstrates how not to behave. Horus's evil uncle Seth, for example, demonstrates a cowardly disrespect for the divine order by killing Osiris, a mistake for which he's later punished.
By transmitting lessons on society and encouraging our individual identification with the hero, myths provided a moral compass long before behavioral rules were formalized by institutional religion or written into law.
The Process of Growing Up
Peterson explores how the process of growing up involves learning to identify with both the group and the hero. As children, we're protected from the unknown by our parents. We don't need mythical heroes to model the right behavior for us because our parents simply tell us how to behave. Of course, in doing so, they embody the values of the culture that surrounds them.
Part of growing up and emancipating ourselves from our parents is learning to replace their values and protection with the values and protection of culture. In the first step of our emancipation, we learn to identify with our larger cultural group. The rebellious phase many experience as teenagers, where they forcefully reject the authority of their parents to embrace the values of their friends, is a natural part of this socialization process.
The paradox of growing up is that as soon as we gain the long-awaited autonomy from our parents, we surrender to the rules, norms, and values of the society around us. Most of these social rules are just as arbitrary as those our parents imposed on us as teenagers. In the West, for example, every adult is expected to learn a specialized profession such as lawyer or plumber.
There's no inherent reason why this needs to be the case: humans could theoretically survive without jobs. But these arbitrary social rules are what culture is all about. They provide a framework of meaning for us to operate in, help us divide the world into familiar pieces, and therefore keep the unknown at bay. The myths of a culture are an important device for encoding and sharing this framework of rules, norms, and values.
However, Peterson argues that as adults, our identification with this cultural framework should never be total. Individuals who identify completely and uncritically with the rules of their culture are easily exploited by the "tyrannical" side of the Great Father - they enable authoritarianism and fascism.
This is where myths play another important role. They guard us against uncritical identification with our culture by encouraging individual identification with the hero. The hero always goes his own way and is not afraid to subvert the power of the Great and Terrible Father if necessary. Nevertheless, the hero is loyal to his fellow humans, and his heroism serves the greater social good.
The second step of our emancipation must therefore be to become the hero of our own story. This involves maintaining a critical stance towards our culture while still working for the greater good.
The Challenge of Anomalies
Peterson emphasizes that the existence of the unknown is a fact of life. As humans, we're constantly surrounded by things we don't understand and never will. While culture provides a measure of protection from the chaos of the unknown, chaos often finds us when we least expect it.
Unintentional encounters with the unknown can be quite upsetting, for both rats and humans. But when the unknown anomaly is too big to be integrated into our current view of the world, it can cause a full-blown crisis.
Such revolutionary anomalies can happen on a cultural level - in the form of a natural disaster, a foreign invasion, or a political crisis, for example. They can also occur on an individual level - in the form of a family death, a career setback, or an uncomfortable realization.
Anomalies always force us to adapt. Minor anomalies require normal adaptation, which happens easily and almost automatically. For instance, if you're leaving your office to go to a meeting but find that the hallway elevator is broken, you might simply take the stairs on the other side of the floor. You've been wanting to get a little exercise anyway.
Major anomalies, however, require revolutionary adaptation. These drastic encounters with the unknown force us to update how we think about ourselves and the world. We might even have to change our goals, values, and behaviors to accommodate them. This can produce a social crisis on the cultural level and a severe psychological crisis on the individual level.
Imagine, for example, that after a successful business meeting, you get a call from your boss. She tells you she's not happy with your overall performance. It seems you've completely misinterpreted the duties of your position. She fires you and suggests you find a different career altogether.
This new information rocks your world. Up until a few minutes ago, you'd been imagining yourself as the future CEO of the company. You spend the next few weeks in a depressed daze. Then it dawns on you - you didn't like that job anyway! Now that you think about it, you've always wanted to work with children.
Revolutionary adaptation means using anomalies to update our model of the world. If anomalies keep piling up, it's an indication that our model of the world isn't working for us. This process of adaptation, while often painful, is crucial for personal growth and societal progress.
The Paradox of Human Existence
Peterson introduces the concept of the ouroboros, a curious symbol of a serpent eating its own tail. This self-consuming snake, found in many cultures across the world, from ancient Babylon to Africa, India, and Mexico, represents the original state of the cosmos.
The ouroboros symbolizes the primordial state of existence, or preexistence, where everything is in perfect harmony. The world as we know it has not yet come into being. In this primordial state, chaos and order are one and the same. The unknown and the known have not yet separated because there is no one to know anything: humans do not exist yet.
In Christian mythology, the Garden of Eden represents this paradisal state of preexistence. The first humans in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, are not yet humans in the sense that we understand it today. They don't know death, pain, and sorrow. They don't know much of anything else either.
Only after they eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge do they develop the self-consciousness that distinguishes them from the other animals in paradise. They suddenly realize they've been naked the whole time and scramble to cover themselves with fig leaves.
They pay a high price for their new heightened consciousness. For their transgression, God expels them from paradise. This is the point in Christian mythology where the paradisal primordial state is broken. The world separates into life and death, order and chaos, good and evil. It's also the point at which Adam and Eve become truly human. God grants them the divine right and responsibility to figure out how to navigate this new, polarized world.
Peterson argues that this myth illustrates a profound truth: our human faults and limitations are the preconditions for our very existence. If there was no evil in the world, how could we know what is good? If we could do no wrong, how could we commend ourselves for doing the right thing? And if we never had to die, what would life mean to us?
Life cannot exist without death, and good cannot exist without evil. And meaning cannot exist without the polarity between life and death, good and evil. The Christian creation myth teaches us that it's our divine right and responsibility to chart our own, meaningful path in this polarized world.
This paradox of human existence - that our limitations are what make a meaningful life possible - is a central theme in Peterson's analysis. It suggests that the challenges and difficulties we face are not just obstacles to be overcome, but essential elements of what makes life worth living.
The Nature of Evil
Peterson delves into one of the most puzzling features of human nature: our capacity for evil. In today's world, we tend to view evil as a product of psychological defects, bad upbringing, or unjust social or economic conditions. However, as German philosopher Hannah Arendt suggested when she contemplated the evil perpetrated during the Third Reich, the truly horrifying idea is that even ordinary people are capable of evil. She calls this "the banality of evil."
Many myths, and religious myths especially, struggle with the evil inside all of us. Often, they do so by personifying it, as the hero's malevolent twin brother, for example, or the old king's conniving advisor.
Perhaps the most impressive rendition of evil is found in Christian mythology, in the form of Satan. Satan is a fallen angel, banned from heaven for his delusions of grandeur. In mythical and lyrical depictions, he's often associated with intellectual arrogance, ignorance, and deceit - including self-deceit. In Goethe's play Faust, Satan characterizes himself as "the spirit who constantly denies."
But what is it that Satan denies?
Peterson argues that in his infinite arrogance and cowardice, the devil denies the very existence of the unknown. Even though it's scary, the unknown itself isn't evil. In fact, as myths teach us, exploring the unknown can bring great rewards and is the source of our growth and knowledge. It's the denial of this possibility for growth and knowledge that is the true evil.
By rejecting the possibility for creative exploration, Satan represents the antihero. He embodies the human tendency to avoid, suppress, and deny anomaly, preventing successful adaptation, growth, and knowledge.
He personifies our tendency to seek comfort in blind adherence to culture and tradition on the one hand, and to lose ourselves in self-adulation and indulgence on the other. The first road leads to fascism - just consider how many Nazis explained the evil they committed by stating they were simply "following orders." The second road leads to decadence, a condition in which we lazily deny any responsibility for the current state of the world.
Instead of seeking structural explanations for evil, Peterson argues that myths help us grapple with the evil inside all of us - and show us what we can do to choose another path. This perspective shifts the responsibility for evil from external factors to individual choices, emphasizing the importance of personal accountability and the constant struggle against our own potential for wrongdoing.
The Path to Self-Actualization
Peterson emphasizes that facing the unknown is always uncomfortable, which is why humans have devised countless strategies to avoid it. One such avoidance strategy is losing ourselves to ideology. An ideology is a fixed story about how the world works or how it should be. A national supremacist, for example, believes in the story that his country is better than all other countries. He will try to fit everything he encounters into this narrative - actively avoiding, denying, or suppressing any anomalies that might suggest a different truth.
For ideologists, the total identification with a certain set of beliefs takes the place of the identification with the mythical hero. Instead of embarking on their own arduous journey of creative exploration, ideologists seek comfort in a ready-made picture of the world.
Some ideologies encourage the individual's complete identification with their culture - their race or nationality, for example. People with such ideologies tend to blame all anomalies they encounter on people outside their culture - and mistake everything foreign for evil.
Other ideologies encourage a total rejection of culture. People who embrace such negative ideologies blame everything on the people around them and deny any responsibility for their current state.
Because they are static pictures of the world, sticking to an ideology is a rejection of creative exploration. Instead of facing the unknown, the ideologist actively avoids, suppresses, or denies the discrepancies between their worldview and their experience. As Christian mythology suggests, this rejection of creative exploration is a form of evil. The many atrocities committed in the name of ideology - under fascism or communism, for example - speak to the truth of this idea.
Living a good and meaningful life, therefore, means rejecting the quick fix of ideology. It means identifying with the mythical hero and embarking on our own journey of learning and growing. It means accepting that we don't know everything yet, and facing the unknown willingly and purposefully.
As humans, Peterson argues, it's our awesome right and responsibility to create our own maps of meaning to guide our life. Culture provides the backdrop for this act of creative exploration, and myths provide a model for how to do so while staying true to our individuality.
This path to self-actualization is not easy. It requires constant vigilance against the temptation to fall into ideological thinking, and the courage to face the unknown and adapt to new information. However, it is through this process that we can reach our full potential and live truly meaningful lives.
Conclusion
In "Maps of Meaning," Jordan B. Peterson presents a compelling exploration of how humans create and transmit meaning through myths and stories. He argues that these narratives are not mere fairy tales or outdated superstitions, but powerful psychological tools that help us navigate the complex world we inhabit.
Peterson's analysis reveals the universal structure underlying many myths across cultures and throughout history. This common structure, featuring archetypes like the Great and Terrible Mother, the Great and Terrible Father, and the Hero, reflects fundamental aspects of human experience and psychology.
The book emphasizes the importance of balance between the known and the unknown, tradition and innovation, individual and society. It warns against the dangers of rigid ideological thinking, which can lead to evil acts, and instead advocates for a courageous, open-minded approach to life's challenges.
Peterson's work encourages readers to embrace their role as the hero in their own life story. This means facing the unknown bravely, adapting to new information and experiences, and striving to create meaning in a chaotic world. It's a call to personal responsibility and growth, reminding us that while our human limitations can be frustrating, they are also the very things that make a meaningful life possible.
"Maps of Meaning" offers a profound perspective on human nature, culture, and individual development. It challenges readers to think deeply about their beliefs, their place in society, and their potential for growth and self-actualization. By drawing connections between ancient wisdom and modern psychology, Peterson provides a unique and valuable framework for understanding ourselves and the world around us.
In essence, "Maps of Meaning" is not just a book about mythology or psychology - it's a guide to living a more meaningful, purposeful life. It reminds us that while the path of the hero is often difficult and fraught with challenges, it is ultimately the most rewarding way to navigate our complex existence.