Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

During his work as a clinical psychologist, Peterson saw a patient who lived a very lonely life. People had ignored him throughout his life. As treatment progressed, the patient’s conversations focused less on what was bothering him, and he developed a more active social life. This example showed Peterson how “people depend on constant communication with others to keep their minds organized” (3). Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the pioneers of psychoanalysis, tended to understand sanity as a balance within one’s own self. Peterson believes that this underrates the importance of other people, both individuals and institutions. Others serve as a check on one’s own behavior, giving cues as to how to moderate it. “Without the intermediation of the social world, it would be impossible for us to organize our minds, and we would simply be overwhelmed by the world” (6). 

Peterson then turns to his granddaughter, who as a toddler loved to point at anything she found interesting. Based on the reactions of adults around her, she started to learn what they found interesting as well. The introduction of language similarly helps to ground her in a shared reality with those around her, where words have a common meaning. Social institutions need to orient themselves around core human needs, from sustenance to the need for socialization itself. Since everyone’s needs are different, solutions require negotiation and compromise. Institutions develop over time as a means of solving (or at least managing) conflicts, and while these institutions are necessarily imperfect, people ought to focus on improving their operations rather than simply criticizing them. People must actively cooperate, and part of this involves accepting the fact that some are better at problem-solving than others and will therefore wield more influence over particular issues. 

Turning to evolutionary biology, Peterson shows how more complex organisms first develop basic instincts, followed by emotions, and then cognitive systems. The hierarchy among these functions (so that, ideally, cognition controls emotion and instinct) “mirrors the external hierarchy of social organization” (13). The health of a society depends upon its members understanding their proper role and how it serves the greater good. Even small children at play develop a sense of fairness and cooperate to accomplish objectives. Those who master these practices will be most likely to come back and play again, regardless of their skill at the game itself. 

Being at the bottom of a hierarchy may have drawbacks, but it offers an important lesson in gratitude for the skills of others and humility regarding one’s own capabilities. “No one unwilling to be a foolish beginner can learn” (18). One might still be unsatisfied with a lower station, but with the right attitude, people can develop the skills for self-advancement. In doing so, the lower person should be careful not to flout the norms of hierarchy, for example trying to come across as smarter than their boss. The flow of information is likely to be at its greatest efficiency among peers, which is why friendships are so important at even an early age, although it remains important throughout one’s life. Among their many contributions, “peers distribute both the burdens and joys of life” (23). Among friends, or perhaps a professional peer group, one develops sophisticated patterns of reciprocity that help inform a stable life. 

Hierarchies require someone to be in authority, and those with ambition are more likely to find themselves in such positions. This makes ambition a necessary, even desirable, quality, so long as one is willing to accept restraints on the power that comes with authority. Those in authority must also be patient with their subordinates and not confuse their lower position with a lack of ability, but rather try to develop their potential. 

The paradox of social institutions is that they require stability to function, but must also be innovative enough to respond to new challenges. This places everyone in a “permanent moral conundrum: When do we simply follow convention, doing what others request or demand; and when do we rely on our own individual judgment, with all its limitations and biases, and reject the requirements of the collective?” (29). Some people have a more conservative temperament, while others are more radical and willing to break the mold, both of which can become corrupted into “ignorance and ingratitude” (31). Peterson tells the story of a young woman who succumbed to severe depression and inaction. He argues that her depression arose partially from a sense of moral superiority: She believed that she had all the answers for what was wrong with the world but no power to change it, and therefore she felt hopeless. In Peterson’s opinion, people like her need more gratitude for the structures that do exist, avoiding either excessive criticism or excessive deference. Discipline and creativity are heavily dependent upon one another—“intelligent and cautious conservatism and careful and incisive change keep the world in order” (36). 

The systems of hierarchy which make social orders work are also manifested within the human personality, so that individuals also must balance conservative and creative impulses. People, including some of Peterson’s former clients, achieved a degree of self-actualization by controlling their darker impulses and finding a creative wellspring within themselves, such as photography or graphic design. Popular stories, like the Harry Potter novels and films, show the main characters mastering difficult arts through the relentless honing of skills—thus demonstrating self-discipline—while also breaking the rules when authorities fall short. In the Gospels, Jesus is depicted as a master of Jewish tradition (even from a young age) while also clashing with its leading authorities. Ultimately, it is important to understand the rules, but when “you are willing to fully shoulder the responsibility of making an exception, because you see that as serving a higher good […] then you have served the spirit, rather than the mere law, and that is an elevated moral act” (46). People must learn to live with the uncertainty of how to balance these competing needs, and so must carry proper respect for both social institutions and creative achievement.

It is difficult for a person to know exactly who they are, because their existence is caught up in a mix of what is and what could possibly be. Stories are so meaningful to people in part because they convey a hint of what could be, and activating the imagination is a way of remembering possibilities that have been lying dormant. Stories convey archetypes that can then be retold and reimagined across generations, gaining particular salience during moments of societal crisis. Great stories emerge from long periods of observation and analysis of human behavior, from which it is possible to establish generalities and even rules. “An unforgettable story captures the essence of humanity and distills, communicates, and clarifies it, bringing what we are and what we should be into focus. It speaks to us, motivating the attention that inspires us to imitate. We learn to see and act in the manner of the heroes of the stories that captivate us” (57). People are inspired to be like fictional heroes, who often emerge from obscurity to take on seemingly impossible odds and create order from chaos. To explain his meaning, Peterson describes an image (featured at the beginning of the chapter) of a dragon sitting atop a winged sphere. Atop the dragon is a person with both a male and a female head (the former looking to the sun, the latter to the moon). The image is known as the “primal element…the fundamental substance from which everything else—matter and spirit included, equally—emerged, or was derived” (59). The winged sphere is meant to represent human potential before it takes any particular form. He compares it to the Golden Snitch in the Harry Potter series, a winged ball that flies around unpredictably and must be captured to end the game—usually with a victory for the capturing team. The winged sphere is thus “something that grabs our attention—love of a person; a sport; a political, sociological, or economic problem, or a scientific question; a passion for art, literature or drama—something that calls to us for reasons we can neither control nor understand” (65). The dragon, which in myth is often the guardian of treasure, signifies both the danger and the possibility of unlocked potential. The dual human figure represents the balance between the masculine and feminine aspects of the soul, which Peterson understands to be rationality and emotion, respectively. 

Peterson then turns to the Enuma Elish, a story from ancient Mesopotamia, in which the goddess Tiamat, who is “the terror of nature, creative and destructive” couples with Apsu, “the order that we depend upon for security” (69). Their own children ultimately turn on Apsu and murder him. As Tiamat plots revenge, the children name one of their own children, Marduk, to become chief of the gods, at which point he assigns the other gods various roles before creating humanity. For Peterson, this marks the civilizational passage from polytheism to monotheism, which in turn signifies a transition from primordial chaos to rational order and a more nuanced moral sensibility. Such motifs occur again in again in stories ranging from that of St. George slaying the dragon to Beowulf to Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Once again, Peterson turns to Harry Potter, namely the second volume (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) where he eventually learns that a giant snake known as a basilisk is turning students at Hogwarts into stone, and like so many mythic heroes before him, Harry must rescue a young girl from the clutches of the monster. Harry can only defeat the monster because he has an element of monstrosity within him, an ability to speak to snakes (known as ‘Parseltongue’ in the series), but he can control his impulses and use them for good. Harry defeats the snake but is bitten in the process and then revives with the power of a phoenix (a bird that catches fire and then is reborn from its own ashes). This represents “the element of the individual human personality that must die and regenerate, as it learns, painfully, through the oft-tragic experience that destroys previous certainty, replacing it first with doubt, and then—when successfully confronted—with new and more complete knowledge” (83). 

Actions are more comprehensive and revealing than words, and a story provides a baseline for individuals to imitate in their own actions. Individual identities are continually refreshed with the passing away of old knowledge and the acquisition of new truths—an often painful but necessary process. Peterson encourages the reader to develop an ideal that lets them live out their own heroic story, confront the obstacles that emerge along the way, and allow themselves to be changed by the very process of seeking a goal.