Jordan Peterson recently made an interesting claim in a Joe Rogan podcase video that the Bible is really such a foundational work that to a limited extent Western literature and general perspective itself is based on it. Maybe. It takes some doing to get to why he's saying that, in order to evaluate it. Or maybe it doesn't really work to evaluate it, but doing the framing part is still interesting.
He outlines the main direction as follows, in the first words in that video:
"if categories just dissolve, especially fundamental ones, then the culture is dissolving, because the culture is a structure of categories. That's what it is. So in fact culture is a structure of category that we all share. So we see things the same way, so that's why we can talk. I mean not exactly the same way, because then we'd have nothing to talk about. Roughly speaking, we have a bedrock of agreement. That's the Bible, by the way."
I'll start with a bit of an intro of Jordan Peterson's general perspective first, and get back to this. I mentioned this video to an online friend who is into Christianity who responded that he wasn't interested because Jordan Peterson is not a reliable source (just not put that way). There's something to that; I think a lot of what Jordan Peterson expresses is either meaningless or not informative without placing exactly what he is saying, or not saying, and why, with his normal form of expressing content not at all clear without that context. So although it's all tangent I'll address that part first, then get on with looking at how the Bible really may or may not be the basis for a modern Western worldview.
I've studied religion a little, even in a number of religion classes, but I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, it's just something I've already given some thought to.
Jordan Peterson versus the left
His conflict with "the left" came to head at the same time his popularity as a thought leader evolved, in relation to the gender pronoun issue. More specifically, it was identified as something like illegal hate speech to not use preferred pronouns where he was living, in one part of Canada. There are problems with that type of law, which he correctly identified. And a general context problem with the use of diverse gender identification, which he also identified. Then he does also go on to make criticisms and sweeping cultural identifications that don't make sense. Let's start with those.
He consistently identifies a broad range of perspectives and directives as tied back to Marxists and Marxism. Parts of it seem to work, it's just that the framing really doesn't, as if there is a unified far-left perspective that involves a lot of shared philosophical underpinnings and final conclusions. The philosophical part is weak too; a far left perspective evolved a certain way, but not really based on those inputs, or at least not as directly as he explicitly links together.
It might work to say that perspective basis and positions on final issues might be generally common to a range that could be fairly identified as extreme left, but he just goes too far with the generalities. It's probably because he is exposed to extreme versions, and within the academic environment what these derive from, in general, is more consistent and known. But it's not really like that related to the average person who thinks that trans-gender individuals should or should not have equal rights. They're not necessarily well read up on 19th and 20th century philosophy, or involved with the same degree of philosophical and psychological assumptions. Some are extremists, sure, on both the left and right, and draw on ideas derived in lots of ways. One could argue that their final positions and views are partial extensions of those earlier ideas, and the linkage doesn't need to be tight, and that's back to working better.
The starting point of rejecting mandated use of language works. It's not problematic to restrict use of negative terms (the "n word," fag, and so on). Telling people which words they need to use is a bit different. If there was a distinct set of new gender pronouns being advocated that would at least be a more workable context, but the list of those expanded to over 50, and just kept changing and growing. Tracking them and being responsible for use in every interaction was already impossible at that point, and it's not as if the numerous early versions were going to stay fixed.
If it had only related to that the subject wouldn't have drawn the attention it did. Jordan Peterson next claimed that only a limited set of pronouns made sense in relation to being tied back to biological gender, which of course is a divisive and problematic position. That issue never really gets settled, because people on both extremes keep redefining their position context and finer points, so they end up talking past each other.
It doesn't work to say that biological gender identification is optional, or you end up with female powerlifters competing and breaking records who only identified as female for a matter of weeks prior, or maybe even only on that day. It also doesn't work to say that gender identification needs to be tied only to genetic factors, because lots of other cases contradict that, and there has to be space for gender to be regarded as a social construct too, because of course it's partly that. Leaving aside atypical biological conditions it's just not right saying that people can't change their personal identity because of some genetic biological context. Of course they can. It was this messy topic that made Jordan Peterson famous, as much as any other.
His core messages were never really mostly about that. He is second most known for a self-development theme, encouraging people to set goals for themselves, to take responsibility for their lives, to start with making small positive changes in their life circumstances or self perception, to become aware of limitations they place on themselves, and so on. His earlier academic work wasn't about either theme (political perspective and gender issues, or self-development). He focused on two topics: the basis for and experience of meaning, and how basic teachings and groundworks of psychological models fit together with biological and social inputs. That second one tied to the gender issues.
So how did he ever become a spokesperson for the right wing? The short answer is that this is wrong, and he didn't. He opposes an extreme left / liberal set of ideas and positions, but for the most part doesn't support much that is associated with the right wing / conservative perspective, beyond not explicitly rejecting the alignment as much as one might expect for a professed "classic liberal." Maybe self-development themes could link with themes about personal independence, and then it all connects, but it's a stretch. I suppose the whole nature versus nurture / inborn characteristics versus social development set of themes does underpin positions he takes or opposes, which map to conservative themes in whatever ways. It just doesn't work to connect it all together.
When he debates liberal members of the media they are consistently attributing positions and claims to him that aren't accurate, so those interviews get bogged down in talking about rejecting what he doesn't actually say. It's not worth watching more than one example of that, because there is limited positive content from either perspective (ideas actually asserted) to relate to or not relate to.
So how does Jordan Peterson go too far, what does he say that's not fair, or accurate? He habitually categorizes positions and perspectives in broad, sweeping ways, so that most "leftists / Marxists" are making the same claims, based on the same foundational context. Some of that may work as a generality for some people and positions, but it's just not how that really works, that you can paint a broad and general political perspective into such a limited and clear set of positions and assumptions. That's partly what is going wrong with people identifying his ideas and position in relation to the right, or far right / conservative perspective.
Oddly that tendency and pattern tie back to what works well in his teachings. You really can't easily pull apart what foundational thinkers like Marx, Nietzsche, Jung and Freud, and later French philosophers are saying, pinning each down to a half dozen core assertions and ideas. They address complex divides in thought that only really make sense in relation to other sets of ideas they are building on, opposing, or responding to. Sometimes parts of some models are very simple and clear, and then simpler summaries do work better.
But the problem with saying that you can't extract complex teachings into a half dozen simple statements is that you need to do this to "work with" such ideas, unless you are able to take a graduate class that studies their work, and even then you tend to only focus on one text by one person. So to a limited extent distilling Nietzsche down to a dozen "Nietzsche says..." statements misses what he is really saying, but at least it works with some ideas, it considers them.
The other part of problems with Jordan Peterson's thinking, besides overgeneralizing, and being judged for advocating ideas that he is really not advocating, is that he seems to get caught up in negativity that isn't really necessary, other aspects of the political divide, and the general downfall of society sort of themes. Extreme personal difficulties could account for that, facing problems across a lot of scope as a main life theme, health issues and such.
On to the part about Christianity, which will tie back further to his general approach and thoughts on other broad patterns, but not to problems or criticisms with him, his statements, or his work.
Christianity / the Bible as a basis for Western perspective and society
This subject is good and sweeping, isn't it? More context on JP's approach and perspective on things: he sees legends and traditional stories as distillations of familiar narratives and old events that include life guidance, that set up a context for an individual worldview, and underpin it. He uses the Pinocchio story to give the most detailed examples, but any hero's story will do to fill in the same pattern. Let's start there.
First let's be even clearer about what I've just claimed is his position: these traditional legends may or may not be about people that did exist, but the stories are built out of other old stories and forms, including external details of activities (things added). I think this part is right; extra interpretation and things added or taken away in retelling would change old story forms to borrow from or match other old stories.
The hero's journey (a broad and shared form) is that the central character is faced with some sort of external threat or demand, and needs to go on some sort of quest to resolve this, to seek something out, or finish a difficult task. Then they undertake this, face extreme challenges, and question their own perspective, capabilities, and motivations, often making some sacrifice, finally accomplishing their goal and returning triumphant, and altered by the experience.
Why these themes, what does it mean? Lots of things, really. It's a good story (a basis for one); that's part of it. It's also a teaching about personal character, appropriate motivations, questioning assumptions and one's role in society, about transcending earlier self-definition and assumed capabilities, and contributing to society. The bad characters, and their motivations and actions, represent what society intends to reject, and "quest" setbacks represent conventional pitfalls in self-understanding or development. And it's also about other things, I suppose, but that works for a start.
Moral teachings are an important part too, about placing the good of others and the whole above your own. That one theme repeats more than any other in a lot of story telling. But why? It's part of the basis for society itself, part of the fabric of what a collective of individuals is based on. If everyone only acts for immediate and long term self interest then the institutions and broader goals suffer. Societal level issues like global warming and national debt could never be resolved, because these relate to the interests of future individuals.
Even more mundane restrictions on things like stealing also help establish societal order. Proactive emphasis on themes like generosity work in a similar way, just from the other direction. Self-sacrifice is a great example of extension of that kind of theme. Minor norms would end up being swept in too, relatively value-neutral components that are still positioned as generally positive, something like urban versus rural living, or aesthetic themes.
So the old legends people accept and re-tell are really tied to a kind of meta-narrative, about underlying themes and conditions. Tony Stark is doing what Beowulf had been doing, and these stories include life lessons. Then it's interesting to consider if we are really soaking up that message; does anyone lead their own life differently because the Stark corporation moved on from selling defense goods, or because Tony risked his own life to defeat Thanos, and then actually did die? Probably not really. But that always had been part of the point.
The Bible is a lot more direct about this intention, or religion in general is. You are supposed to learn from these examples and apply them. Then in the end your own place in heaven is dependent on doing this, with it all taken in one way. With religion taken less literally there probably is no literal afterlife like that, but we build up the reality we should be able to experience based on all our own actions, perspectives, life directions, and moral choices.
So far so good; Jesus and Moses and the rest are teachers of correct perspective and morality. Jordan takes all this one step further in observations in that video, and it's an interesting step. To him it's not just meta-narratives that "roll up" to a worldview and perspective context, we can apply all this to literature. Shakespeare informs a lot of later story telling, both in form and content. He asserts that the Bible was actually the first set of writings to be collected into a book, really more a set of books or a library, and the most disseminated early on in printing development, and the most influential in general. Then from there he concludes that the Bible is the literal basis for Western perspective, related to that.
Does this work? Kind of, or maybe not really, given probably only partially so. Separating a Western and Eastern perspective alone may not work. It would be necessary to consider the role of the earlier Greek thinkers in impacting Roman perspectives, and that of others, how these inputs built up and influenced later thinking. To say that the Bible is the single primary cornerstone for a relatively unified cultural perspective goes a bit far. But then Jordan is into sweeping statements and conclusions, and it also still kind of works.
We would have to try to place access to the Bible by people other than priests throughout history, and the role of Latin in academic study and daily life across a range of centuries. It doesn't help that Jordan Peterson is not really a historian, or an expert on literary history, and that the order of his specialization goes pretty far down a list to get to that range. He's most trained in psychology, while also drawing on a good bit of philosophy, literature, and physical sciences for input. Already that's kind of too much range. Folding in the general anthropology scope of history of ideas and cultural evolution goes a bit far.
The Bible did have to be about as influential as any other single work ever created; how could it not be? He's right that it's not really a unified, singular work, even beyond the division into old and new testaments. It's just that last step, saying that the Bible grounds everything else, that seems to reach a little. Breaking that apart into influences of the old and new testament and tracing both across sets of cultural forms would work better, in comparison with other inputs and conditions.
To me it's still well worth considering, even if the limitations in using imagination and intuition to flesh it all out means that won't get far. Let's add one more consideration that frames what I mean: to what extent have we received detailed, intact versions of early Greek philosophy, which could be a separate contender as a main influence in Western culture? The timelines might be a little different; we think Plato lived from 428 to 348 BCE, roughly, and a 100 year history of culture he was building on still doesn't reach back to the early Bible age. Egyptians had been around for a long, long time prior, but let's consider Greek philosophy anyway.
Plato hung around; his writing we do have. Socrates, his teacher, taught Plato, and Plato's work is considered to be based on that input, but we only have what Plato said about what Socrates said to go on. Maybe a little of other references here or there, but nothing significant compared to Plato's accounts. To be clear I'm basing these statements on only taking one undergrad class that reviewed Greek philosophy and pre-Socratic input, so probably one professor's input on that subject. It could be wrong. What I was taught could've been right and my memory and interpretation of it could still be wrong. From what we studied of those pre-Socratic philosophers, of the teachings of 8 or 9 main figures, we only have a few fragments of statements or writing from each, a page or two of text worth in total. It's not much.
Doesn't this support Jordan Peterson's ideas about the Bible being more primary, since "the trail goes cold" related to what we learn from those Greeks today at around 400 BCE? Sort of, but also not really, as I see it. Just because some ideas or texts are not available today doesn't mean that the ideas didn't have a lot of indirect impact 2000+ years ago. Then we also still have a lot of writings from both Plato and Aristotle, which were also very foundational in our understanding of human reality, worldview, and perspective. And of physical reality too; Aristotle didn't stop at philosophy. It could work to try to compare the relative inputs of Plato and Aristotle as grounding Western perspective (as much as there is such a thing) in comparison or contrast with Biblical teachings, or to seek out dependency between the two. I studied religion some in a degree program, and more philosophy, but nothing like that ever really came up. It's too broad, too sweeping, and too difficult.
It almost doesn't matter but let's check on Wikipedia's take on how old the Bible is:
Considered to be scriptures (sacred, authoritative religious texts), the books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures). The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the 5th century BCE.
So someone inclined to believe Jordan Peterson (personally) and this interpretation could completely accept it, or based on their own biases could just as easily completely reject it. Actually sorting through the ideas would be problematic; it would be a lot easier to draw on a personal bias against Jordan Peterson instead of making any start on that. How could we evaluate the input of stories about Gilgamesh and Beowulf in comparison with those about Moses and Abraham, or the Greek gods? It wouldn't really work to try.
I like that Jordan Peterson makes the attempt though, that he tries to connect the dots in such sweeping forms. That's probably more about personal preference than whether it all works or not. At the risk of over-generalization about two thirds of what Jordan Peterson says completely works for me, with a minority of the rest seeming less functional, or maybe even a bit wrong. He keeps all the statements so general that it can be hard to really argue against one as wrong. If he says "Nietzsche says (x)" there's a pretty good chance that Nietzsche really did express and intend what JP was talking about, but that his interpretation is open to being disputed, or more frequently too general to really see as right or wrong. Then JP extends that to roll together parts of what a lot of people are doing for perspective or beliefs, and that part might not work either.
Nietzsche said a lot of things. He was talking about a lot of broad patterns or specific aspects of human experience in a lot of different ways, but never in as cut and dried, bottom-up form as would be expected or familiar from other thinkers. Kant was at the other extreme; her really explained what he meant, only stopping short of being able to pull together hundreds of ideas into a complete and unified system, but he did an insane amount of development work towards that, and others built on that later. Nietzsche didn't do that; he expressed himself in isolated aphorisms and symbolic parables, which only sort of connected back up.
Conclusions, take aways
I think there is value in considering what Jordan Peterson says, but all that value drops out if you aren't already completely familiar with how he's placing background concepts and perspectives. To completely get there someone would've needed to develop an interest in his presentation of earlier, better grounded ideas about meaning of life positioning or psychology basics, and get through a lot of his material, seeing how he uses concepts and expresses himself. Just being conservative and liking most conclusions wouldn't be enough to help you really understand what he's saying about most topics.
It wouldn't hurt to be relatively familiar with the sources he's referencing, to help place how he is using ideas, and which parts he is adding. I've read a lot of Nietzsche and studied his work in philosophy classes, and am familiar with some basics from Jung (another of his favorites), and am somewhat introduced to Piaget's work on development of perspective and reasoning forms. What gets grouped together as later Continental Philosophy I'm less familiar with, Sartre and the rest, but I suppose I've had some exposure to that.
Really when JP says "the Marxists say..." he's referencing his own collection and rejection of ideas tied to existentialism (more or less). It's kind of a strange summary form but listing some basic principles helps define that:
Tenets of Existentialism
Existence before Essence: people are born as a blank slate create essence through unique experiences
Impotence of Reason: Passion and emotion
Alienation or Estrangement: from Humans, human instructor, past/future, self nature, God (From God man has provided all answers through sciences)
Despair or Anxiety: freedom to create decisions and morals based on evidence (experience) causes fear and anxiety
Nothingness or Death: death hangs over all of us
Awful Freedom: Awesome/ Awful
The Absurd: Human tendency to search inherent value inability to find any
Cope: Acceptance of absurd, religious, suicide
Bad Faith: when individuals negate truth in an attempt to become a self they are not.
Doesn't sound so optimistic, does it? Basically all fixed definition of human nature is rejected by existentialism (to the extent that it's all one thing, which wouldn't hold up), and the existence of God is rejected, and of rigid and meaningful social forms and societal norms. So what's left? A bunch of conventions, which can be changed, and a process of searching for more functional self-definition.
Jordan Peterson doesn't care for all that because social conventions play a real role, whether we think of them as rigid and well grounded or not. If you throw out the gender roles for men and women family structures are likely to become a lot less stable, and a real connection to biologically based natural tendencies gets tossed out with them.
He talks more about the second point (connection between biology and conventional roles), but I think his concern is more the first, that men can become more feminine (or women more masculine, assertive and such), or people being gay can be completely accepted in a society, or trans-gender status can be, but if you lose all of it there are no broad social patterns to fall under. That's not a problem, it's the social roles related to those patterns dropping out that is problematic. Instead of kids growing up with a father and mother they could be raised by a group of ever-transitioning caregivers who may reject even the concept of pair-bonded relationships, between any defined or undefined genders. That extends the problem a bit, because gay couples tend to embrace pair-bonding too, but rejection of social forms could lead to later extensions of rejections of social forms. It's not really something I'm worried about; I'm trying to explain what I see as one part of Jordan Peterson's critique.
It's easy to see how this maps to conservative fixed adherence to past social definitions and roles, and liberal rejection of those in any strong form.
Does this work, the broad project to criticize changes in perspective of social roles? To an extent. Is it a problem that people in the US now don't see gender roles in the same ways? The culture is less unified than it could be, for sure. 70 years ago in the US "white culture" was fairly unified around the idea that black people are fundamentally different and inferior, and surely black people were a lot less certain of that. Perspective was not unified. So there were just two cultures, right? And related to shared perspective issues someone who believed that all "races" are equal would have had a lot of trouble talking to someone who thought that of course black people were fundamentally different and inferior.
It's not so simple mapping this to changes in gender role definitions, which are some fundamental categories. Some people on the liberal side would feel that relatively rigid definitions of male and female should be "dissolved," just as a lot of people in the US felt that racism should be dropped, those categories dissolved, although some people still don't agree with that.
From a narrow, somewhat flawed perspective this would be all about rejecting trans-people's right to exist. It's not about that, really. It's about whether or not retaining some variation of traditional masculine and feminine identification should be important, if the concepts of mother and father should be retained, for example. Some people would say no; a woman can be a father, and a man could make a great mother.
I'm reminded of an ex-girlfriend telling me that I would make a great mother, because I was good with some maternal aspects of raising her daughter that she had trouble with (a little girl I loved very much). Sometimes my daughter calls me mommy to make fun of this same set of ideas, because I empathize with her and care for her in ways a mother traditionally should instead. I help her shower and get ready for bed every night, for example, even though of course at this point she needs no help, because she's 8. It's a ritual role and activity, and her messing around until I start to get angry about that is part of the normal process. Last night it was making a "beauty treatment mask" out of toilet paper, and often it's something about making potions. I love those experiences; I value them. Just not on days when I'm tired and in a hurry.
Moving back to the Bible, it's teaching people to live within social expectations through stories. It's a little problematic that old testament versions are kind of dated, so people might get killed by stoning for relatively trivial offenses in stories, or slavery could seem normal, or whatever else they did or didn't object to as much 2500 years ago could come up. The lessons about being empathetic and supporting others and society, even at the cost of sacrificing your own self-interest, would hold up better across time and shifting social norms. It's all not as hard to sort out as what Nietzsche or Kant said, so there's that.
Jordan Peterson's statement that the Bible grounds a lot of modern forms of literature and worldview I see as partly right, maybe even completely right within the bounds of how he probably meant it. If you look back through that list of ideas put forth by existentialism (in a crib-notes study guide reference form) it completely conflicts almost all of the assumptions the Bible starts from: society and human nature are based on rigid, externally defined forms, there are clearly defined norms for right and wrong, self-determination relates to accepting these boundaries and acting within them, as externally directed, etc.
So which set of ideas is wrong, or more right? People make that selection in relation to assumptions, which are largely inherited, and often only develop them a little through internal review. My own take might involve a bit more explicit review for being on that page (interested in this general subject), but in the end maybe I just fall back on what feels right to me to, in relation to which parts of the two sets of ideas I accept. I suppose I merge them. Or to give myself more credit I resolve some of the assumptions that lead to these contradictions at the level of assumptions instead of getting this far, on to different conclusions. Something like "people are born with a blank slate" is just wrong, but it takes too long to unpack the two levels on which this is incorrect, about societal perspective being a framework and how genetics factors in.
Let's be clear, Jordan Peterson can accept that social roles and definitions, and moral norms, are all defined through an organic process of reason and natural evolution of forms, not through dictates from a real God. This was really Kant's project, building it all up from reason, without any need for random and shifting external forms, which kind of didn't work. Nietzsche felt that people were right at the cusp of completely rejecting a lot of prior norms, evolving past them, and that's not as much in contrast with thinking that relatively fixed social norms evolve through rational development as it might seem. Nietzsche didn't see it all as rational in the same sense that Kant did, but it works out similarly enough anyway, that instead of a rational mapping process explaining it all, and then eliminating inconsistencies, we can experience a re-write of social forms through the input of greater vision, creativity, and self-awareness. Nietzsche's ideas lead more directly to what JP's "philosophical opponents" take up than what he does.
Except those opponents, the modern "Marxists," kind of don't really exist. People are certainly acting on continued ideas and forms from earlier Existentialism, but there are no "boogeymen" of people who really know what they are doing in proposing ingenuine and manipulative philosophical positions, and then also advocate flawed derived norms. Some of the social forms probably are problematic, and ideas flawed, there is just no insidious conspiracy to push it all through as Peterson describes. Maybe there might as well be; some Hollywood movies are still impacted as if there was.
If you look long enough you could find academics with related positions to debate, but they aren't influential known figures, or people pulling the strings from the shadows, they're just college professors or authors. Contemporary atheism has proven much more popular, related to selling books and drawing attention, and that's unrelated.
Related to how I personally place Christianity, I think what Jesus taught is what people need to hear, even though I've been influenced a lot more by taking up Buddhism. Buddhism is too hard for almost everyone; it's a process of guided introspection that involves a number of components, different functional tools and contextual references. There's no one clear and simple modern form to review and try to follow. Christianity is better; the moral teachings are essentially equivalent, and they work.
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this role represents a part of Buddhist religion but to me the core meaning is something else |
For people who absolutely need to get the rest sorted out Buddhism could be the best reference, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Sometimes the shortest path seems long, and Buddhism really is a long path. The goal of understanding and revising your own worldview wouldn't be for everyone. There's a bit on one core component here that fills part of that in.
Can we put Jordan Peterson's assertion that the Bible underpins a modern Western worldview to use in any way? Not really, I don't think. Reading the New Testament helps identify what Jesus really taught, but getting through the Old Testament is all but impossible for almost everyone, regardless of what is or isn't in there, or how much filtering would be required to place the ideas. It's still interesting to consider, for me, but I'm not sure how common that positive reaction to the idea would be. Jordan Peterson's broader themes are more worthy of consideration, or early work on meaning and psychology basics, but as I've covered here I see it all as connected.
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