Posted on by Kyle Roques

Foreign Viewpoint

This means essentially that to give serious consideration to another’s viewpoint means to risk exposure to indeterminate uncertainty – to risk a rise in existential anxiety, pain and depression; to experience temporally indeterminate effective, imagistic and cognitive chaos. It is much more likely, in consequence, that a foreign viewpoint will appear evil or will come to be defined as such (especially during times rendered unstable – unbearably novel – for additional alternative reasons).

Once such definition occurs, application of aggression, designed to obliterate the source of threat, appears morally justified, even required by duty. The alternative or foreign viewpoint is in fact reasonably considered evil (although this consideration is dangerously one-sided), when viewed in terms of its potential destructive capacity, from within the strict confines of the historically determined social-psychological adaptive structure. It is only within the domain of meta-morality (which is the morality designed to update moral rules) that the strange may be tolerated or even welcomed.

Jordan Peterson
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Behavioural Tradition

Looking at the Bible through this lense shows that the Bible is a historical documentation of the human behavioral tradition, from the demands of adaptation to nature, in the form of heuristics.

The (explicit) moral code is validated by reference to the (religious, mythic) narrative, the narrative; is primarily episodic representation of behavioral tradition; the tradition emerges as a consequence of individual adaptation to the demands of natural conditions, manifest (universally) in emotion, generated in a social context. The episodic representation – which is representation of the outcome of a procedure and the procedure itself – is predicated upon belief in the sufficiency and validity of that procedure; more subtly, it has the same structure – at least insofar as it is an accurate representation of behavior – and therefore contains the (implicit) hierarchical structure of historically determined procedural knowledge in more explicit form. Over lengthy historical periods, therefore, the “image” ever more accurately encapsulates the behavior, and stories find their compelling essential form.

Jordan Peterson
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Understanding Morality

It is still the case, however, that description of the domain of morality tend to exceed the capability of declarative thought, and that the nature of much of what we think of as moral behavior is still, therefore, embedded in unconscious procedure. As a consequence, it is easy for us to become confused about the nature of morality, and to draw inappropriate, untimely and dangerous “fixed” conclusions.

Moral behaviors and schemas of valuation arise as a consequence of behavioral interaction undertaken in the social world: every individual, motivated to regulate his emotions through action, modifies the behavior of others, operating in the same environment. The consequence of this mutual modification, operating over time, is the emergence of a stable pattern of behavior, “designed” to match individual and social needs, simultaneously. Eventually, this behavioral pattern comes to be coded in image, heralded and narrative, and explicitly represented in words.

Myths of the “knowledge of good and evil” and the “fall from paradise” represent emergence of this representational capacity, in the guise of a historical event. The consequence of this “event” – that is, the development of “self-consciousness” – is capacity to represent death and understand that the possibility of death is part of the unknown.

These complex systems of action and belief are religious. They are the traditional means of dealing with the shadow cast on life by the knowledge of mortality. Our inability to understand the religious traditions and our consequent conscious denigration of their perspectives dramatically decrease the utility of what they have to offer.

We are conscious enough to destabilize our beliefs and our traditional patterns of action, but not conscious enough to understand them. If the reasons for the existence of our traditions were rendered more explicit, however, perhaps we could develop greater intrapsychic and social integrity. The capacity to develop such understanding might help us use our capacity for reason to support, rather than destroy, the moral systems that discipline and protect us.

Jordan Peterson
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Primordial Chaos

The totality of the world, which includes the significance of experienced things, as well as the things themselves, is composed of what has been explored and rendered familiar; what has yet to be encountered, and is therefore unpredictable; and the process that mediates between the two.

The primordial theriomorphic serpent god is endless potential; is whatever being is prior to the emergence of the capacity for experience. This potential has been represented as the self devouring dragon (most commonly) because this image aptly symbolizes the union of incommensurate opposites. Th ouroboros is simultaneously representative of two antithetical primordial elements. As a snake, the ouroboros is a creature of the ground, of matter; as a bird (a winged animal), it is a creature of the air, the sky, spirit. The ouroborus symbolizes the union of the known (associated with spirit) and unknown (associated with matter), explored and unexplored; symbolizes the juxtaposition of the “masculine” principles of security, tyranny and order with the “feminine” principles of darkness, dissolution, creativity and chaos.

Furthermore, as a snake, the ouroboros has the capacity to shed its skin – to be “reborn.” Thus, it also represents the possibility of transformation, and stands for the knower, who can transform chaos into order, and order into chaos. The Ouroboros stands for, or comprises, everything that is as of yet unencountered, prior to its differentiation as a consequence of active exploration and classification. It is a source of all information that makes up the determinant world of experience and is, simultaneously, the birthplace of the experiencing subject.

The ouroboros is one thing, as everything that has not yet been explored is one thing; it exists everywhere, and at all times. It is completely self-contained, completely self-referential: it feeds, fertilizes and engulfs itself. It unites the beginning and the end, being and becoming, in the endless circle of its existence. It serves as a symbol for the ground of reality itself. It is the “set of all things that not yet things,” the primal origin and ultimate point of return for every discriminable object and every independent subject. It serves as progenitor of all we know, all that we don’t know, and of the spirit that constitutes our capacity to know and not know. It is the mystery that constantly emerges when solutions to old problems cause new problems; is the sea of chaos surrounding man’s island of knowledge – and the source of that knowledge, as well. It is all new experience generated by time, which incessantly works to transform the temporarily predictable once again into the unknown. It has served mankind as the most ubiquitous and potent primordial gods.

Jordan Peterson
Posted on by Kyle Roques

Conceptual Battlefield

This is a bit long and I really just wanted to share the last few points but I had to quote everything leading up to them so there would be a better understanding. If you know Peterson you know how he expands on things to an almost painful extent. This was taken from a lecture I’ll link to below.

Part of the reason we have political discussion, or, discussion at all is to separate the wheat from the chaff. The reason that free speech is so important, as far as I’m concerned, well I don’t even really think about it as free speech, I think about it, as what; respect for the manifestation of the Logos or something like that. Thats the proper way of conceptualizing it, is that it keeps the balance between those two tendencies (tendencies between the – Left, pathological chaos – and the – Right, pathological order).

You need the questioning and you need the order. And so you think, well how much of each? And the answer is: the recipe changes day to day. And so you think, if it changes day today then how do we keep up? And the answer is: by keeping up, here we are, we’re alive, we can keep up – but we do that by thinking, and we think by talking, and we think and talk by disagreeing. We better disagree, conceptually, because then we don’t have to act out stupid ideas that would kill us.

The abstract territory of conceptual dispute is a substitute for war and death. And it can be a brutal substitute because conceptual disagreement can be very intense, but compared to war and death it’s hardly intense at all. So you keep the landscape open for serious dispute, including dispute that’s offensive, obviously, because if you’re ever going to talk about anything that’s difficult – and why talk otherwise – then you’re going to talk about things that are offensive to people and you’re going do it badly.

You’re going to stumble around when you’re formulating your thoughts, and that’s horrible, it makes people anxious, it alienates them, but it’s better than pain and death, and that’s the alternative.

Jordan Peterson

Posted on by Kyle Roques

Logos

Everything this man says is quotable. To me he is one of the most empowering speakers. With this quote he is speaking in relation to universities but obviously you do not need a university to attain what he’s talking about. This is the reason why I have made a decision to dedicate just about all my “free/idle time” to doing something constructive and it has created a positive feedback loop that empowers me daily.

“Read great books.” Libraries are “full of the writings of people that are intelligent and articulate beyond comprehension.”
He asks why do you go to university to learn all this? He replies with “you learn it to get a job, or you learn it to get good grades, or you learn it to get a degree, and that’s all nonsense! It’s all nonsense!” “The reason you come to university to be educated is because there is nothing more powerful than someone who is articulate and who can think and speak. It’s power! And I mean power of the best sort! Its authority and influence and respectability and competence. So you come to university to craft your highest skill, your highest skill is found in articulated speech. If you’re a master in formulating your arguments you win everything! And better than that when you win everything everyone around you wins too. Consider your transformation to something approximating the Logos, it means you shine a light on the whole world!.”

“Be who you could be, and with the highest faculty of the human being is articulated speech, it’s the divine faculty and there is nothing more powerful than that! There’s nothing even in the same league.”