foreignpolicy | Peterson’s philosophy is difficult to assess because it is
constructed of equal parts apocalyptic alarm and homespun advice. Like
the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whom he cites as an intellectual
influence, Peterson is fond of thinking in terms of grand dualities —
especially the opposition of order and chaos. Order, in his telling,
consists of everything that is routine and predictable, while chaos
corresponds to all that is unpredictable and novel.
For Peterson, living well requires walking the line between the two.
He is hardly the first thinker to make this point; another of his
heroes, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, harking back to the
ancient Greeks, suggested that life is best lived between the harmony of
Apollo and the madness of Dionysus. But while Peterson claims both
order and chaos are equally important, he is mainly concerned with the
perils posed by the latter — hence his rules.
In his books and lectures, Peterson describes chaos as “feminine.”
Order, of course, is “masculine.” So the threat of being overwhelmed by
chaos is the threat of being overwhelmed by femininity. The tension
between chaos and order plays out in both the personal sphere and the
broader cultural landscape, where chaos is promoted by those
“neo-Marxist postmodernists” whose nefarious influence has spawned
radical feminism, political correctness, moral relativism, and identity
politics.
At the core of Peterson’s social program is the idea that the
onslaught of femininity must be resisted. Men need to get tough and
dominant. And, in Peterson’s mind, women want this, too. He tells us in 12 Rules for Life:
“If they’re healthy, women don’t want boys. They want men.… If they’re
tough, they want someone tougher. If they’re smart, they want someone
smarter.” “Healthy” women want men who can “outclass” them. That’s
Peterson’s reason for frequently referencing the Jungian motif of the
hero: the square-jawed warrior who subdues the feminine powers of chaos.
Don’t be a wimp, he tells us. Be a real man.
This machismo is of a piece with Jung but also a caricature of Nietzsche’s philosophy, particularly the thinker’s Übermensch
(superman), who escapes the stultifying effects of a culture in
decline. “I am no man,” Nietzsche once claimed. “I am dynamite!”
Dynamite, from the Greek dunamis, meaning “power.” That is what
Peterson’s acolytes are after. It is no accident that one of his video
lectures is titled “How to Rise to the Top of the Dominance Hierarchy.”
