Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

Just as heat and pressure eventually form coal into a diamond,  Peterson argues that a human being achieves their pinnacle in fusing together the contradictory elements of their own self. Setting clear goals is a crucial step for achieving internal unity, which can have positive physiological effects in reducing stress and anxiety. Someone pursuing multiple goals will never be satisfied, because they will never get everything, whereas “to move forward with resolve, it is necessary to be organized—to be directed toward something singular and identifiable” (184). As a graduate student, Peterson found that his colleagues were happier and more motivated than other workers even though they had little money or prestige. As a professor, he found that students who took on more work did better than those who worked less. It is easy to question whether one’s goals are truly worthwhile, but such attitudes can lead one to “become unmoored and drift” (187), making one bitter and even less capable of making effective decisions. 

Regardless of the goal one pursues, the pursuit itself can instill a sense of discipline and self-organization. This entails learning not just to sacrifice certain wants for a clear purpose, but to sacrifice other wants for the good of social cooperation. To do so is not to compromise one’s individual essence, but rather to establish the proper balance between the creative impulse and the need for social harmony. People can disagree about precisely how to arrange a social order, just as they might argue about which religion is preferable, but no reasonable person can doubt the need for social order (and, Peterson implies, the religious impulse as well): “To think that peace can exist without the overarching and voluntarily accepted game is to misunderstand the ever-present danger of the fragmented tribalism to which we can so easily and devastatingly regress” (191). Participation in these social structures often involves hierarchy, where “an apprentice must become a servant of tradition, of structure, and of dogma, just as the child who wants to play must follow the rules of the game” (192), and like the child who learns that the rules are necessary for the game, an apprentice learns that rules help to integrate disparate personalities into a working structure. 

Some of the most important rules are those which forbid certain actions, such as most of the Ten Commandments. For Peterson, that famous list points to a main idea: “subjugate yourself voluntarily to a set of socially determined rules—those with some tradition in their formulation—and a unity that transcends the rules will emerge” (195). That unity is later formulated by Jesus in the Gospels, who summarizes the Gospels as loving God and loving “thy neighbor as thyself” (196). Jesus’ authority came from his mastery of the Jewish tradition, and so those who focus on honing their own skills in an existing body of skills and rules are following in a proud cultural tradition.

Peterson is well known (from 12 Rules For Life) for telling people to clean their rooms, but he admits that he himself does not always live in the tidiest conditions. Even so, he argues that it is worthwhile to make something, even one thing, as beautiful as one can. Art in particular is an especially useful way to provide a daily reminder of the importance of beauty in one’s life. “Art is the bedrock of culture. It is the foundation of the process by which we unite ourselves psychologically, and come to establish productive peace with others” (203). He then turns to his own childhood, asserting that his memories from this period are all the more visceral because they are inexact—tied to feeling rather than to physical details like what a house or street looked like. As an adult, he found himself overly preoccupied with details. The responsibilities of adulthood necessitate this change, but a loss of childlike wonder is nevertheless something to be regretted. He cites poets Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and William Blake to argue for the need to “rekindle our delight in the world” (210), lest daily requirements limit our view to mere “bleak necessity” (212). 

Using the metaphor of hearing an unfamiliar noise in a dark room, Peterson discusses how artists are the ones to explore the unfamiliar, to impose order upon chaos, even if they are not fully aware of doing so. Creation is an urge that they follow, not always knowing where it will take them, until they discover a truth more powerful than any accessible by reason. He recalls a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where enormous effort has been made to store and exhibit great works of art on an incredibly valuable stretch of land, all so that thousands of people might come each day to admire these works in something resembling a religious experience. He discusses how he filled his home with old paintings from the Soviet Union, and how he tried to make his office more aesthetically pleasing than the industrial style in which it was constructed, until a senior administrator vetoed the latter plan as too expensive. He made more modest improvements to his office anyway, and while such minor acts of rebellion carry the risk of retribution, that risk is preferable to the cowardice of submitting to mediocrity and ugliness. He closes with a note on abstract art, arguing that while many people appreciate it rather than less traditional forms, he finds it no less worthwhile, as “artists teach people to see” (225-226). Art that does not exactly resemble the physical world can nonetheless tell us something very profound and beautiful, which otherwise might have escaped our notice.