https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html
I don’t want to address the Jordan Peterson “phenomenon,” but I would like to comment on his views on hierarchy:
“So he was radicalized, he says, because the ‘radical left’ wants to eliminate hierarchies, which he says are the natural order of the world. In his book he illustrates this idea with the social behavior of lobsters. He chose lobsters because they have hierarchies and are a very ancient species, and are also invertebrates with serotonin. This lobster hierarchy has become a rallying cry for his fans; they put images of the crustacean on T-shirts and mugs.
The left, he believes, refuses to admit that men might be in charge because they are better at it. ‘The people who hold that our culture is an oppressive patriarchy, they don’t want to admit that the current hierarchy might be predicated on competence,’ he said.”
First, let’s deal with the competence issue. There are many hierarchies in our society, but if most hierarchies correlated with competence, then Dilbert would never have been funny, and Ethelred the Unready would have had a different nickname. And if our political hierarchy is based on competence, then why does the most powerful person in the world believe that climate change is a hoax?
The idea that competence correlates with hierarchies may be true sometimes (in a good teaching hospital, say, or in a well-managed tech company), but we can never take it as a given. It’s an undeniable constant of civilization that sometimes people are highly competent at acquiring power (or inheriting it) and profoundly incompetent at using it. And competence itself cannot be used to justify hierarchies in the absence of broader considerations. Eichmann was a highly competent administrator, but his abilities only led to suffering.
Second, Peterson is using a kind of logical sleight of hand here to justify the gender, class and racial hierarchies that he grew up with, or which his grandparents grew up with, and which he longs for. He’s saying that hierarchies are the “natural order,” which I suppose means that most societies have hierarchies, and there may be enduring reasons for that—a fair enough point—and so the hierarchies currently under question, such as male supremacy, are legitimate. But the legitimacy of any given hierarchy cannot be inferred from the fact that hierarchies have been around for a long time and may be a permanent feature of human life.
Because an appeal to the “natural order” of hierarchies could certainly justify Stalin’s Soviet hierarchy or the hierarchies of Mao Zhe Dong or Pol Pot, and I doubt Peterson means that. He’s only talking about hierarchies of which he approves, you see. But this “natural order” idea cuts both ways.
Third, Peterson is dodging the most important question we can ask about any hierarchy: is it legitimate? Because hierarchies don’t usually exist without a rationale—maybe they do among lobsters, but seldom among human beings. “The King was chosen by God,” or “CEOs are really smart,” or “the Mandarins are trained to rule for the benefit of all,” are examples. And this rationale often amounts to an ideology, and the content of that ideology is telling. Peterson can wave his hand at the hierarchies of the past, but he’s blurred out some important considerations.
For example, in the 1540s, Henry VIII was King of England, not quite an absolute monarch but feared as if he were. Three centuries later, Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States, and in wartime he wielded power not far short of absolute. So, two hierarchies, both with individuals at the top who wielded almost absolute power. The situations sound similar—and yet, these two hierarchies were quite different, just as the societies that gave rise to them were different; they differed in their values, their political systems, and their vision of the future. The mere fact that a hierarchy exists means little. But the ideology and values on which a hierarchy is founded mean a great deal.
Abraham Lincoln personally reviewed every death sentence issued during his administration—desertion, falling asleep on watch, murder, mutiny and rape—and he often commuted the sentence or pardoned the offender. Such a process would have been inconceivable in sixteenth century England, where by one estimate 72,000 were executed during Henry VIII’s reign, about 2.5% of the population. Whatever the exact number, contemporary accounts portray a country where life was cheap.
These two societies—the United State in the 1860s and England in the 1540s—had distinctly different values, and the behavior of their respective hierarchies reflect that. When two societies differ noticeably in the value they put on human life, we can be sure that they are dissimilar in other ways as well.
A hierarchy founded on the self-interest of the elite, or on some mystique of superiority, is not at all the same as a hierarchy founded on a sense of shared responsibility.
What does it look like when a hierarchy loses its legitimacy? The Reformation occurred because the Catholic Church lost its legitimacy, and the resulting wars were destructive in the extreme. The Church’s efforts to retain its position by force only led to problems later on. Spain remained Catholic at the cost of modernity, and France remained Catholic—barely—but the Church’s close association with the monarchy tended in the long run to discredit both. After the French Revolution the Church’s position was permanently weakened.
By the 19th century the Church’s social position in Italy was captured by Mark Twain, who, dazzled by the gold and silver and fine artwork of an Italian cathedral, ran into an aggressive crowd of beggars on the street outside. “Why don’t you rob your churches?” he asked them. And the most law-abiding Protestant could hardly have blamed them if they had. At that time, the more power the Roman Catholic church had in a country, the more beggars there were.
And in parallel, absolute monarchy lost its legitimacy as well, although this too was a process of centuries. From the execution of Charles I to the massacre of the Czar’s family was 269 years, ten or eleven generations. And even when monarchs were no longer absolute, the power that remained to them might still be problematic. George III was a constitutional monarch, for example.
I should point out that hierarchies do not lose their legitimacy for no reason, and the reasons often involve the hierarchy pushing its advantages too far. The rampant corruption of the Church before the Reformation—the luxury and immorality in Rome, the sale of indulgences—had largely undermined the Church’s support even before Luther was born.
And likewise with the divine right of kings. Although kings and even the Church had long held that the monarchy’s legitimacy depended on divine favor, they generally didn’t make an issue of it when confronted with reality. King Richard the Lionheart is quoted as believing in the divine right of kings, but of course he fought three wars against his own father, so he clearly didn’t believe Henry II ruled by divine right.
For Richard, divine right was just a talking point, but Charles I took it seriously. When he overrode established custom and imposed taxes without Parliament’s consent—and justified this by divine right—he had gone too far. An irresponsible king who could impose taxes without approval from the House of Commons was a threat to the economy of England.
When a hierarchy begins to lose its legitimacy, this leads to social and political instability, but it also opens the door to change. Modern democracy was created by de-legitimizing the monarchy, the Church, and the aristocracy. And associated with those hierarchies—supporting them and being supported by them—was an authoritarian family structure.
The moment when hierarchies fall is a key moment in the history of our civilization, of our people, of the human race. We see that with particular clarity in the news today from Ireland, the most Catholic of nations, where the abuses of the Church finally discredited its position on abortion:
The moment always comes when William Tell refuses to bow to Gessler’s hat, and when he removes the second arrow from its quiver. In the legend, Tell is shackled hand and foot, and sentenced to life in prison. He is transported by boat to his prison, but a great storm comes up and his guards fear they will all drown unless William Tell is freed and takes the helm; Gessler is reluctant, but facing death, he finally agrees. Tell steers the boat nearly to shore and then escapes by leaping onto a rock.
I am talking here not so much about the semi-historic figure, but about the William Tell who lives in each of our hearts, the indomitable one who is kept in chains until there is a crisis so great that he alone can meet it. However meek and passive we may be, that one is still there, deep within our minds. Do we feel that our ability to love is imprisoned? Our capacity to lead our people into the light? To forgive the worst crimes against us, to dance, to box skillfully, and to defy the cruelty of this world with grace and daring?
The moment always comes when our spirit overflows; it may seem impossible, it may seem as if the moment of change will never come, as if our souls are buried a thousand miles deep in the earth. But that moment will come, never doubt it.
Jordan Peterson is wrong not to teach his young followers this truth. You want to restore the spirit of masculinity to our culture? There is no version of masculinity worth discussing that merely insists on privileges. A real man is one who protects and helps his people, who loves the truth the way he loves sunlight, and who is willing if need be to sacrifice himself, in small ways as well as large.
And historically this has sometimes meant the overthrow of hierarchies.
The Socialist Investor 