On Tuesday, March 5th, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Canadian psychologist, author, and professor emeritus from Toronto University, spoke at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City as a part of his ongoing tour for his book We Who Wrestle With God. His book will be released on November 19th of this year.
Dr. Peterson began his remarks by speaking of governments and their role in the lives of the citizens. He explained that some tout that the responsibility of governments is to ensure that the needs of their citizens are met. To this, he replied with words from Fyodor Dostoevsky, in which Dostoevsky illustrates that if all our needs are met and our sole occupation is lounging in pools of water, consuming food, and busying ourselves with the continuation of the species, then one of the first things we will do is destroy something to make some change to our supposed paradise. Peterson argued many times that human beings do not simply want all our needs satisfied. As human beings, we want and crave something to overcome and persevere in the face of it.
He compared this idea with the story of Abraham and God from the Old Testament, equating the idea of God in these ancient stories with the call of adventure. He discussed that the spirit of the call of adventure manifests itself not simply for the betterment of us personally, but rather for the betterment of all that is to come after us. This is evident when, in the story, God speaks to Abraham and covenants with him that he will be the father of many nations. This covenant is not made for the sole benefit of Abraham but rather for the many generations that are to be descended from him.
Peterson expounded upon this idea, describing that by seeking to covenant with God and become all that we can be, we leave a great blessing upon all who come after us. He stated, To be a good father does not only mean to complete the sex act successfully, it means to establish in the confines of your family the pattern of generous and farseeing productivity that encourages your children in a manner that makes it much more likely that their children will succeed.
God promises Abraham the land of the Canaanites inasmuch as he follows the call to adventure and makes the proper sacrifices. Because Abraham is aiming upward, he and his descendants will fill the lands of all those who do not heed that call. Abrahams nephew, Lott, however, does not aim upward and, as a result, ends up in Sodom. Dr. Peterson described this city as representative of the communities that have gone terribly wrong.
He said that throughout Abrahams experience, it would have been easier to return to his tent, where his life was easy, comfortable, and predictable. With our lives being incredibly messy and difficult, it can appear attractive and tempting to seek comfort in the familiar paths. Yet Peterson described that Abraham refused to lose faith in spite of the onslaught of the trials and travails that made up his life. We do this by making sacrifices for our betterment in the long term.
At this point in his lecture, Peterson stated that a popular conception is that Nazi Germany was a place of tyrannized people under the thumb of an overpowering single tyrant Hitler. He described the notion as nonsense. He continued to say that all of the sadistic totalitarian tyrants in the 20th century did not oppress millions of people on their own. They only succeeded (inasmuch as they did succeed) through the willing participation of the people in such states. These normal citizens participated by: Failing to heed the call of adventure. Theyre less than they should be. They hide their light under a bushel. They reject the counsel of their conscious. They refuse to speak when called upon to speak. They lie with their silence. They miss the mark until their devastation is certain and brutal and hellish and complete.
Abraham understood the nature of evil to the point where he dared to bargain with the hand of justice itself. In learning that God planned to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham wrestled with God and convinced him that if he found ten men who were righteous, then the Lord would stay his hand. Peterson expounds on this and says: If a state is still sufficiently free so that ten men can speak the truth, the promise of redemption still exists. Youre to be among the ten he articulates.
In Sodom, the men of the city come and surround Lotts house. They demand that Lott give them the two angels for their own use and pleasure. In response to this, the angels smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door. Peterson explains that this passage is symbolic of the fact that theres no difference between being deeply steeped in sin and being blind.
At this point, he asked the question: What are these archaic stories trying to teach us? He told of a book (Left to Tell: One Womans Story of Surviving the Rwandan Genocide) by Immacule Ilibagiza. In the book, Ilibagiza survives in a tiny bathroom for three months with seven other women while everyone she knows is slaughtered by machetes during the Rwandan Genocide. Peterson definitively stated: Thats what happens when a society stops aiming up. That is what these ancient stories are trying to teach us: when societies and the people within them refuse to aim up, they have devastation brought upon them, and their societal structures collapse.
As Lott and his family run from the city, they are commanded to not look back. They ascend the mountain, symbolic of their journey upward and onward. Yet despite their progress forward, Lotts wife turns and looks back. As a result, she is turned into a pillar of salt. Peterson describes that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were many people who looked back upon the times under Stalin with nostalgia. The reason for this, he offers, is that faithless people look back.
What can we learn from this story upon which civilization itself is founded? The story of Abraham is the heeding the call to adventure and taking ones place in the world. It is about taking the steps necessary to covenant with God and moving upward. Dr. Peterson concluded his remarks by saying that the call to adventure is about making you a blessing to yourself, transforming yourself into a blessing to the community, and establishing your dominion as the father of the descendants who rightly populate the promised land.
Written by: Adam Blake
Senior Contributor at the Cougar Chronicle
The Cougar Chronicle is an independent student-run newspaper and is not affiliated with Brigham Young University or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
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Dr Jordan Peterson Lecture: We Who Wrestle With God - The Cougar Chronicle