1 Stand up straight with your shoulders back.
2 Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.
3 Make friends with people who want the best for you.
4 Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.
5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world.
7 Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
8 Tell the truth - or, at least, don't lie.
9 Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't.
10 Be precise in your speech.
11 Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.
12 Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
How to overcome addiction and improve yourself:
1 Be confident within yourself.
2 Help yourself to be better.
3 Choose friends who have our good at heart.
4 Think how you were, not how others are.
5 Correct children.
6 Look at yourself before solving problems outside.
7 Aim at what is worthwhile.
8 Tell the truth.
9 Learn from others.
10 Speak succinctly.
11 Let children take risks.
12 Do small acts of charity.
Although there is a certain lack of warmth in his character, Peterson has universally managed to engage young people in his ideas. This is probably as a result of his total lack of human respect and fearlessness in challenging the liberal consensus. Indeed, his views take no prisoners! He certainly furthers intellectual debate and has arguments alongside many. He manages to merge politics, science and religion into one debating subject. Peterson has managed to uncover a public appetite for all things evangelical, without being overly religious. There is clearly a desire for high intellectual conversation that is generally absent from the sound-bite media, made worse by online social media. He respects all who can add substance to an argument, and Jung underlies his whole approach: 'You can infer motivation from results'.
Peterson ever strives to uncover the purpose of reality. This is made doubly difficult to fathom because thought has become shallow in worldwide universities due to the emphasis on the ideological. He smashes the notion that history and literature should be viewed through the lens of post-modern thought. What is being taught to the young is that every political event or book written must be motivated by a certain political, economic or religious ideology which seeks to dominate public opinion. On the contrary, you cannot reduce a major event or a great literary work to narrow interpretation. As a result today, the current liberal consensus is not building anything on a structure of morality. Jung would say that those with addictions will struggle to overcome them without discovering the spiritual. But, for Peterson, the spiritual is some kind of radical change coming from within, rather than any discovery of God.
The twelve steps which are the structure of this book are in fact ways of achieving a transformation in life, one where you become of service to others. This is the morality that is generally missing. The first three steps admit there that is a problem. Things can and should improve by submitting to a higher principle (perhaps the power of God) in order to sort things out. This will come through listening to others. The first step is to admit you have a problem and want to solve it. It requires humility to realise you are not as good as you thought. Rather than being taught to seek self-gratification by acting on impulse, be led to a higher purpose by serving the wider community. The fourth and fifth steps begin to mix the spiritual with the psychoanalytic. The reader should write down all the resentments in life and also identify what it is in you that feeds your dislike for each one. Look around within yourself to see what needs to be fixed. ‘Is it me or is it the world that is at fault?’ Everyone should put their own house in order. When you have the answer, tell someone you trust so that he or she can be a mentor figure.
Peterson stresses that as soon as you confront an issue it starts to shrink. A dragon will only stop growing when he acknowledges its growth. Any problem then becomes manageable. An addiction is a holding pattern where the only way out is to feed the habit. It may not be an obvious addiction in one's life, but rather just the way your personal development has become self-centred. For many, an over-protected or neglected childhood could be holding you back. In order to build relationships that will last, a person needs to remove any unhealthy element from the past. This is pure Jung theory. Step six is to identify the seven deadly sins in your life and be willing to face up to them. It will mean casting off what is pleasurable in the short term in order to develop further. Step seven is to see that a big effort will be required to give up these sins. Our society is one where consumption and immediate gratification prevents one from ever doing so. You need the guidance of ‘prayer’. This is a key Jung idea. The ego needs to find what is deep within in order to start a change. You need to be steered by a ‘higher power’ to bring about a transformation. If not, you will be controlled by the two base tendences of aggression and lust. A balanced individual will have these two base instincts under control and not be a puppet to impulse. The shadow of these two instincts will always be trying to bring a person down.
Step eight is to list the people you have harmed in any way and be willing to make amends. It is a kind of moral atonement. You have to admit it first, then make amends. Step nine is to actually go out and do it! Even if you are only five per cent at fault, apologise as if you were ninety-five per cent to blame. You are now operating on the ‘spiritual plane’ with a higher purpose. For those with faith, the higher authority of God who has given us everything. It is hard to get away from the fact that step nine is a religious act. This is totally contrary to the post-modern concept of having no code, no higher truth. While the post-modernist will insist that there are many ways of looking at the world, Peterson insists that this is the only one. ‘If there is no order, why not go around smashing everything up?’ Post-modernist rationalism is simply going around deconstructing God, morality, gender and more besides. It is leading many to the abyss.
Step ten is to keep a note of progress. We need to see if something needs to be changed. This means we are conscious of our mistakes and are happy to change them. Many today prefer to stay in the unconscious state, ignoring deeper realities, so there is no question of changing anything. Consumerism is to drown oneself in immediate gratification. Peterson now brings in Christianity. Only Christianity has a radical message of transformation – follow Christ and keep your sins before your eyes. It may be painful but it leads to enlightenment. Jung says we have to become conscious of the very things we least want to be conscious of. You cannot solve your problems if you are not aware of them. With discipline, Jung shows how the spiritual experience, with help from the community, can overcome addictions of every kind. It may be counter-intuitive, but the solution for addictions is to be found in spiritual awakening.
Step eleven is learning from life’s experiences, whether good or bad, but without plunging back into previous addictions. Children should be allowed to be ‘damaged’ in order to toughen up. They need to learn courage. Step eleven is to find redemption by serving others, through a constant work of charity. Peterson concludes by railing against the universities that are filling students’ heads with ideologies, and then not allowing dissenting voices to challenge them. If they hold a matter to be true, there is no discussion. Hence, no one can speak out about gender differences. Peterson found that colleagues were censoring themselves on topics they were unwilling to discuss. This is invisible censorship. The radical left would declare that to speak about gender differences is to be part of an oppressive patriarchy and these views must be silenced. Peterson, on the contrary, is willing to say whatever he thinks as true and to suffer the consequences.
The crux of Peterson’s argument is that a very small number of successful men at the top are ignoring the vast number of men at the bottom who are seen as failures. This cannot be right. He wants to bring researched arguments to bear on the debate when his opponents are simply relying on sentiment and feelings. It is an argument of psychoanalysis. It is an undoubted fact that some people are better at some things than others and hierarchies are inevitable. A small number are successful and the majority are relatively unsuccessful. The right-wing is only concerned with the tip at the top. The left-wing side with the majority at the bottom - these are the people who count. The radical left, however, including the universities, say all hierarchies bring tyrannical power to the wealthy. Peterson counters this view. It is a function of society that some will succeed and dominate. Yes, the hierarchies may tilt towards self-interest but this is always a bad thing. There is always room for the left-wing to champion some trapped at the bottom who have the talent to make progress to the top.
In our society today, says Peterson, the right is always trying to preserve these hierarchies as they are – this is way the cards have fallen. The privileged may be at the top not through talent but through privilege alone. We should question, then, whether these hierarchies serve the greater good. Have they degenerated into something where the few suppress the many? Do we allow the market to distribute resources or should they be planned out to benefit all? The left sees the market as an interest of the powerful. There is something to be said in a system that is not solely economically driven. A higher good should regulate the markets. At every level of society, people should bear in mind the greater good. Peterson’s contention is that if you focus on the individual, you can make the market work.
Overall, in this book Peterson is opening up a way for the young to improve themselves within a consumer society in a post-modern age. This should at least be available in universities for open discussion. England has given the world the laws and structures that allow for free speech. It prevents tyrannies from dominating. Post-modern thinkers are interested in groups, not individuals. Peterson wants to focus on the latter. Individuals need to transform themselves. If it is good for the individual, then it is good for everyone. Talent should rise to the top. There is a target and sins are preventing people hitting it. People should be in pursuit of virtues. This is not a question of inferiority. It is a recognition of difference.
This is clearly an important work and has merited its bestseller status around the world. It has rejuvenated many young people by stirring their interest in the need for change. This means to change their outlook on post-modern society around them and the many addictions that have surrounded their upbringing. The book is a curious mix of psychology and faith-based solutions to improving a society losing a sense of the divine. This higher power should sit above those in political power. It is a hard book to fathom and can lose a number of readers who are not willing to follow the threads that are leading to the ultimate goal of the thesis. Surprisingly perhaps, it is a work about young people improving themselves by overcoming addictions, all the while a post-modern society tells them only to concentrate on the ephemeral and immediate. Self-improvement of the individual is the way to succeed in life.
Overall, the book gives much food for thought and is a worthwhile though difficult read.