{"id":29577,"date":"2022-11-18T00:51:25","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T08:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29577"},"modified":"2022-11-18T00:51:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T08:51:25","slug":"belief-systems-known-territory-and-the-impact-of-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/belief-systems-known-territory-and-the-impact-of-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Belief Systems, Known Territory, and the Impact of Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reading \u201cMaps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief\u201d[1]<\/a> by Jordan B. Peterson was an exercise in applying Michael Polanyi\u2019s insights from \u201cThe Tacit Dimension.\u201d[2]<\/a> Polanyi\u2019s core hypothesis is, \u201cwe can know more than we can tell<\/em> [sic<\/em>].\u201d[3]<\/a> In listening to an introductory lecture by Peterson to \u201cMaps of Meaning,\u201d[4]<\/a> I lost track of the number of times he said something along the lines of \u201c\u2026we don\u2019t always know how we know, but we know.\u201d Peterson\u2019s book is classified under the Psychology umbrella. He is exploring, through archetypes arising out of humanity\u2019s ancient stories, the way in which we develop value systems and come to understand our place in the world and how we are to act in the world. He is especially interested in how encounters with destabilizing life events impact and potentially change our value systems and how we then function in the world on the other side of these destabilizing events. In addition to mythology, Peterson also draws on philosophy, neuroscience, fiction, and religion to explain his hypothesis of how we make meaning, how we form values, in seasons of both stability and instability.<\/p>\n

Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, professor, and popular lecturer, took fifteen years to write \u201cMaps of Meaning.\u201d Like Polanyi, he invites the reader to enter his learning journey\u2014how he came to be interested in the development of meaning and values systems and the implications this has for how a person navigates life. Key to his development was the deep angst he experienced as a teen-ager and early young adult. Disillusionment led him to discard both his Christian worldview and not long after his socialist ideology. Around that same time, he also became obsessively anxious over the global threat of nuclear war due to the tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union. His driving question was, \u201cHow could things have come to such a point?\u201d[5]<\/a> The drive to answer this question, along with his disturbing awareness that the capacity for evil action also lay within him, led him to study psychology and the discovery of Carl Jung\u2019s concept of the persona<\/em>.[6]<\/a> He concludes, \u201cI learned why people wage war\u2014why the desire to maintain, protect and expand the domain of belief motivates even the most incomprehensible acts of group-fostered oppression and cruelty\u2014and what might be done to ameliorate this tendency, despite its universality.\u201d[7]<\/a> It is this knowledge that he hopes to impart through his book so that the reader might be better equipped to navigate the world.<\/p>\n

Like Joseph Campbell,[8]<\/a> Peterson develops a hero\u2019s journey based on mythological archetypes. He writes, \u201cThe world can be validly construed as a forum for action, as well as place of things.\u201d[9]<\/a> The methods of science rule over the world as a place of things, according to Peterson. But in the world as a forum for action, it is narrative\u2014through myth, literature, and drama\u2014that helps us understand \u201c\u2026what is and what should be, from the perspective of emotion and action.\u201d[10]<\/a> This is the world of value. According to Peterson, this world of value is made up of three metaphorical dimensions\u2014unexplored territory (identified as the Great Mother), explored territory (identified as the Great Father), and the process that mediates between the two (the Divine Son). But there is also a fourth dimension\u2014the dragon of chaos\u2014which is the most fundamental reality and is made up of what we do not understand at all and only come into contact with in bits and pieces. These metaphors are more fully developed in Chapter 2.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n

From Peterson\u2019s lecture, there are two points about his thesis that most caught my attention. First is the idea that we inhabit a communal story. The way in which we make sense of the world and our place in it is through a narrative that tells us who we are in relation to others around us and how we are to act to get what we want or need. The second was his discussion on values and systems of belief. He emphasized that we perceive safety or stability when there is a match between our belief system and the actions of others in that same belief system.[12]<\/a> Dissonance and the feeling of threat arise when the territory we have known, i.e., the presuppositions of life (system of belief\/values) we thought we held in common with our fellow citizens, gets disrupted. It surely seems we live in such a time as this today. Our reading from last week by Carl R. Trueman[13]<\/a> brought that front and center in our cohort, as did some of our Advance experiences. I am curious to test Peterson\u2019s concept of humanity\u2019s basic narrative construction as I continue to navigate the confluence of modernity and postmodernity\u2019s systems of beliefs and values. The resulting rapids from this confluence may leave me and us drenched and smashed upon the rocks. Or perhaps, we will ride the rapids and find ourselves in new territory with deeper insights into how we can live at peace with one another across our differences.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Peterson, Jordan B. 1999. Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief<\/em>. New York: Routledge.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Polanyi, Michael (1966), and Amartya Sen. 2009. The Tacit Dimension<\/em>. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.<\/a><\/p>\n

[3] Ibid., 4.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Peterson, Dr. Jordan. n.d. \u201cJordan Peterson | Maps of Meaning.\u201d Jordan Peterson. Accessed November 16, 2022. https:\/\/www.jordanbpeterson.com\/maps-of-meaning\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Peterson, Maps of Meaning<\/em>, xv.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., xvi-xviii.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., xx.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Campbell, Joseph. 2008. The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em>. 3rd ed. Bollingen Series XVII. Novato, Calif: New World Library.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Peterson, Maps of Meaning<\/em>, xxi.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Ibid., 89ff.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Ibid., 101ff.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Trueman, Carl R. 2020. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution<\/em>. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading \u201cMaps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief\u201d[1] by Jordan B. Peterson was an exercise in applying Michael Polanyi\u2019s insights from \u201cThe Tacit Dimension.\u201d[2] Polanyi\u2019s core hypothesis is, \u201cwe can know more than we can tell [sic].\u201d[3] In listening to an introductory lecture by Peterson to \u201cMaps of Meaning,\u201d[4] I lost track of the number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2408,2454,1780,2105,1779],"class_list":["post-29577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-m-polanyi","tag-carl-trueman","tag-jordan-peterson","tag-joseph-campbell","tag-maps-of-meaning","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29578,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29577\/revisions\/29578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}