I should admit guilty of the unsolicited cheap shot at Jordon Peterson in the title of the blog. I am with Sam Harris on Dr Peterson. While I agree and respect 90% of his views, the balance 20% is shatteringly dismal. This blog is not intended at Dr Peterson though. I wanted to write about my experience with stories while acknowledging his thought-provoking methods of extracting I universal archetypes from ancient stories. I also want to share a viewpoint where an average individual who is not as smart as Dr Peterson can drift from having a metaphorical look at stories to a more dogmatic one.
Let me start in a simple fashion by defining an archetype. Archetype has its origin in Greek where ‘arkhe’ means primitive and ‘tupos’ means model. This morphed in archetype in Latin. In psychoanalysis, according to Oxford Dictionary, an archetype means a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious. Archetypes (Carl Jung, 1947) are images and thoughts which have universal meanings across cultures which may show up I dreams, literature, art or religion. Dr Jordon Peterson eloquently communicates how the religious texts of the past and other forms of fiction have communicated these archetypes by harnessing the power to stories. He quotes the works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche a lot in this regard. The part where he loses everyone including me is when he doesn’t separate value from the truth. There are two parts to his approach.
- Use of stories as a potent tool to communicate a message
- Considering the story as true, because the message is valuable to humanity.
I want to address both these points, first in isolation and then as a combination.
Stories as a potent tool to communicate a message
I agree with this statement completely. I will start with a personal example first. I have found out the best way for me to communicate morality, understand concepts even mathematics is through stories. A simple story makes her pick the concept so effectively which I struggle to get through when I explain in the first person. She thinks about it a lot better. The same can be said about communicating complex subjects to adults. Some of the best examples of fiction writers are Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and George Orwell actually communicated their ideas through stories. This is also the reason why the field of performing arts is uniformly adored across the globe. It is a great way to communicate a message. A story is to message is what music is to lyrics. You can have one without the other but the combination creates magic. It is also a way the human brain processes a message easily.
A story is true because the message is valuable to humanity
The pursuit to a definition of truth is an old philosophical concept. The most commonly used definition of truth is based on the correspondence theory of truth, where truth is grounded on a set of facts proven by the basic axioms accepted by everyone. There are various theories of truth in philosophy. I have listed a few here.
- Correspondence theory of truth
- Coherence theory of truth
- Constructivist theory of truth
- Consensus theory of truth
- Pragmatic theory of truth
- Semantic theory of truth
Dr Peterson has a morphed view of the pragmatic theory of truth, which was later named metaphorical truth. He feels reality which isn’t morally good is not true. For example, any reality which will result in annihilation and destruction of humanity is not true. He feels the moral truth superimposes all other truth. The other truths are only true in their realms. I don’t subscribe to it for the below reasons.
- There was truth before humans evolved
- There will be truth after humans become extinct
The Andromeda galaxy and the Milky Way galaxy will collide even if we don’t want to think it is true. There are plenty of other examples where I can say Dr Peterson’s morality based truth can even be dangerous. Also, there is a Circular reasoning fallacy in his argument. Dr Peterson’s claims that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the basis of his truth. Truth is what which helps in keeping humans alive and moral. Darwin fundamentally negated the foundation of the Judeo Christian ethics in which God created the universe and humans, around 5000 years ago. Peterson then says scientific reality is only true when it supports morality, especially the Judeo Christian one. Based on that Darwin’s theory of evolution which negates this premise should be false.
I have to discuss the nature of truth as that is the only connector in the premise. I accept something is a story. I accept there are morals valuable to humanity. Now we all have to decide which theory of truth we are using to decide if the premise is true or false. If we use the most prescribed theory of truth, the correspondence theory then Peterson’s assertion is not true. If you use his definition, then the proposition will be true. However, we have already rendered the logic of that definition as flawed.
There is definitely a possibility where one might say, I have used logic to negate the definition and Logic is fundamentally a construct of the correspondence theory. So, I have used the proposition to prove itself. It is a begging the question fallacy but again I have used logic. So anyone might see I can infinitely regress but one has to move out of the dimension of logic and reality to get into Dr Peterson’s world of truth.
A story is a potent tool, so I live my life like the story is true if it leads me to live a moral life
This statement sounds obnoxious and even a decent one at the outset. However, if you dig one level deep there are few fundamental parts of this which make it extremely diabolical. The core of the statement is moral life. Who defines what is a moral life. Let us say you define morality as something which will help humans prosper. Then the issue is what is prosperity and how to achieve that prosperity.
Now, let us take examples. A suicide bomber genuinely believes he is doing a moral act by living his life as the work of fiction he believes says. What do you say about slavery? Slavery is condoned in most religious texts across the world. These works of fiction are considered moral and are supposed to help us lead a moral life. I don’t think any sane individual wants to go back to that era.
In summary, I strongly agree with Dr Peterson that stories are a powerful tool to communicate a message. The message registers better and transcends generations. However, the validity and usefulness of the message don’t make the story true. If you start living your life like those stories are true, then you risk pledging your critical faculties to a work of fiction and live a life of servility and credulity.
Demystifying a skeptic's world 