PDF Summary:Beyond Order, by Jordan Peterson

Beyond Order is Jordan B. Peterson’s hard-hitting, no-nonsense guide to navigating the chaos of our difficult world and living a life of excellence. In it, Peterson offers 12 rules to help you reduce the chaos in your life, create order, and live responsibly.

Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist and emeritus professor at the University of Toronto who rose to fame in 2016 for his controversial critique of identity politics. Peterson is also known for his YouTube-based lecture series on mythology, religion, and psychology, as well as for staunchly supporting free speech, monogamous marriage, and the importance of the Bible to Western culture.

Our guide discusses Peterson’s perspectives on how and why to listen to your conscience, how to find the courage to take responsibility for yourself and your loved ones, and how to show up for life as fully as you can. In commentary, we both challenge and support his ideas, and we explore alternatives as well as specific how-tos for his more abstract suggestions.

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Group #2: Rules for Dealing With the World

In this next section, we’ll discuss five rules for conducting yourself in the social world. Specifically, we’ll explore Peterson’s perspectives on tradition and change, romantic relationships, chronic stress and your home life, ideological dogma in the world around us, and work situations that compromise your values. By following these rules, you’ll reduce the friction and difficulties in your interactions with other people and the world at large.

Rule #1: Respect Both Tradition and Progressive Change

Starting with a discussion of the world at large, Peterson argues in Rule #1 that we should respect our traditional social institutions while also embracing the reality of progressivism and change. These are complementary forces: Traditions ground us and connect us to the past, while progressive thought challenges and renews facets of society that have stagnated.

According to Peterson, our traditional social institutions are solutions to complex problems that humanity has spent millennia working out: How we can best structure our societies, organize large-scale action such as building cities, live together in a civilized, non-violent way, and so on. Though at times they may seem anachronistic, they serve to keep human civilization in good order.

At the same time, all traditions are prone to becoming dogma—rigidly following old ideas even when they’ve become outdated. In time, Peterson says, dogma falls away when progressive thinkers challenge the flaws in an existing status quo and improve upon them. In this way, creative change counteracts the eventual decline of traditional ideas and ways of living.

Peterson argues that since these forces—tradition and change, conservatism and liberalism—work together to keep society balanced and moving forward, we should respect both of them. If one is missing, we risk falling to either extreme:

• At one extreme, conservatism becomes stagnant and corrupt—unable to handle a changing world. For instance, Puritan fundamentalists didn’t make it to today.
• At the other extreme, liberalism can lead to totalitarian ideologies that crucify offenders. For instance, Marxist ideas were originally liberal and progressive but gave rise to governments such as the Soviet Union that weren’t so open-minded.

According to Peterson, today’s conservative dogmas were once progressive, and today’s progressive ideas will one day become conservative dogma. In the end, both matter.

Hegelian Dialectics and the Evolution of Ideas

Peterson’s above argument is reminiscent of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s notion of dialectics. Hegel explained dialectics as a process through which ideas, concepts, and social systems evolved through conflict and resolution:

• The process begins with a thesis, the starting point for an idea.

• Then, an antithesis—an idea that conflicts with or challenges the thesis—arises in opposition, and the two ideas clash.

• Through this conflict, a synthesis emerges: an idea that combines elements from both thesis and antithesis, producing a resolution to their tension.

For example, there are various theses and antitheses conflicting between the conservative and progressive parties of US politics: arguments for and against gun rights, for and against women’s rights to abortion, and for and against welfare programs such as universal basic income. If a resolution arises to one of these conflicts, that idea will be a synthesis. The dialectic process would then continue, with each synthesis becoming the new thesis, leading to a continuous evolution of ideas and systems, such as the traditional institutions and progressive ideas that Peterson describes.

This process of clashing and evolving ideas doesn’t just occur in politics, either. Recently, an antithesis has arisen to challenge the conventional scientific notions of reality and our place in it (that life is a statistical fluke, entropy will turn everything to dust, and humans are essentially tiny and meaningless in the grand scheme of things). In The Romance of Reality, Bobby Azarian argues that in fact, cutting-edge research suggests that life is deeply imbued with meaning, that humans are creative agents with an important role to play in cosmic evolution, and that life is statistically probable. Much as Peterson says, old ideas and dogmas come into conflict with new ones—even in an institution dedicated to finding objective truth.

Rule #5: If You Loathe Something, Avoid It

While tradition and progressivism both matter, you’ll sometimes come up against ideas that you just can’t agree with. In Rule #5, Peterson discusses how to handle these ideological conflicts when they start to compromise your sense of what’s right and wrong.

In life and work, you’ll sometimes find yourself in positions that compromise or challenge your morals. For instance, you might disagree with workplace policies to ban certain words or impose particular behaviors for ideological reasons. If you accept these situations, Peterson says, you’ll become passive and, over time, suffer from repressed emotions. Specifically, you’ll experience inner emotional conflict and struggle to respect yourself. That is, since you failed to stand up for what you thought was right, you won’t be able to see yourself as morally upright or respectable.

(Shortform note: While Peterson’s advice may help you maintain personal integrity, note that it may put your career at risk. In their 2016 book The Stupidity Paradox, André Spicer and Mats Alvesson explain how the most successful employees are those that conform to company standards rather than challenge them. In fact, employees that push limits, challenge norms, or think outside the box may be seen as problematic. So before you get in an ideological fight with your boss, consider whether you’re financially ready to risk your livelihood.)

To avoid this fate, equip yourself to combat policies or impositions with which you take great issue. Peterson recommends two strategies:

• Improve your skills. Find opportunities to build transferable skills so that if your job is at risk, you can pivot your career in a new direction.
• Educate yourself. Get to know both sides of the issue in question, so that you can voice your qualms intelligently. Develop your own argument so that you can articulate it smoothly.

If you take up the fight and it goes poorly, these strategies will have you prepared to pivot and stay employed. If it goes well, you’ll have honored your inner moral instinct and grown as a person.

Be Prepared to Pivot, but First Avoid Entrenching Your Beliefs

Peterson’s advice to build transferable skills is supported by experts such as David Epstein, who argues in Range that specialists are a dying breed. Highly specialized skills are less useful in our increasingly complex, fast-paced world. In contrast, generalists—people who build a wide range of transferable skills—may find greater success. Generalists are often more creative and better at solving problems they’ve never encountered, both traits that are valuable to fast-moving enterprises.

Such preparation may work wonders, but there may be an easier route: Examine whether you’re giving the opposing position a fair shake before you risk your job over an ideological disagreement. In Think Again, Adam Grant argues that we’re all prone to biases and incomplete information, such that our beliefs often stand on shaky ground.

Given this, reconsidering your stances may expose that what you believe to be right is biased or incomplete. In such a situation, you might choose to listen to the other side and consider whether you might be in the wrong. This can also help you develop self-awareness and intellectual humility, qualities that help you continue to develop more precise, unbiased knowledge.

Rule #6: Reject Dogma

If workplace ideologies or stances continue to conflict with your morals, you might find more help in Peterson’s next rule, where he suggests avoiding ideology altogether. In Rule #6, Peterson explains that Western civilization was once founded on traditional Judeo-Christian values and that these values told us our history, culture, conventions, and how to live together civilly. However, modern science and rationalism have diminished belief in God and removed those foundations.

According to Peterson, the loss of our traditional values left a moral void that scientific materialism has failed to fill. And while modern materialism hasn’t produced a better system of values, people still need guidance as to what’s meaningful, how the world works, and what we ought to do with our lives.

(Shortform note: One effort to navigate the void of meaning left by the decline of traditional religious society is John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis lecture series. Vervaeke, a University of Toronto professor who was a colleague of Peterson’s, gestures toward creating a “religion of no religion” as one part of a solution to the meaning crisis. In other words, he contends that we need a new “metanarrative,” or grand story that explains our history and our place in the universe, in order to live well and morally. Religion used to provide this story, and Vervaeke suggests we do need the meaning-making aspects of religion, but without its superstitious, nonscientific aspects.)

To fill this need, Peterson says, along came the major ideologies of the 20th century. Peterson explains that ideologies are simplistic accounts of how the world works and of what’s right versus wrong. In essence, an ideology 1) declares the cause of all suffering, 2) claims to have the solution, and 3) offers the moral high ground to people who join the tribe. For instance, Marxism explained all suffering in terms of class struggle, cast capitalists as the bad guys, and claimed that we just need to redistribute resources to make everyone equal.

However, Peterson says, ideologies misrepresent the complexity of the real world. Major problems like human suffering and inequality have complex and historically contingent causes that we can’t easily uncover, and ideologues intentionally obscure this complexity. If you fall for simplistic answers given with righteous conviction, Peterson argues, you risk becoming arrogant and susceptible to manipulation. Specifically, feeling like you have the indisputable moral high ground allows you to condemn those who disagree with you and become resentful of people who think differently.

To avoid this problem, reject dogma and choose to grapple with the true complexity of the world. Educate yourself, reading and learning across ideological boundaries. Figure out your own life before you try to tell other people how to live. Over time, you’ll develop your own thinking and become able to deal with larger and more complex problems in the real world.

Reject Ideology, Get Gray-Pilled

If you want to remain intellectually autonomous, consider the idea of gray-pilling: Constantly exposing yourself to new information, perspectives, and arguments so that you never become too comfortable with what you think you know. This notion is a play on red-pilling, which some internet communities use to mean that you’ve “discovered a hidden, secret truth” and become privy to something most people don’t know.

Writer and consultant Venkatesh Rao argues that red-pilling is just deceiving yourself into believing you’ve found some final answer or belief system that will solve all your problems. Red pills are typically packaged as hidden truths that you get initiated into, and they tend to function as ideological dogmas—similar to the political systems Peterson describes.

On the other hand, gray pills are meant to shake things up, challenge your beliefs, and help you stay “intellectually alive.” By regularly seeking out gray pills, you’ll avoid falling into any ideological dead ends. To find them, try these tactics:

• Expose yourself to opposing viewpoints, such as political stances you typically disagree with.

• Engage in good faith with arguments and stances you typically wouldn’t hold.

• Surf social networks such as Twitter to find obscure niches and perspectives that further challenge what you think you know.

Rule #10: Actively Work to Keep Your Marriage Alive

Moving away from the broader world and into the home, Peterson asserts in Rule #10 that monogamous marriage is the best way to structure your adult social life. He argues that as of yet, human societies haven’t devised a better basic social unit than married pairs. With a spouse and family, you have a support system that will always be there for you in our often cold, harsh world.

(Shortform note: While Peterson makes a case for the positive aspects of marriage—emotional support, companionship, and shared responsibility—traditional monogamy may not be best for everyone. Alternative social structures and relationship models, such as non-monogamous relationships, cohabitation without marriage, and chosen families offer different ways of building meaningful, supportive relationships. With divorce rates in the US hovering between 40% and 50%, you might also want to consider the potential legal, financial, and emotional repercussions of a failed marriage.)

Peterson asserts that once you’re married, you should work hard to make your marriage successful. To ensure you can do this, he recommends making two commitments:

• Take divorce off the table. If you refuse to give up on the relationship, you’ll find the strength and desperation to make it work.
• Communicate openly and consistently. According to Peterson, honest communication is the key to a successful relationship. It can be very difficult, so you need to be willing to fight for and negotiate your wants and needs with your spouse.

Once you’ve committed to making your marriage work, turn to the logistics of daily life. In conversation with your spouse, hash out all the details about how you’ll live your lives together. Peterson says that since traditional gender roles hold less sway than before, you’ll need to plan your and your spouse’s roles in detail. This involves how you’ll keep your house, run finances, whether to have children and how to raise them, your work and career choices, who washes the dishes, and so on.

(Shortform note: In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, John Gottman discusses steps to take both before and after marriage to ensure success. Chiefly, Gottman argues for developing a deep, genuine friendship with your spouse and maintaining that friendship into and throughout your marriage. To do this, Gottman recommends getting to know your partner in detail, giving and receiving affection, and responding to your partner’s overtures, or bids for connection. With such a connection built, it should be easier to follow Peterson’s principles about handling the mundane, practical aspects of life.)

Since what you do routinely constitutes most of your life, it’s important to get your routines right. Once you’ve sorted out the details, regularly check in with your spouse about how they’re doing and whether they need changes. Consistent communication ensures that you avoid tyrannizing each other.

With your practical matters squared away, Peterson recommends that you plan your romantic life. While scheduling romance sounds unsexy, it ensures that your love life doesn’t fall by the wayside. Plan regular date nights, such as dinner at your favorite local restaurant or a walk in the park, and use these times to be fully present with your spouse. Making these efforts will help you remember why you first fell in love, and they’ll sustain your romance over time.

(Shortform note: With modern life as hectic and busy as it is, many people simply have no time for romance, even on a schedule. However, it’s possible to keep romance alive in your relationship by building small habits that allow it to bloom when the time is right. These habits involve cultivating a romantic attitude, getting a sense for romantic timing, and communicating openly and sincerely with your partner. By doing so, you can practice romance with intention, as Peterson suggests, but without necessarily needing to do so on a rigid schedule. Rather, try to find a generally romantic attitude toward life, and let that spill over into everything you do.)

Rule #3: Don’t Blind Yourself to Chronic Stressors

Continuing his advice for creating an orderly home life, Peterson argues in Rule #3 that you shouldn’t ignore chronic stressors, lest they become larger issues. Daily life is full of tiny, repeating pricks of stress—kids to care for, work colleagues to deal with, imperfect relationships to manage, chores to juggle. If you let these pricks build up, they’ll amount to tons of stress over time.

As Peterson explains, a little thing that happens every day isn’t actually small, because most of your life is made of those routine occurrences. So if your routines regularly prick you with little stressors, that irritation will build up until it bursts.

(Shortform note: Chronic stress is a well-documented condition, and as Peterson says, it can become serious if ignored. Symptoms include aches and pains, fatigue, distractibility, and irritability—each of which can further worsen your ability to deal with the sources of your stress. Fortunately, chronic stress is treatable with exercise, getting plenty of sleep, and/or practicing mindfulness. With a clearer headspace, you might then plan to address the roots of your stress, whether they’re from work, home life, or elsewhere.)

To solve this problem, Peterson recommends that you do the following:

1. Acknowledge your chronic stressors. Take stock of where they are and get clear on why they bother you.
2. Find ways to deal with them. Think of changes you can make to your routines, or prepare to talk with the people contributing to your stress.

Since these little stressors often involve relationships, Peterson emphasizes that you must get clear about how you feel and communicate that to whomever’s involved. For instance, you might get annoyed daily by your partner’s habit of leaving his dirty laundry around the house. First, acknowledge this stressor and get clear about why it bothers you. Then, find a way to fix it—this could be as simple as speaking to your partner and asking for the change you need.

By doing this with each of your previously ignored stressors, you’ll clear up emotions that would otherwise fester beneath the surface. You’ll get to know how you really feel on a daily basis, and you’ll often change your daily life for the better. According to Peterson, the alternative is to accept death by a thousand cuts—daily misery from suppressed emotions that will trouble you and your loved ones unendingly.

Address Your Stressors With Nonviolent Communication

Peterson isn’t the first to highlight the importance of effective communication in relationships. In Nonviolent Communication, for instance, the authors point to the importance of acknowledging your emotions whilst maintaining compassion for how the other person feels, too. Nonviolent communication has four specific steps:

• Observe—pay attention to your emotions and the situation while avoiding judgments.

• Express—state how you feel with a simple “I feel … “ format—”I feel hurt” rather than “You hurt me.”

• Connect—connect how you feel to a core need, such as autonomy or integrity.

• Request—ask for something specific to begin addressing your feelings.

A nonviolent communication might look like, “Son, I heard you drove recklessly in the snow. I feel scared because I need you to stay safe. I’d like to talk together about safe driving.” By communicating this way—gently, clearly, and candidly—you can better avoid arguments and instead have productive, connected conversations.

Group #3: Rules for Existential Well-Being

In Group #3, we’ll discuss Peterson’s perspective on how to relate to the world at large. These three rules deal with questions of a more existential nature. Specifically, we’ll explain how to stay connected to a higher good, how to avoid growing bitter as life challenges you, and how to find strength and thankfulness in the face of life’s inevitable hardships.

Rule #8: Make Space for Beauty in Your Life

Peterson asserts in Rule #8 that beauty plays a vital role in life: It connects us to the sense of wonder and mystery that we felt as children. Without making room for beauty, we can lose touch with the mystery of life and the wonder all around us.

As children, we have no problem connecting to beauty. We see the world through fresh eyes, and we can feel wonder everywhere. But with time, Peterson says, we lose this ability to perceive the wondrousness of the world. Instead, we fall into ruts and routines, and we start to take for granted the beauty that still exists all around us. It becomes mundane, drab, and familiar.

There is a way back to that child-like perception, however. Peterson argues that fine art can reconnect us with the beauty we saw as children. Great artists retain their child-like connection to wonder and can translate that unclouded perception into art. In other words, they capture what others can no longer see and render it visible to the rest of us. So if you regularly engage with great art, you can find glimpses of that beauty and wonder.

(Shortform note: While Peterson argues that we inevitably lose our sense of wonder, it may be possible to practice feeling wonder through meditation. Some mindfulness techniques work to bring you into the present moment in such a way that you feel awe, wonder, and joy—similarly to how Peterson says that artists and children connect to wonder. Therefore, falling into ruts and routines may be preventable.)

According to Peterson, this is why we’re so captivated by great art even though we often don’t consciously understand it: It reveals to us a depth of beauty that we could not previously perceive. So, make room for beauty in your life by getting at least one work of art that truly calls to you. By regularly reconnecting with beauty through that artwork, you’ll stay afloat despite the stresses and struggles of life.

More Ways to Connect to Wonder

Note that Peterson's perspective on art is somewhat Western-centric and high-society, as he mainly focuses on fine oil paintings. Such art may not be accessible or appealing to everyone, and may not universally help people connect to beauty. Different forms of art may speak more to different people. In exploring the art you’d want in your life, consider not just paintings, but also fine music or theater, great poetry and literature, and critically acclaimed films or visual media.

There are also other ways to cultivate a sense of wonder and joy in our lives. Spending time in nature, as well as practicing mindfulness and meditation, can both help reconnect us to a child-like sense of wonder and appreciation for the world around us. Ultimately, the key is to remain open and connect to beauty wherever it appears in your life.

Rule #11: Resist the Temptations of Frustrated Self-Absorption

In Rule #11, Peterson argues that we must all avoid slipping into immoral behavior due to frustration with life. If, instead, you choose courage and listen to your conscience, you’ll grow strong and able to navigate the trials of life. In contrast, acting immorally will lead you astray and distort your sense of right and wrong.

To explain his position, Peterson contends that chaos and evil are intrinsic parts of reality—therefore, we’ll all encounter difficulty, misfortune, and suffering in life. And given that life is difficult and often unfair, it’s all too easy to start cheating or cutting corners to get ahead. But though these immoral behaviors may yield short-term advantages, Peterson says that they’ll distort your sense of what is right, good, and true. Over time, you can even change the structure of your brain such that you lose the ability to act morally in any situation.

(Shortform note: Peterson’s point can apply to organizations as well as individuals. In Principles, Ray Dalio emphasizes the importance of “extreme honesty” to maintaining trust and effectiveness within an organization. In contrast to the short-term benefits of lying and cheating, being extremely honest—and extremely transparent—can make an organization more trusting and efficient, because nobody has to worry about unspoken conflicts, hidden schemes, or other shady behavior.)

Instead of acting immorally when you get frustrated, accept that reality features both great good and evil. Since you can’t escape either, choose to cultivate gratitude and courage. Thinking that you’ll escape suffering is arrogant, whereas accepting the bad and giving thanks for the good is realistic and keeps you afloat. Gratitude and courage prevent you from feeling victimized by the world, and they give you the strength to take responsibility and face up to the challenges in your life.

(Shortform note: Following from Peterson's claim that you can distort your brain’s ability to sense right and wrong, research also supports the inverse claim: Individuals who practiced gratitude were found to have stronger neural activity in brain areas associated with moral cognition and decision-making. This suggests that by practicing gratitude and courage, you can train yourself to make better, more ethical decisions.)

Rule #12: In the Face of Suffering, Find Thankfulness

Continuing from Rule #11, Peterson explains that it’s all too easy to become bitter and dissatisfied with life. Darkness and suffering are unavoidable, and many people end up unhappy with themselves and with life in general. However, falling into despair does you no good and can cause you to act out the darkness within you. This, in turn, will worsen your life and the lives of those around you.

(Shortform note: Research may also support Peterson's idea that our emotions affect those around us. Studies have found that our emotions have a ripple effect on others: When we feel well and healthy, we positively affect the well-being of those around us. Again, this may suggest that the inverse is also true: If we feel bitter and negative, we may also bring down the well-being of those around us, as Peterson says.)

The alternative, Peterson argues, is to choose gratitude in the face of the great darkness and suffering of life. This doesn’t mean denying that life is full of suffering. Rather, it means acknowledging the darkness and finding gratitude despite it. Even when life seems bleak, you can look around and focus on what you do have. For instance, you might despair over an investment that went south—however, you probably still have food to eat and a safe home. Thinking like this gives you the strength to go on even during hard times.

(Shortform note: While Peterson's emphasis on gratitude is certainly valuable, this approach may break down in the face of extreme suffering and hardship. For instance, individuals experiencing trauma or intense physical pain may find it difficult to feel grateful for anything, no less their present suffering. Gratitude can help, but cultivating the ability to feel gratitude in the face of great suffering takes time—so avoid beating yourself up if you can't immediately feel grateful for the struggles in your life.)