On Pages 118 and 119 of his book, 12 RULES FOR LIFE AN ANTIDOTE TO CHAOS, Jordan Peterson interpolates useful warning to parents and society. The corruption and failure in humans come naturally from the children suffering from original sin than from the corrupt parents or corrupted society, though these sources are there but less harmful that what wells up from in these beloved little beasts.
It is perilous, with huge, negative unintended consequences to alter and deconstruct all the traditional, cultural institutions and ways that were long in place to protect and comfort children requiring socialization. Jordan cautions: "Each person's private trouble cannot be solved by a social revolution, because revolutions are destabilizing and dangerous. We have learned to live together and organize our complex activities slowly and incrementally, over vast stretches of time, and we do not understand with sufficient exactitude why what we are doing works. Thus, altering our ways of social being carelessly in the name of some ideological shibboleth (diversity springs to mind) is likely to produce far more trouble than good . . . ."
Peterson the classical liberal is conservative about fundamental deconstruction of existing Western institutions. Rather, because people are natural sinners, born in sin, Jordan offers that the societal reform is most successfully and generally conducted by each individual, should he decide to so live or not.
Political or revolutionary or collective reforms are superficial, often authoritarian, dramatic and absolutist, but are doomed to fail. Quiet, powerful reform must be chosen freely by each individual, one at a time, or not undertaken at all. This is how things are.
You are correct. It is individual effort and responsibility.
ReplyDeleteYes, we all need to save ourselves, and if we can teach our children that, they are much better prepared as young adults to head out into the world.
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