jordan peterson's best idea

One of Jordan Peterson's best ideas is that the human brain is not adapted for specific environments but for Order and Chaos. No matter where you are, there is stuff you understand (therefore control)—and stuff you don't. Climate changes, eras flip over, Order and Chaos remain.

This explains why all ancient cultures told stories around chaos: dragons, floods, supernatural beings intent on mischief. And similarly, all ancient cultures venerated heroes who would restore order in a troubled world.

"Survival of the fittest" begs another question: fit for what? Since the "what" is forever in flux—sometimes you survive in peace, sometimes in war, sometimes in plenty, sometimes in scarcity—you need a creature whose biological stiffness is tempered by cultural flexibility.

Cultural flexibility comes from stories. If we only ran on genetic code the way other animals do, we'd have their innocence, their ease, their vulnerabilities. But we run not just on innate genetic code but also on ideas, memes, stories. Which are malleable, loose, responsive.

Sex is pleasurable because it is essential for long-term survival, both of individual bloodlines and human civilization. Perhaps that's also why stories are pleasurable—because they do the important work of mediating between order and chaos we (have to) face.

Why is chaos bad? Can’t we dance in the whirlpool of new sensations until the end? I don’t think there's a rational/moral answer to this. But there's a Nietzschean answer: chaos is bad because there's something higher than maxxing out on new sensations: power, legacy, making a mark.

Even permanent order is bad—you wouldn't want it because permanent order is indistinguishable from permanent slavery. Dostoevsky talks about this in "Notes from Underground"—he says if we ever achieved utopia we would overturn it because it would lack uncertainty & adventure.

And so we reach a strange, unexpected overlap. Order and Chaos seem to be not just features of the world we live in...

...but also a requirement of the souls we carry inside us.

The hand fits the glove suspiciously well...