Decoding Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Living the Good Life (Lesson 3)

LESSON 3: SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF EVIL AND SUFFERING THROUGH MEANING

This is the first problem used by atheists to challenge believers in all religions: If God is all powerful and all loving, how can he allow evil and suffering in the world? If God exists, then he is either powerless or unloving.

Peterson tackles this fundamental question honestly and optimistically: “Why? Why is there so much suffering and cruelty?” (Peterson, 2018, p. 131) He presents a Biblical worldview that not only accepts the reality of evil and suffering, but also provides the cause and the solution of the problem. He readily acknowledges that “life is in truth very hard. Everyone is destined for pain and slated for destruction” (p. 149).

The Reality of Evil and Suffering

Citing Christ, Buddha, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Frankl, Peterson argues that all great thinkers have framed their solutions by beginning with this acknowledgement. He puts forward that we do not need scientific proof that life is suffering, because every living human being can attest to that. He also posits that the human proclivity towards evil is also a self-evident truth: We pick up bad habits naturally, but it requires effort and a moral compass to become a good person.

For years, I have also been arguing that to understand happiness and wellbeing without considering the dark side of human existence is just as irresponsible as physicians and medical scientists focusing only on physical health without addressing the reality of pathogens and pain (Wong & Bowers, 2018). Both Peterson and I agree that if you seek happiness by assuming that life is good and fun, you will only be deceiving yourself and ill-prepared for what will hit you; but if you begin with the assumption that life is hard and full of suffering and fortify your character, you will be prepared for all eventualities and find mature happiness (Wong & Bowers, 2018).

DOWNLOAD the rest of the third lesson here:
http://www.inpm.org/course-materials/course-materials-2018/

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MEETUP 2018: DECODING PETERSON

Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Random House) is currently the No. 1 bestseller on Amazon, in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia. This phenomenal success makes us wonder why this book attracts so much attention and whether we all can benefit from reading it.

Unfortunately, Peterson is such a polarizing public figure that people either love him or hate him. His anti-PC campaign has contributed to this celebrity status, but this notoriety has also made him the target of hatred for an equal, if not a greater, number of people. Consequently, his detractors simply dismiss his book offhand without reading it, while his fans embrace him hook, line, and sinker without fully understanding it.

My attempt to decode Peterson is for both groups of people. I believe that if one can get past his transgender pronoun battle and understand his complicated language of using metaphors, myths, and riddles in articulating his ideas, one will discover that he has something original and significant to contribute to the academic dialogue on such important topics as the meaning of suffering and the pathway to living a good life. His recent book actually covers the same terrain as Viktor Frankl’s (1985) Man’s Search for Meaning but within the current political and cultural context...

I invite to join me on an intellectual and spiritual journey to discover what Jordan Peterson actually says. After all, “if Peterson is right, you have nothing to lose but your own misery” (Grainger, 2018). I am looking forward to seeing you all in this new series of meetups.