Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

I could not believe (and still do not) that commodities-"natural resources," for example-had intrinsic and self-evident value. In the absence of such value, the worth of things had to be socially or culturally (or even individually) determined. This act of determination appeared to me moraf-appeared to me to be a consequence of the moral philosophy adopted by the society, culture or person in question. What people valued, economically, merely reflected what they believed to be important. This meant that real motivation had to lie in the domain of value, of morality. The political scientists I studied with did not see this, or did not think it was relevant.

I discovered that beliefs make the world, in a very real way-that beliefs are the world, in a more than metaphysical sense. This discovery has not turned me into a moral relativist, however: quite the contrary. I have become convinced that the world-that-is-belief is orderly; that there are universal moral absolutes (although these are structured such that a diverse range of human opinion remains both possible and beneficial). I believe that individuals and societies who flout these absolutes-in ignorance or in willfu1 opposition-are doomed to misery and eventual dissolution.

I learned that the meanings of the most profound sub strata of belief systems can be rendered explicitly comprehensible, even to the skeptical rational thinker--and that, so rendered, can be experienced as fascinating, profound and necessary. I learned why people wage war--why the desire to maintain, protect and expand the domain of belief motivates even the most incomprehensible acts of group-fostered oppression and cruelty-and what might be done to ameliorate this tendency, despite its universality. I learned, finally, that the terrible aspect oflife might actually be a necessary precondition for the existence oflife-and that it is possible to regard that precondition, in consequence, as comprehensible and acceptable.

T he world can be validly construed as forum for action, or as place of things. The former manner of interpretation-more primordial, and less clearly understood-finds its expression in the arts or humanities, in ritual, drama, literature and mythology. The world as forum for action is a place of value, a place where all things have meaning. This meaning, which is shaped as a consequence of social interaction, is implication for action, or-at a higher level of analysis-implication for the configuration of the interpretive schema that produces or guides action. The latter manner of interpretation-the world as place of things-finds its formal expression in the methods and theories of science. Science allows for increasingly precise determination of the consensually validatable properties of things, and for efficient utilization of precisely determined things as tools (once the direction such use is to take has been determined, through application of more fundamental narrative processes).

No complete world-picture can be generated without use of both modes of construal. The fact that one mode is generally set at odds with the other means only that the nature of their respective domains remains insufficiently discriminated. Adherents of the mythological worldview tend to regard the statements of their creeds as indistinguishable from empirical "fact," even though such statements were generally formulated long before the notion of objective reality emerged. Those who, by contrast, accept the scientific perspective-who assume that it is, or might become, complete-forget that an impassable gulf currently divides wh at is from what should be.

We need to know what things are not to know what they are but to keep track of what they mean-to und erstand what they signif)r for our behavior. It has taken centuries of firm discipline and intellectual training, religious, proto-scientific and scientific, to produce a mind capable of concentrating on phenomena that are not yet or are no longer immediately intrinsically gripping-to produce a mind that regards real as something separable from relevant. Alternatively, it might be suggested that all the myth has not yet vanished from science, devoted as it is to human progress, and that it is this nontrivial remainder that enables the scientist to retain undimmed enthusiasm while endlessly studying his fruitflies.

The medieval man lived, for example, in a universe that was moral-where everything, even ores and metals, strived above all for perfection. 12 Things, for the alchemical mind, were therefore characterized in large part by their moral nature-by their impact on what we would describe as affect, emotion or motivation; were therefore characterized by their relevance or value (which is impact on affect). Description of this relevance took narrative form, mythic form-as in the example drawn from Jung, where the sulphuric aspect of the sun's substance is attributed negative, demonic characteristics. It was the great feat of science to strip affect from perception, so to speak, and to allow for the description of experiences purely in terms of their consensually apprehensible features. However, it is the case that the affects generated by experiences are real, as weIl.

The alchemists, whose conceptualizations interming1ed affect with sense, dealt with affect as a matter of course (although they did not "know" it-not explicitly). We have removed the affect from the thing, and can therefore brilliantly manipu1ate the thing. We are still victims, however, of the uncomprehended emotions generated by-we wou1d say, in the presence of-the thing. We have lost the mythic universe of the pre-experimental mind, or have at least ceased to further its development. That 10ss has 1eft our increased techno10gical power ever more dangerous1y at the mercy of our still unconscious systems of valuation.

The capacity to maintain exp1icit belief in religious "fact," however, has been severe1y undermined in the last few centuries-first in the West, and then everywhere else. A succession of great scientists and iconoclasts has demonstrated that the universe does not revo1ve around man, that our notion of separate status from and "superiority" to the animal has no empirical basis, and that there is no God in heaven (nor even a heaven, as far as the eye can see). In consequence, we no 10nger believe our own stories-no 10nger even believe that those stories served us weH in the past.

Our systems of post-experimental thought and our systems of motivation and action therefore co-exist in paradoxical union. One is "up-to-date"; the other, archaic. One is scientific; the other, traditional, even superstitious. We have become atheistic in our description, but remain evidently religious-that is, moral-in our disposition. What we accept as true and how we act are no longer commensurate. We carry on as if our experience has meaning-as if our activities have transcendent value-but we are unable to justif)r this belief intellectually. We have become trapped by our own capacity for abstraction: it provides us with accurate descriptive information but also undermines our belief in the utility and meaning of existence. This problem has frequently been regarded as tragic (it seems to me, at

least, ridiculous)-and has been thoroughly explored in existential philosophy and literature. Nietzsche described this modern condition as the (inevitable and necessary) consequence of the "death ofGod":

The great forces of empiricism and rationality and the great technique of the experiment have killed myth, and it cannot be resurrected-or so it seems. We still act out the precepts of our forebears, nonethe1ess, although we can no longer justiry our actions. Our behavior is shaped (at least in the ideal) by the same mythic rules-thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not coverthat guided our ancestors for the thousands of years they lived without benefit of formal empirical thought. This means that those rules are so powerful-so necessary, at least-that they maintain their existence (and expand their domain) even in the presence of explicit theories that undermine their validity. That is a mystery.

Myth is not primitive proto-science. It is a qualitatively different phenomenon. Science might be considered "description of the world with regards to those aspects that are consensually apprehensible" or "specification of the most effective mode of reaching an end (given a defined end)." Myth can be more accurately regarded as "description of the world as it signifies (for action)." The mythic universe is a pi ace to act, not a place to perceive. Myth describes things in terms of their unique or shared affective valence, their value, their motivational significance.

We lack a process of verification, in the moral domain, that is as powerful or as universally acceptable as the experimental (empirical) method in the realm of description. This absence does not allow us to sidestep the problem. No functioning society or individual can avoid rendering moral judgment, regardless of what might be said or imagined about the necessity of such judgment. Action presupposes valuation, or its implicit or "unconscious" equivalent. To act is literally to manifest preference about one set of possibilities, contrasted with an infinite set of alternatives. If we wish to live, we must act. Acting, we value. Lacking omniscience, painfully, we must make decisions, in the absence of sufficient information. It is, traditionally speaking, our knowledge of good and evil, our moral sensibility, that allows us this ability. It is our mythological conventions, operating implicitly or explicitly, that guide our choices. But what are these conventions? How are we to understand the fact 0/ their existence? How are we to understand them?

Are the myths we have turned to since the rise of science more sophisticated, less dangerous, and more complete than those we rejected? The ideological structures that domina ted social relations in the twentieth century appear no less absurd, on the face of it, than the older belief systems they supplanted; they lacked, in addition, any of the incomprehensible mystery that necessarily remains part of genuinely artistic and creative production. The fundamental propositions of fascism and communism were rational, logical, statable, comprehensible-and terribly wrong. No great ideological struggle presently tears at the soul of the world, but it is difficult to believe that we have outgrown our gullibility. The rise of the New Age movement in the West, for example-as compensation for the decline of traditional spirituality-provides sufficient evidence for our continued ability to swallow a camel, while straining at agnat.

There appears to exist some "natural" or even-dare it be said?-some "absolute" constraints on the manner in which human beings may act as individuals and in society. Some moral presuppositions and theories are wrong; human nature is not infinitely malleable.

We live in a universe characterized by the constant interplay of yang and yin, chaos and order: emotion provides us with an initial guide when we don't know what we are doing, when reason alone will not suffice.91

To put it most fundamentally: it appears that the twin hemispheres of the brain are differentially specialized (1) for operation in unexplored territory, where the nature and valence of things remains indeterminate, and (2) for operation in explored territory, where things have been rendered either irrelevant or positive, as a consequence of previous exploration. Our brains contain two emotional systems, so to speak. One functions when we do not know what to do, and initiates the (exploratory) process that creates secure territory.

The uniquely specialized capacities of the right hemisphere appear to allow it to derive from repeated observations of behavior images of action patterns that the verbal left can arrange, with increasingly logic and detail, into stories. A story is a map of meaning, a "strategy" for emotional regulation and behavioral output-a description ofhow to act in a circumstance, to ensure that the circumstance retains its positive motivational salience (or at least has its negative qualities reduced to the greatest possible degree).

Development of narrative means verbal abstraction of knowledge disembodied in episodic memory and embodied in behavior. It means capability to disseminate such knowledge widely and rapidly throughout a communicating population, with minimal expenditure of time and energy. Finally, it me ans intact preservation of such knowledge, simply and accurately, for generations to come. Narrative description of archetyp al behavioral patterns and representational schemas-myth--appears as an essential precondition for social construction and subsequent regulation of complexly civilized individual presumption, action and desire. It is only after behavioral (pro ce dural) wisdom has become "represented" in episodic memory and portrayed in drama and narrative that it becomes accessible to "conscious" verbal formulation and potential modification in abstraction.

Adaptation through play and drama preceded development of linguistic thought, and provided the ground from which it emerged. Each developmental "stage"-action, imitation, play, ritual, drama, narrative, myth, religion, philosophy, rationality-offers an increasingly abstracted, generalized and detailed representation of the behavioral wisdom embedded in and established during the previous stage. The introduction of semantic representation to the human realm of behavior allowed for continuance and everincreasing extension of the cognitive process originating in action, imitation, play, and drama. Language turned drama into mythic narrative, narrative into formal religion, and religion into critical philosophy, providing for exponential expansion of adaptive ability.

Before the emergence of empirical methodology, which allowed for methodical separation of subject and object in description, the world-model contained abstracted inferences about the nature of existence, derived primarily from observations ofhuman behavior. This means, in essence, that pre-experimental man observed "morality" in his behavior and inferred (through the process described previously) the existence of a source or rationale for that morality in the structure of the "universe" itself. Of course, this "universe" is the experiential jield-affect, imagination and all-and not the "objective" world constructed by the postempirical mind. This prescientific "model of reality" primarily consisted of narrative representations of behavioral patterns (and of the contexts that surround them), and was concerned primarily with the motivational significance of events and processes.

The world of order and chaos might be regarded as the stage, for man-for the twin aspects of man, more accurately: for the aspect that inquires, explores and transforms (which voluntarily expands the domain and structure of order, culture) and for the aspect that opposes that inquiry, exploration and transformation. The great story is, therefore, good vs. evil, played out against the endless flux of being, as it signifies. The forces of "good" have an eternal character (in the same way that Platonic objects are represented, eternally, in supracelestial space); unfortunately, so do the forces of evil. This eternality exists because all members of the species Homo sapiens are essentially equivalent, equal before God: we find ourselves vulnerable, mortal creatures, thrown into a universe bent on our creation and protection-and our transformation and destruction. Our "attitude" toward this ambivalent universe can only take one of two prototypical forms: positive or negative. The precise nature of these two forms (which can only be regarded as complex "personalities") and of the background against which they work constitutes the central subject matter of myth (and, dare it be said, the proper subject matter of the humanities and fine arts).

Science might be considered "description of the world with regard to those aspects that are consensually apprehensible" or "specification of the most effective mode of reaching an end (given a defined end)." Narrative-myth, most fundamentally-can be more accurately regarded as description of the world as it signijies (for action). The mythic universe is a place to act, not a place to perceive. Myth therefore describes things in terms of their unique or shared affective valence, their value, their motivational significance. If we can tell (or act out) a story about something, we can be said to have mapped that thing, at least in part. We tell stories about the unknown, and the knower, and the known, and can therefore be said, somewhat paradoxically, to have adapted to the unpredictable, to the filCt that we can adapt to the unpredictable, and to explored territory itself, where everything has been rendered secure.

It is the "known" that serves as protection from the unknown, whether this is understood or not. Ea kills Apsu, which means that he unconsciously strips hirns elf of protection. Ea might therefore be reasonably regarded as representative of that part of hurnanity eternally (and ignorantly) contemptuous of tradition and willing to undermine or destroy the past without understanding its necessity or nature. Those "unconsciously" protected from the outside world by the walls of culture may become irritated by the limitations such walls represent, and incautiously puH them down. This act of destruction, disguised as a blow for freedom, lets the terrible unknown flood back in.

Initially, the "personality of state" was in fact a ritual human model (a hero) to observe and imitate (an entity represented in behavioral pattern); then a story about such ritual models (an entity represented in imagination), and, finally-and only much later-an abstract construction of rules describing the explicit rights and responsibilities of the citizenry-(an entity of words, the "body" oflaw). This increasingly abstract and detailed construction develops from imitation to abstract representation, and comprises rules and schemas of interpretations useful for maintaining stability of interpersonal interaction. The establishment of these rules and schemas gives determinate meaning to human experience, by bringing predictability to all social situations (to all things encountered interpersonally). The same thing might be said from the psychological perspective. It is incorporation of the "personality of state," dominated by the figure of the hero, that brings order to the inner community of necessity and desire, to the generative chaos of the soul.

Sometimes "adaptation" is merely a matter of the adjustment of the means to an end. More rarely, but equally necessarily, adaptation is reconceptualization of "what is known" (unbearable present, desirable future and me ans to attain such) because what is is known is out of date, and therefore deadly. It is the sum of these processes that manifests itself in the Judeo-Christian tradition as the mythic Word of God (and which is embodied in Christ, the Christian culture-hero). This is the force that generates subject and object from the primordial chaos (and, therefore, which "predates" the existence of both); the force that engenders the tradition that makes vulnerable existence possible, in the face of constant mortal threat; and the force that updates protective tradition when it has become untenable and tyrannical on account of its age.

In this "state," all conceivable pairs of opposites and contradictory forces exist together, within the all-encompassing embrace of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and altogether mysterious God. This "paradisal" precondition, ladung nothing, characterized by absolute completion, exists in contradistinction to the profane world, imperfect and partial, suspended unbearably in time and in space; it surrounds that world completely, like the night surrounds the day, comprising the beginning of things, the fountainhead for everything and, similarly, the resting place and destination point for all.

Life generates and destroys itself in a pitiless cyde, and the individual remains constantly subject to forces beyond understanding or control. The desire to exist permeates all that lives, and expresses itself in terrible fashion, in uncontrollable impulse, in an endless counterpoint of fecundity and decay. The most basic, fundamental and necessary aspects of experience are at the same time most dangerous and unacceptable.

It is the conservative aspect of society that ensures that the past, as presently reincarnated and remembered, continues to serve as ultimate source of moral virtue and emotional protection. This remembered past is the mythical Father, echoed more abstractly in one "person" of the Christian Trinity. The power of the past is given due recognition in the ritual of an ces tor worship, for example, which is motivated by desire to remain "in communication" with the dead (to retain the wisdom, protective power and guiding hand of the dead). Such motivation comprised a force sufficient to give impetus to the construction of megaliths-massive stone "testaments to the past"-in a geographical zone stretching from western and northern Europe, through the Middle East, into Tibet and Korea, from 4000 B.C. to the present day.340

What is remembered takes on representation as a pattern-as that pattern of behavior characteristic of the culture-creating "supernatural beings" who lived prior to living recollection. This pattern is traditional behavior, as established and organized by those who were capable of originating adaptation-or, it could be said, as established and organized by the immortal and central human spirit who constantly battles the fear of death and creates the conditions that promote life:

Culture is a structure aimed toward the attainment of certain (affectively-grounded) ends, in the immediate present and over the longer course of time. As such, a given cultural structure necessarily must meet a number of stringent and severely constrained requirements: (1) it must be self-maintaining (in that it prornotes activities that allow it to retain its central form); (2) it must be sufficiently flexible to allow for constant adaptation to constantly shifting environmental circumstances; and (3) it must acquire the allegiance of the individuals who compose it.

The capacity to abstract, to code morality in image and word, has facilitated the communication, comprehension and development of behavior and behavioral interaction. However, the capacity to abstract has also undermined the stability of moral tradition. Once a procedure has been encapsulated in image-and, particularly, in word-it becomes easier to modify, "experimentally"; but also easier to casually criticize and discard. This capacity for easy modification is very dangerous, in that the explicit and statable moral rules that characterize a given culture tend to exist for reasons that are still implicit and fundamental.

Such disruption leaves us vulnerable to possession by simplistic ideologies, and susceptible to cynicism, existential despair, and weakness in the face of threat.

These complex systems of action and belief are religious. They are the traditional means of dealing with the shadow cast on life by knowledge of mortality. Our inability to understand our religious traditions-and our consequent conscious denigration of their perspectives-dramatically decrease the utility of what they have to offer. We are conscious enough to destabilize our beliefs and our traditional patterns of action, but not conscious enough to understand them. If the reasons for the existence of our traditions were rendered more explicit, however, perhaps we could develop greater intrapsychic and social integrity. The capacity to develop such understanding might help us use our capacity for reason to support, rather than destroy, the moral systems that discipline and protect uso

A moral philosophy, which is a pattern for behavior and interpretation, is therefore dependent for its existence upon a mythology, which is a collection of images of behaviors, which emerge, in turn, as a consequence of social interaction (cooperation and competition), designed to meet emotional demands. These demands take on what is essentially a universally constant and li mi ted form, as a consequence of their innate psychobiological basis and the social expression of that basis.

The procedural aspect that largely constitutes Judeo-Christian belief (for example)-and even ritual identification with the hero, to some degree (the "imitation of Christ")-almost inevitably remains intact (at least in the case of the "respectable citizen'). The modern educated individual therefore "acts out" but does not "believe." It might be said that the lack of isomorphism between explicit abstract self-representation and actions undertaken in reality makes for substantial existential confusion-and for susceptibility to sudden dominance by any ideology providing a "more complete" explanation.

The "death of God" in the modern world looks like an accomplished fact, and perhaps an event whose repercussions have not proved fatal. But the existential upheaval and philosophical uncertainty characteristic of the first three-quarters of the twentieth century demonstrate that we have not yet settled back on firm ground. Our current miraculous state of relative peace and economic tranquillity should not blind us to the fact that gaping holes remain in our spirits.

Mythological thinking is not mere arbitrary superstition. Its denigration-cascading even through literary criticism, in recent years-is not only unwarranted but perilous. This is not to say that religious institutions and dogmas are not prey to the same weaknesses as all other human creations.

In our ignorance and complacency, we deride ancient stories about the nature of evil, equating them halfconsciously with childish things best put away. This is an exceedingly arrogant position. There is no evidence whatsoever that we und erstand the nature of evil any better than our forebears, despite our psychology, even though our expanded technological power has made us much more dangerous when we are possessed. Our ancestors were at least constantly concerned with the problem of evil.

Acceptance of morta1 weakness is the paradoxical humi1ity that serves as precondition for true heroism.