Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

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of "what is known" (unbearable present, desirable future and me ans to attain such) because what is is known is out of date, and therefore deadly.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.