Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

We find ourse1ves in an absurd and unfortunate situation-when our thoughts turn, involuntarily, to consideration of our situation. It seems impossible to be1ieve that life is intrinsically, re1igiously meaningful. We continue to act and think "as if"-as if nothing fundamental has really changed. This does not change the fact that our integrity has vanished. 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. And here is another: How is it that complex and admirable ancient civilizations could have deve10ped and flourished, initially, if they were predicated upon nonsense? (If a culture survives, and grows, does that not indicate in some profound way that the ideas it is based upon are valid? If myths are mere superstitious proto-theories, why did they work? Why were they remembered? Our