Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life

by Jordan B. Peterson

Likewise, the claim that morality is both necessary and inevitable is not totalitarian. It is merely the observation that basic, primitive unidimensional values must be subsumed under socially organized structures for peace and harmony to exist and be maintained. It was the bringing together of a warring multiplicity under the unifying doctrines of Christianity that civilized Europe. It could, perhaps, have been Buddhism, Confucianism, or Hinduism, insofar as the East is also both broadly civilized and unified. But it could not have been the absence of any doctrine whatsoever. Without a game, there is no peace, only chaos. Furthermore, the game that exists must be playable (as we discussed in Rule IV: Notice that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated). This means that it must be structured by a communally acceptable set of rules—by only those constraints that many people are willing to abide by, for a long time. It is possible that many such games exist, theoretically, but it is at least equally possible that there are only a few. In any case, the rules of Christianity and the rules of Buddhism are by no means arbitrary, by no means nonsensical superstition, any more than the rules of a playable game are merely arbitrary or nonsensically superstitious. To think that peace can exist without the overarching and voluntarily accepted game is to misunderstand the ever-present danger of the fragmented tribalism to which we can so easily and devastatingly regr...