Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

by Jordan B. Peterson

The biologists drove up adjacent to the herd in a Jeep, armed with a bucket of red paint and a stick with a rag on it. They dabbed a red spot on one of the wildebeest’s haunches. Now they could track the activities of that particular animal, and hopefully learn something new about wildebeest behavior. But guess what happened to the wildebeest, now differentiated from the herd? The predators, always lurking around the herd, took it down. Lions—a major wildebeest threat—cannot easily bring a single wildebeest down unless they can identify it. They cannot hunt a blur of indistinguishable herd animals. They cannot track down four wildebeest at a time. They must organize their hunt around an identifiable individual. Thus, when lions go after the little ones or the ones that limp, they are not culling the weak, in some natural display of beneficial altruism. They would rather dine on a nice, healthy, delicious, juicy wildebeest than one that is tiny, old, or ill. But they must be able to identify their prey. What is the moral of the story? Make yourself colorful, stand out, and the lions will take you down. And the lions are always there.