1/ In Maps Of Meaning, Jordan Peterson writes he'd "always enjoyed engaging in arguments"
Subjects didn't matter
It was all a "game"
But in university, something shifted...
Jordan Peterson: "Suddenly, I couldn’t talk— I couldn’t stand listening to myself talk"
What happened?
2/ Peterson, an opinionated man, "started to hear a voice" inside his head
It commented on his opinions. Whenever he said anything, it made "critical" remarks:
"You don’t believe that. That isn’t true."
He wondered: "Which part was ME—the talking part or the criticizing part?"
3/ And then Jordan Peterson started having nightmares
He dreamt of nuclear annihilation, dogs butchering humans, mud rain, and "skeletal black ruins"
He became "very depressed and anxious"
He found his very "awareness of things" unbearable
His mood was "apocalyptic"
4/ One night, Jordan Peterson returned home drunk
He was "self-disgusted and angry"
Picking up some canvas and paints, he started sketching
It became a "harsh, crude" image of Christ: crucified with a cobra "wrapped around" him
It looked "demonic"
It SHOCKED Peterson
5/ In his agony, Peterson tried something new:
"I tried only to say things that my internal reviewer would pass unchallenged. This meant that I spoke much less often, and that I would frequently stop, midway through a sentence, feel embarrassed, and reformulate my thoughts."
6/ Jordan Peterson felt much "less agitated" when he said things in line with his inner voice
He realized that most of his ideas were "stolen"
His beliefs were just things that "sounded good, admirable, respectable, courageous"
Cost of such stolen ideas was internal hell
7/ Jordan Peterson gave up religion as an adolescent, deciding it was for the "ignorant, weak, and superstitious." After being tortured by endless nightmares and an identity crisis when he couldn't speak, he came back to God. A study of myths made his "horrible dreams disappear"
8/ JBP says the Devil is the "rejection of the unknown"
When the young Peterson rejected God, he was acting out "Luciferian pride":
"All that I know is all that is necessary to know"
But the truth is "something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand"
9/ How did JBP go from tormented young man to becoming a father figure to millions today?
He started treating conversations not as meaningless power games but as truth seeking exercises
He started thinking of religion not as superstition but eternal reality described mythically
Emerson was best friends with Napoleon's nephew, the greatest American writer according to Nietzsche, and a Harvard undergrad at age 14
In 1841, he posed a timeless question in a sold-out lecture:
Why do we need great men? What happens when they disappear?
Discover his answer:
1/ Who you hang out with is of great importance:
“Activity is contagious. Looking where others look, & conversing with the same things, we catch the charm which lured them. Napoleon said, ‘You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.’”
2/ It’s very hard for us to “take another step” beyond the prejudices, preferences, horizons of our peers
But the greats pledge fidelity "to universal ideas” not their historical peers
Therefore greats “defend us from our contemporaries”
Tocqueville's grandfather was lawyer to the King during the French Revolution
With the king, he was beheaded too...
Decades later, Tocqueville crossed the sea, toured the world and wrote a classic still taught at colleges
In the book, he reveals the DARK SIDE of equality:
1/ Human lust for equality overpowers our love for freedom:
“Democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom. But for equality, their passion is insatiable: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery”
2/ Democracy is a force of atomization
It disconnects a man not just from “his ancestors” but also his descendants and peers
Tocqueville:
“Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart”
First thing communists did after winning power was FALSIFY the meaning of three traditional symbols
Discover insights from Julius Evola's profound essay:
The Inversion Of Symbols (1928)
Thread👇🏻
1/ Evola writes that modern revolutionary movements take "the principles, the forms, and the traditional symbols" of healthier societies from the past and give them a NEW spin
He digs into 3 symbols
• The color red
• The word revolution
• The symbol of the pentagrammic star
2/ Evola on RED
In Ancient Rome, the Emperor was dressed and dyed in purplish Red to "represent Jove, the King of the Gods"
In Catholicism, the "Princes of the Church,” the cardinals, wear a scarlet red robe
Traditionally, red has been linked with hierarchy, order, and power
In his lesser-known letters and essays, we get a more intimate look at what he loved, hated, fiercely believed in
Dig in👇🏻
1/ Dostoevsky believed life is only possible when you have a philosophical north star you swear by:
"Neither a person nor a nation can exist without some higher idea"
Dostoevsky: "In order to maintain itself and live, every society must necessarily respect someone & something"
2/ In his essay against environmental determinism, Dostoevsky writes:
"The doctrine of the environment reduces man to an absolute nonentity, exempts him totally from every personal moral duty and from all independence, reduces him to the lowest form of slavery imaginable."