The Exodus from Egypt, Maps of Meaning, and Children's Games

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** August 3, 2020 | DR. JORDAN B. PETERSON
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** The Exodus from Egypt
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The following is from a previous draft of Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.

The Book of Exodus is an archetypal example of the fight against tyranny. It is a very intelligently constructed story, with none of the shoddy optimism that characterizes second-rate literature. In consequence, its analysis can prove of great psychological worth. Egypt is clearly a tyranny. It is morally necessary for the Jews to free themselves. Moses is undoubtedly a great leader. All the elements required for the story to have a simple, happy ending are therefore in place.

But the exodus of the Jews is not a straightforward sojourn from unbearable point “A” to paradisiac point “B.” Moses and his people suffer a protracted period of sterile, barren chaos and strife before the Promised Land manifests itself. What this means is that even a necessary battle undertaken by a prepared leader might produce a worse before a better outcome. This is because those who fight tyranny may temporarily deprive themselves of the benefits given even to slaves, before they can acquire the social and psychological resources of free men.

The terrible journey uphill is Sisyphean: every journey through the mountains, say, even to the highest top, involves descent through the deepest of valleys. Every bit of learning involves the death of a previous conception. We all have the entire world mapped: incorrectly, in many cases; in very low resolution, in others. But there is real comfort in the sense of the completion of that representation. To encounter something new is first to encounter the depth and danger of your current and oft-invisible ignorance, to shake and tremble in the face of the newly revealed complexity of territory under your map, and to experience trepidation, even exhaustion, at the depth and difficulty of the task at hand. It is for such reasons that even a devoutly desired promotion, diligently worked toward, can be accompanied once earned with the terrible sense of being an imposter, thoroughly ignorant of what is required in the new position, and utterly undeserving of the shift in status.

When the individual targets of personalized tyranny decide to take on new roles as fighters for their own freedom, they must prepare for an intervening experience of chaos, prior to expecting the rewards of autonomous being. First, they must be willing to sacrifice any of the undeniable benefits that the status of victim affords them. This would include the sympathy and enhanced protective actions that they might elicit from others, while bemoaning their pitiable state. Such benefits were defined as “secondary gains” by the psychoanalysts, who were always looking for the bright side to any dark situation, as well as the dark to any bright. Second, those who determine to fight must begin to adopt genuine individual responsibility. This involves the development of a heightened state of alert attention, voluntary engagement in strategic thought, conscious orientation toward fully articulated, personally relevant, morally relevant and difficult goals, as well as establishment of a position of
strength from which opposition toward oppressive behavior might have some chance of success.

This is no simple matter. Such a re-orientation does not guarantee success. Even Moses who, in all fairness, was fighting the tyranny of an entire state on behalf of an entire people, did not live to see the promised land, despite his archetypally heroic nature. Modern New Age sages, ignoring the clear warnings of the great book of Exodus, encourage people to follow their bliss, but seldom tell them that such a path, truly followed, leads down in precise proportion to its eventual but by no means certain rise. Thus, the person who fights tyranny also must prepare to confront and reorder chaos—a chaos that might be more intolerable, at least initially, than the previous tyranny. It is for this reason that learning is so difficult, so frequently accompanied by frustration, disappointment and pain, and why enlightenment, although hypothetically desirable, above all, is also so rare.

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Recent Media Releases
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Maps of Meaning ([link removed]) is now airing on the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast.
* Released yesterday: Maps of Meaning 02: Marionettes and Individuals ([link removed])
* This podcast series is taken from Dr. Peterson's 2017 lectures at the University of Toronto. The second episode discusses Pinocchio as the puppet of conflicting impulses, but with the ability to integrate them into a well-ordered whole in the service of worthy goals. Listen to the episode and join the discussion ([link removed]) .

The first episode of Maps of Meaning ([link removed]) was released last week. Join the discussion on the Context and Background ([link removed]) of the lecture series: the search for meaning against the backdrop of the Cold War, chaos, and ideological conflict.


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Recommended Reading
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Jean Piaget
The Moral Judgment of the Child ([link removed])

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Piaget and his colleagues begin their investigation by analyzing the "rules of the game"—in this case a seemingly simple game of marbles—as handed down from one group of children to another. They observe the child's acceptance of the consensus rules and describe the moral pressure of the group on the individual. Piaget proceeds to an analysis of lying, cheating, adult authority, punishment, and responsibility, noting and evaluating the changing attitudes of growing children toward these "moral realities."

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