Top 10 Powerful Excerpts From Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning By James Jenko I think Jordan Peterson’s “Maps of Meaning” is extremely underrated. I’ve often heard his writing style criticized and I will admit that it can be dry, difficult and superfluous at times. I’ve even heard Peterson himself say that it’s a difficult read and to maybe try his lectures instead. However, to aptly use a Peterson quote “Why do dragons hoard gold? Because the things you need most are always to be found where you least want to look”. The dry, difficult and superfluous excerpts are the metaphorical dragon and behind them is a treasure of wisdom. It took me months to get through it, with highlighter in hand. Below I compiled just some (ten) profound excerpts from the book that I thought some may enjoy reading through. I tried to pick some that I think are unique, compared to some of his more well known quotes that are already passed around often (also not all of these are Peterson’s own words, just excerpts from the book): · “Psychological development that ceases with group identification – held up as the highest attainable good by every ideologue – severely constricts individual and social potential, and dooms the group, inevitably, to sudden and catastrophic dissolution. Failure to transcend group identification is, in the final analysis, as pathological as failure to leave childhood”. · “the genius is the fortunate hero who faces the unexpected consequences of his insufficiently adaptive behavior voluntarily, on ground that he has chosen”. · “Face what you reject, accept what you refuse to acknowledge, and you will find the treasure that the dragon guards”. · “Once he had the courage to admit to his own ignorance, his own insufficiency, his investigations into “matter” took the form of contact with the unknown. Admission of personal ignorance presents a challenge to the cultural canon (to the degree that the ignorant one is identified with that canon) and sets the stage for moral transformation, which manifests itself in symbolic form”. · “The mythological hero faces the unknown, voluntarily, cuts it up, and makes the world out of its pieces; identifies and overcomes evil…” · “Wisdom may be personified as a spirit who eternally gives, who provides to her adherents unfailing riches. She is to be valued higher than status or material possessions, as the source of all things”. · “It is said that it is more difficult to rule oneself than a city, and this is no metaphor. This is truth, as literal as it can be made. It is precisely for this reason that we keep trying to rule the city. It is a perversion of pride to cease praying in public and to clean up the dust under our feet, instead; it seems too mundane to treat those we actually face with respect and dignity, when we could be active, against, it the street. Maybe it is more important to strengthen our characters than to repair the world. So much of that reparation seems selfish anyway; is selfishness and intellectual pride masquerading as love, creating a world polluted with good works that don’ t work”. · “Ideologies are powerful and dangerous”…. “Knowledge of the grammar of mythology might well constitute an antidote to ideological gullibility”. · “Each individual, constitutionally unique, finds meaning in different pursuits, if he has the courage to maintain his difference. Manifestation of individual diversity, transformed into knowledge that can be transferred socially, changes the face of history itself, and moves each generation of man farther into the unknown”. · “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you”.