Maps of Meaning: Difference between revisions
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==Background and writing== |
==Background and writing== |
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⚫ | cover edition following in 2002.<ref>{{citation|last=Peterson|first=Jordan B.|authorlink=Jordan Peterson|title=Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fLpQLDe77aAC|date=11 September 2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=1-135-96174-3}}</ref> The unabridged audiobook edition was released on 12 June 2018, by [[Random House Audio]].<ref>Peterson, Jordan B. 2018. ''Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief'' [audio book], read by J. B. Peterson. UK: Random House Audio. {{ISBN|9781984829016}}. [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/597643/maps-of-meaning-by-jordan-b-peterson/9781984829016 Lay summary].</ref> A month after its release, the audiobook debuted on the 4th place of the monthly category "Audio Nonfiction" by ''[[The New York Times Best Seller list]]''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2018/07/01/audio-nonfiction/?action=click&contentCollection=Books&referrer=https://www.google.ca/®ion=Header&module=ArrowNav&version=Right&pgtype=Reference&mtrref=t.co&gwh=0CF7EA97197FB36F9F41B66F791C7D02&gwt=pay|title=Audio Nonfiction|date=1 July 2018|publisher=The New York Times|accessdate=3 August 2018}}</ref> |
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Peterson wrote the book for more than 13 years<ref name=inferos /> in an attempt to "explain the meaning of history".<ref name="Balzer"/> In it, he briefly reflects on his childhood and on being raised in a Christian family. The responses to his questions about the literal truth of Biblical stories seemed ignorant, causing him to lose interest in attending church. During adolescence and early adulthood he tried finding the answer to "the general social and political insanity and evil of the world" (from [[Cold War]] to [[totalitarianism]]) and for a short period of time he embraced [[socialism]] and [[political science]]. Finding himself unsatisfied and falling into a depression, he discovered inspiration in the ideas of [[Carl Jung]] and decided to pursue psychology. |
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Peterson began to write ''Maps of Meaning'' in the mid-1980s, and used text from it (then titled as ''The Gods of War'') during his classes teaching as an assistant professor of psychology at [[Harvard University]].<ref name="Chronicle18">{{cite news|first=Tom|last=Bartlett|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-s-So-Dangerous-About/242256|title=What's So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?|date=January 17, 2018|work=[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]|access-date=January 19, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Kelefa">{{cite news|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/jordan-petersons-gospel-of-masculinity|title=Jordan Peterson's Gospel of Masculinity|date=March 5, 2018|first=Kelefa|last=Sanneh|author-link=Kelefa Sanneh|work=[[The New Yorker]]|accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref> He initially intended to use it in an application for [[academic tenure]] at Harvard, but found that he was not emotionally up to the task, nor was he "in the position to make the strongest case for myself". The prospect of steady employment was attractive as he had two children by then, and so he decided to accept an offer from the [[University of Toronto]] in 1998.<ref name="Chronicle18" /> |
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According to [[Craig Lambert]], writing in ''[[Harvard Magazine]]'', the book is influenced by [[Jungian archetypes|Jung's archetypal ideas]] about the [[collective unconscious]] and [[evolutionary psychology]]. It includes theories of religion and God, natural origin of modern culture, and the bibliography includes [[Dante Alighieri]], [[Hannah Arendt]], [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]], [[Northrop Frye]], [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]], the [[Brothers Grimm]], [[Stephen Hawking]], [[Laozi]], [[Konrad Lorenz]], [[Alexander Luria]], [[John Milton]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Jean Piaget]], [[B. F. Skinner]], [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], [[Voltaire]], and [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] among many others.<ref name=inferos /><ref name="Chronicle18"/><ref name="Kelefa"/> |
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==Release== |
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In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on Peterson's book ''Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief'' aired on [[TVOntario]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://torontolife.com/city/u-t-professor-sparked-vicious-battle-gender-neutral-pronouns/|title=A professor's refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns, and the vicious campus war that followed|last=January 25|first=Daniel Ehrenworth {{!}}|last2=2017|date=2017-01-25|website=Toronto Life|language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422034117/http://www.fairviewpost.com/2004/01/27/where-we-live|title=Where we live... {{!}} Fairview Post|date=2017-04-22|website=web.archive.org|access-date=2020-02-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tvo.org/programs/maps-of-meaning|title=Archive: Maps of Meaning|website=TVO.org|language=en|access-date=2020-02-20}}</ref> |
In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on Peterson's book ''Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief'' aired on [[TVOntario]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://torontolife.com/city/u-t-professor-sparked-vicious-battle-gender-neutral-pronouns/|title=A professor's refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns, and the vicious campus war that followed|last=January 25|first=Daniel Ehrenworth {{!}}|last2=2017|date=2017-01-25|website=Toronto Life|language=en-US|access-date=2020-02-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422034117/http://www.fairviewpost.com/2004/01/27/where-we-live|title=Where we live... {{!}} Fairview Post|date=2017-04-22|website=web.archive.org|access-date=2020-02-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tvo.org/programs/maps-of-meaning|title=Archive: Maps of Meaning|website=TVO.org|language=en|access-date=2020-02-20}}</ref> |
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According to Peterson, his main goal was to examine why both individuals and groups participate in [[social conflict]], exploring the reasoning and motivation individuals take to support their belief systems (i.e. ideological [[Identification (psychology)|identification]])<ref name="Krendl">{{cite news|last=Krendl|first=Anne C.|date=April 26, 1995|title=Jordan Peterson: Linking Mythology to Psychology|work=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1995/4/26/jordan-peterson-pharvard-students-may-know/?page=single}}</ref> that eventually results in killing and [[Psychopathology|pathological]] atrocities like the [[Gulag]], [[the Holocaust]], and the [[Rwandan genocide]].<ref name=inferos /><ref name="Krendl" /><ref name="Summary2015">{{citation|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/276984986/Summary-and-Guide-to-Maps-of-Meaning-The-Architecture-of-Belief-by-Jordan-Peterson|title=Summary and Guide to Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief|author=<!--apparently anonymous-->|date=August 2015|work=Scribd|pages=2–3|accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref> He considers that an "analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality."<ref name="Summary2015"/> |
According to Peterson, his main goal was to examine why both individuals and groups participate in [[social conflict]], exploring the reasoning and motivation individuals take to support their belief systems (i.e. ideological [[Identification (psychology)|identification]])<ref name="Krendl">{{cite news|last=Krendl|first=Anne C.|date=April 26, 1995|title=Jordan Peterson: Linking Mythology to Psychology|work=[[The Harvard Crimson]]|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1995/4/26/jordan-peterson-pharvard-students-may-know/?page=single}}</ref> that eventually results in killing and [[Psychopathology|pathological]] atrocities like the [[Gulag]], [[the Holocaust]], and the [[Rwandan genocide]].<ref name=inferos /><ref name="Krendl" /><ref name="Summary2015">{{citation|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/276984986/Summary-and-Guide-to-Maps-of-Meaning-The-Architecture-of-Belief-by-Jordan-Peterson|title=Summary and Guide to Jordan Peterson’s Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief|author=<!--apparently anonymous-->|date=August 2015|work=Scribd|pages=2–3|accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref> He considers that an "analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality."<ref name="Summary2015"/> |
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In line with Peterson's reasoning, there exists a struggle between [[Chaos (cosmogony)|''chaos'']] (characteristic of the unknown, e.g. nature) and ''[[Hierarchy|order]]'' (characteristic of explored, mapped territory, e.g. culture). Humans with their capability of [[Abstraction|abstract thinking]] also make abstract [[Territoriality (nonverbal communication)|territoriality]]—the belief systems that "regulate our emotions." A potential threat to an important belief triggers emotional reactions, which are potentially followed by pathological attempts to face internal chaos, despite that "people generally prefer war to be something external, rather than internal…than re-forming our challenged beliefs." The principle in-between is [[logos|''logos'']] (consciousness), and heroic figures are those who develop the culture and society as intermediaries between these two natural forces.<ref name=inferos /> In that sense, the "myth represents the eternal unknown…known…knower," the latter being the hero who "[[Chaoskampf|slays the dragon]] of chaos" like [[Saint George and the Dragon|Saint George]], resulting in "maturity in the form of individuality."<ref name="Balzer"/> Throughout the book, Peterson attempts to explain how the mind works, while including illustrations with elaborate geometric diagrams (e.g. "The Constituent Elements of Experience as Personality, Territory, and Process").<ref name="Kelefa"/> |
In line with Peterson's reasoning, there exists a struggle between [[Chaos (cosmogony)|''chaos'']] (characteristic of the unknown, e.g. nature) and ''[[Hierarchy|order]]'' (characteristic of explored, mapped territory, e.g. culture). Humans with their capability of [[Abstraction|abstract thinking]] also make abstract [[Territoriality (nonverbal communication)|territoriality]]—the belief systems that "regulate our emotions." A potential threat to an important belief triggers emotional reactions, which are potentially followed by pathological attempts to face internal chaos, despite that "people generally prefer war to be something external, rather than internal…than re-forming our challenged beliefs." The principle in-between is [[logos|''logos'']] (consciousness), and heroic figures are those who develop the culture and society as intermediaries between these two natural forces.<ref name=inferos /> In that sense, the "myth represents the eternal unknown…known…knower," the latter being the hero who "[[Chaoskampf|slays the dragon]] of chaos" like [[Saint George and the Dragon|Saint George]], resulting in "maturity in the form of individuality."<ref name="Balzer"/> Throughout the book, Peterson attempts to explain how the mind works, while including illustrations with elaborate geometric diagrams (e.g. "The Constituent Elements of Experience as Personality, Territory, and Process").<ref name="Kelefa">{{cite news|last=Sanneh|first=Kelefa|author-link=Kelefa Sanneh|date=March 5, 2018|title=Jordan Peterson's Gospel of Masculinity|work=[[The New Yorker]]|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/jordan-petersons-gospel-of-masculinity|accessdate=March 3, 2018}}</ref> |
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==Reviews== |
==Reviews== |
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One of relatively few reviews of the book upon release was from [[Sheldon H. White]] from Harvard University, who praised it as "brilliant."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=White |first1=Sheldon H. |title=Developmental Psychology as an Ethical Enterprise |journal=Human Development |date=1999 |volume=42 |issue=1 |page=52 |doi=10.2307/26763387 |issn=0018-716X}}</ref><ref name="Chronicle18"/> |
One of relatively few reviews of the book upon release was from [[Sheldon H. White]] from Harvard University, who praised it as "brilliant."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=White |first1=Sheldon H. |title=Developmental Psychology as an Ethical Enterprise |journal=Human Development |date=1999 |volume=42 |issue=1 |page=52 |doi=10.2307/26763387 |issn=0018-716X}}</ref><ref name="Chronicle18">{{cite news|last=Bartlett|first=Tom|date=January 17, 2018|title=What's So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?|work=[[The Chronicle of Higher Education]]|url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-s-So-Dangerous-About/242256|access-date=January 19, 2018}}</ref> |
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Professor of psychiatry [[Dan Blazer]], in the ''[[American Journal of Psychiatry]]'' (2000), emphasized that it "is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather, it should be read at leisure (although it is anything but light reading) and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one’s own maps of meaning."<ref name="Balzer">{{cite journal |last=Blazer |first=Dan |author-link=Dan Blazer |date=February 1, 2000 |title=Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief |url=https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.157.2.299-a |journal=American Journal of Psychiatry |volume=157 |issue=157 |pages=299–300 |doi=10.1176/appi.ajp.157.2.299-a |access-date=March 4, 2018}}</ref> Maxine Sheets-Johnstone writing for ''[[Psycoloquy]]'' (2000), described it as an "original, provocative, complex, and fascinating book, which is also at times conceptually troubling, unduly repetitive, and exasperating in its format," however the "positive values of the book far outweigh its detractions."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sheets-Johnstone|first=Maxine|date=2000|title=The psychology of what is and what should be: An experiential and moral psychology of the known and the unknown: Review of Peterson on Meaning-Belief|url=http://www.cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?meaning-belief.2|journal=Psycoloquy|volume=11|issue=124|accessdate=March 4, 2018}}</ref> |
Professor of psychiatry [[Dan Blazer]], in the ''[[American Journal of Psychiatry]]'' (2000), emphasized that it "is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather, it should be read at leisure (although it is anything but light reading) and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one’s own maps of meaning."<ref name="Balzer">{{cite journal |last=Blazer |first=Dan |author-link=Dan Blazer |date=February 1, 2000 |title=Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief |url=https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.157.2.299-a |journal=American Journal of Psychiatry |volume=157 |issue=157 |pages=299–300 |doi=10.1176/appi.ajp.157.2.299-a |access-date=March 4, 2018}}</ref> Maxine Sheets-Johnstone writing for ''[[Psycoloquy]]'' (2000), described it as an "original, provocative, complex, and fascinating book, which is also at times conceptually troubling, unduly repetitive, and exasperating in its format," however the "positive values of the book far outweigh its detractions."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sheets-Johnstone|first=Maxine|date=2000|title=The psychology of what is and what should be: An experiential and moral psychology of the known and the unknown: Review of Peterson on Meaning-Belief|url=http://www.cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?meaning-belief.2|journal=Psycoloquy|volume=11|issue=124|accessdate=March 4, 2018}}</ref> |
Revision as of 16:32, 8 September 2020
Author | Jordan Peterson |
---|---|
Working title | The Gods of War |
Language | English |
Subject | |
Published | 26 March 1999 |
Publisher | Routledge |
Publication place | Canada |
Media type | |
Pages | 564 |
ISBN | 978-0415922227 |
Followed by | 12 Rules for Life |
Template:Jordan Peterson sidebar Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief is a 1999 book by Canadian clinical psychologist and psychology professor Jordan Peterson. The book describes a theory for how people construct meaning, in a way that is compatible with the modern scientific understanding of how the brain functions.[1] It examines the "structure of systems of belief and the role those systems play in the regulation of emotion",[2] using "multiple academic fields to show that connecting myths and beliefs with science is essential to fully understand how people make meaning".[3]
Background and writing
cover edition following in 2002.[4] The unabridged audiobook edition was released on 12 June 2018, by Random House Audio.[5] A month after its release, the audiobook debuted on the 4th place of the monthly category "Audio Nonfiction" by The New York Times Best Seller list.[6]
In 2004, a 13-part TV series based on Peterson's book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief aired on TVOntario.[7][8][9]
Content
According to Peterson, his main goal was to examine why both individuals and groups participate in social conflict, exploring the reasoning and motivation individuals take to support their belief systems (i.e. ideological identification)[10] that eventually results in killing and pathological atrocities like the Gulag, the Holocaust, and the Rwandan genocide.[1][10][11] He considers that an "analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality."[11]
In line with Peterson's reasoning, there exists a struggle between chaos (characteristic of the unknown, e.g. nature) and order (characteristic of explored, mapped territory, e.g. culture). Humans with their capability of abstract thinking also make abstract territoriality—the belief systems that "regulate our emotions." A potential threat to an important belief triggers emotional reactions, which are potentially followed by pathological attempts to face internal chaos, despite that "people generally prefer war to be something external, rather than internal…than re-forming our challenged beliefs." The principle in-between is logos (consciousness), and heroic figures are those who develop the culture and society as intermediaries between these two natural forces.[1] In that sense, the "myth represents the eternal unknown…known…knower," the latter being the hero who "slays the dragon of chaos" like Saint George, resulting in "maturity in the form of individuality."[12] Throughout the book, Peterson attempts to explain how the mind works, while including illustrations with elaborate geometric diagrams (e.g. "The Constituent Elements of Experience as Personality, Territory, and Process").[13]
Reviews
One of relatively few reviews of the book upon release was from Sheldon H. White from Harvard University, who praised it as "brilliant."[14][15]
Professor of psychiatry Dan Blazer, in the American Journal of Psychiatry (2000), emphasized that it "is not a book to be abstracted and summarized. Rather, it should be read at leisure (although it is anything but light reading) and employed as a stimulus and reference to expand one’s own maps of meaning."[12] Maxine Sheets-Johnstone writing for Psycoloquy (2000), described it as an "original, provocative, complex, and fascinating book, which is also at times conceptually troubling, unduly repetitive, and exasperating in its format," however the "positive values of the book far outweigh its detractions."[16]
Harvey Shepard, writing in the religion column of the Montreal Gazette (2003), stated:[17]
To me, the book reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of personal soul searching.… Peterson's vision is both fully informed by current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply conservative and traditional.
Psychologists Ralph W. Hood, Peter C. Hill, and Bernard Spilka, in their book The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach (2009), state that in regard of the relationship of five-factor model to religion, the "dynamic model for the tension between tradition and transformation has been masterfully explored by Peterson (1999) as the personality basis for what he terms the architecture of belief."[18]
In 2017, feminist academic Camille Paglia commented on the link between Maps of Meaning and her own book, Sexual Personae (1990).[15]
According to Peterson, until 2018 there had been lack of serious critique, and he did not "think people had any idea what to make of the book."[15] In 2018, professor of philosophy Paul Thagard wrote a highly critical review about the book for Psychology Today, describing it as murky and arguing that it is "defective as a work of anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and politics."[19] Nathan J. Robinson, in Current Affairs article, described it as "an elaborate, unprovable, unfalsifiable, unintelligible theory."[20]
References
- ^ a b c Lambert, Craig (September 1998). "Chaos, Culture, Curiosity". Harvard Magazine.
- ^ McCord, Joan. Beyond Empiricism: Institutions and Intentions in the Study of Crime. Transaction Publishers. p. 178. ISBN 978-1-4128-1806-3.
- ^ Gregory, Erik M.; Rutledge, Pamela B. (2016), Exploring Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Well-Being, ABC-CLIO, p. 154, ISBN 978-1-61069-940-2
- ^ Peterson, Jordan B. (11 September 2002), Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, Routledge, ISBN 1-135-96174-3
- ^ Peterson, Jordan B. 2018. Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief [audio book], read by J. B. Peterson. UK: Random House Audio. ISBN 9781984829016. Lay summary.
- ^ "Audio Nonfiction". The New York Times. 1 July 2018. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
- ^ January 25, Daniel Ehrenworth |; 2017 (2017-01-25). "A professor's refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns, and the vicious campus war that followed". Toronto Life. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
{{cite web}}
:|last2=
has numeric name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Where we live... | Fairview Post". web.archive.org. 2017-04-22. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
- ^ "Archive: Maps of Meaning". TVO.org. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
- ^ a b Krendl, Anne C. (April 26, 1995). "Jordan Peterson: Linking Mythology to Psychology". The Harvard Crimson.
- ^ a b "Summary and Guide to Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief", Scribd, pp. 2–3, August 2015, retrieved March 3, 2018
- ^ a b Blazer, Dan (February 1, 2000). "Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief". American Journal of Psychiatry. 157 (157): 299–300. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.157.2.299-a. Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ Sanneh, Kelefa (March 5, 2018). "Jordan Peterson's Gospel of Masculinity". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
- ^ White, Sheldon H. (1999). "Developmental Psychology as an Ethical Enterprise". Human Development. 42 (1): 52. doi:10.2307/26763387. ISSN 0018-716X.
- ^ a b c Bartlett, Tom (January 17, 2018). "What's So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
- ^ Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine (2000). "The psychology of what is and what should be: An experiential and moral psychology of the known and the unknown: Review of Peterson on Meaning-Belief". Psycoloquy. 11 (124). Retrieved March 4, 2018.
- ^ Shepherd, Harvey (November 11, 2003). "Meaning from Myths". Montreal Gazette.
- ^ Hood, Ralph W.; Hill, Peter C.; Spilka, Bernard (2009). The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach (4 ed.). Guilford Press. pp. 236–237. ISBN 978-1-60623-392-4.
- ^ Thagard, Paul (12 March 2018). "Jordan Peterson's Murky Maps of Meaning". Psychology Today. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
- ^ Nathan J. Robinson (14 March 2018). "The Intellectual We Deserve". Retrieved May 19, 2018.
External links
- Maps of Meaning - Peterson's website
- Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief