The Abstraction of Jordan Peterson

Mapping Meaning in the Land of Identity Politics

Image credit: Melabelle

This is part 1 in a series on Jordan Peterson.

Part 1: The Abstraction of Jordan Peterson: Mapping Meaning in the Land of Identity Politics (A Defense)

Part 2: The Detraction of Jordan Peterson: Constructive Criticism to a Public Intellectual (A Critique)

Part 3: The Resolution of Jordan Peterson: Truth, Lies, and Reconciliation in a Time of Chaos (A Synthesis)

“We have become trapped by our own capacity for abstraction: it provides us with accurate descriptive information, but serves to undermine our belief in the utility and meaning of existence.” (p. 19)

Jordan Peterson’s book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief contains the word ‘abstract’ and its derivatives 117 times. Just to give that some random context, Betrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy contains only 15 such references, Deleuze’s Nietzsche and Philosophy a mere 19. Even in Piaget’s Studies in Reflecting Abstraction, the word only comes up 26 times. I could go on and on… a couple more works with ‘abstraction’ even in the title: Scandals and Abstraction: Financial Fiction of the Long 1980s (17 instances). The Sociology of the Body: Mapping the Abstraction of Embodiment (16).

‘Abstract’ is a fruitful keyword in the above texts as well as countless other works, but clearly Peterson’s abstraction index is unusually high (over 6:1), so I think it warrants special attention. His concept here is essentially abstraction as mapping. Benjamin Bratton is another luminary who has independently articulated it this way, as I have previously noted, and discussed in depth here.

For the white paper that preceded this blog, I titled it “Map of the Problematique” because we are in effect trying to map it. This trend of mapping is an important validation of abstraction in its own right, as a tool to clarify critical thinking and resolve paradoxical social problems. With better abstraction, the map is increasingly becoming the territory. Through this critical cartography I suggest that we can map the moral landscape with more scientific certitude.

Dr. Peterson must be some kind of special expert on abstraction, to invoke it so much. He is indeed, but he’s also a bad abstractor in some regards. He is of course known as the now (in)famous psychology professor from the University of Toronto at the center of a gender terminology controversy, which is to say he is in the crossfire between well intentioned but confused liberal factions, at best.

To his earnest followers he is a bonafide intellectual, demonstrated through his lectures, books, and activism, and is aligned with basic feminist values. To his haters/critics, he’s a traditional sexist, over-intellectualizing and generalizing the discreet realities of non-binary people, standing in the way of real equality. To another category, some from the alt-right, he is claimed for their own perverse agenda, fanning the flames (no pun intended!) of homo/transphobia and white exceptionalism.

In this polarized political climate, it’s hard to weigh in without falling into a particular camp, but I want to rise above it, so let me offer the seemingly absurd but true position of being in total solidarity with the LGBTQ rights movement globally as well as a defender of Peterson and his so-called biological sexism (to an extent). And we’ll leave the alt-right out of it for now. (Peterson has since condemned them.)

I contend that there is no real contradiction on this issue, only misunderstanding, and this is even more true in the paradigm of ‘metamodernism.’ In a sense everyone is right and everyone is wrong — and its important we all concede a little. Sex difference is a biological reality (verified at the level of sex chromosomes and of genitals) and gender is socially constructed and individually determined (verified at the level of identity). It is BOTH-AND, an important rule of both postmodernism and metamodernism. Peterson’s refusal to recognize this is biological determinism coupled with a rejection of sociology; put bluntly, social darwinism. He’s all nature, no nurture, even if he is nurturing the individual.

People are obsessed over language and word choice, and for good reason. Words are the crucibles of ideas, as Orwell taught us, and when abused or restricted they are also the means of thought control. The gender pronoun issue is all about the freedom and identity predicated on such words. If/when you try to squeeze spectral humans into strict dualities, it will be a type of lie and injustice will be carried out against those minorities and outliers.

A metamodern paradigm accomodates the anomalies and resolves the tension: there are mostly males and females, based on the genetic differentiation of sex. There are also anomalous expressions (ie. hermaphrodites), and when uniquely human subjectivity is applied there is also everything in between and outside of the gender binary (ie. homosexual, transexuals).

So, legalize being human already. This doesn’t require complex bathroom laws or contrived speech codes, just more education — and unisex bathrooms. Here is the bottom line: Any intelligent progressive person, Peterson included, would be an advocate for blind justice, not an enemy of it— because we know there is an abstract human being behind (within) each person, completely devoid of distinguishing features, sexual, racial, or otherwise, and thus deserving of equal and fair treatment. Call it a homunculus.

Like most critical social scientists, his raison d’etre is to challenge and enlighten, to tell the truth, not to be a sexist stirring up controversy, but even he doesn’t get it. Peterson’s work is generally worth one’s attention and time — for much disagreement is a function of ‘vicious abstraction’ (false consciousness rooted in concept distortion or misquotation). That, and Peterson’s traditional values make it hard for him to articulate a position that appeases everyone. Alas, I’ve digressed more than I wanted to, but his little homunculus is a perfect segue into abstraction. Exactly what Peterson’s wrong about is discussed in detail in parts 2 & 3 of this series.

Back to Abstraction

‘Abstract’ is a word that authors use sparingly, for its equivocacy and potential to mystify the broader thesis. After all, what the hell does ‘abstract’ mean anyway but an incredibly vague catch-all for thinking, complexity, and generality? (Read this hypertextbook to find out). As long as readers have a general understanding of a word, they can employ it effectively, no? Getting hung up on semantics means we never get past page one of Genesis (we arguably can’t).

Few writers will waste precious space going down the rabbit hole of abstraction, yet definition is perhaps the most essential of philosophical exercises, so as per the M.O. of TATO (The Abs-Tract Organization), we shall push on with this abstract exigesis. With 117 references, clearly Peterson is on an abstraction train, and we can extrapolate a thick description from his work. For starters, the book is rich with schematic models such as this one, abstractly depicting interactions across layers of complexity:

(p. 73)

“Each developmental “stage” — action, imitation, play, ritual, drama, narrative, myth, religion, philosophy, rationality — offers an increasingly abstracted, generalized and detailed representation of the behavioral wisdom embedded in and established during the previous stage. The introduction of semantic representation to the human realm of behavior allowed for continuance and ever-increasing extension of the cognitive process originating in action, imitation, play, and drama. Language turned drama into mythic narrative, narrative into formal religion, and religion into critical philosophy, providing for exponential expansion of adaptive ability.” (p. 72)

Each bidirectional arrow is its own world of abstraction, endlessly scrutable by the human mind. Countless scholars have dedicated their lives to filling in the smallest gaps, and now we have a quite complete picture, when one has the resolve to step back and take it in. On the upper level of the image, Peterson is depicting a continuum from the most basic sensory investigation of our external world to the most internal processes of ideation to cognitively map said world. This chain is also mediated through different types of working memory, depicted on the lower level. The visual aid is a great abstraction and supplement to the text.

From crude observation and imitative behaviour (discovery) to the abstract reflection of the processes behind such behaviour (philosophy), Peterson argues that humans develop ‘meta-skill’; the ability to abstract the logic behind certain actions and patterns of behavior. Alluding to the power of allegory, he writes, “It is the encapsulation of meta-skill in a story that makes that story great.” (p. 69)

This meta-learning is actually precisely the conceit of the metamodern art film The Abs-Tract: Core Philosophy, which implores the viewer to “think hard core” to both heuristically hone ripped abs as well as to achieve metanoia (profound change of mind). According to Peterson’s logic, I guess that makes it a great story, because it teaches meta-skill. In Maps of Meaning, Peterson threads abstraction throughout his own map of meaning, with cumulative effect:

“Thinking might in many cases be regarded as the abstracted form of exploration — as the capacity to investigate, without the necessity of direct motoric action.” (p. 62) “Behavior is imitated, then abstracted into play, formalized into drama and story, crystallized into myth and codified religion — and only then criticized in philosophy, and provided, post-hoc, with rational underpinnings.” (p. 71) “The highest level abstractions therefore allow us to represent the most universally applicable behavioral pattern: that characterizing the hero, who (eternally) turns the unknown into something secure and beneficial; who eternally reconstructs the secure and beneficial, when it has degenerated into tyranny.” (p. 147)

In these three references abstraction is employed variously as; exploration through thought, a transformative process across levels, and the construction of metanarratives (myth, story) and meaning, in turn enabling action. It is a ubiquitous process, abstraction. We do it all the time, whether we know it or not. It is not necessary to go through all 117 expressions to make this point.

His frequent usage of the term is a conscious choice but may also just be a consequence of lucidly describing the role of thinking in the framework of evolutionary anthropology, psychology, and sociology. “Abstraction” is extant in that literature. The deeper we go, the clearer the detail on the map appears. According to Peterson;

“the purpose of abstraction is to represent experience, and to manipulate the representations, to further successful adaptation.” (p. 269). “Procedures may be mapped in episodic memory, and abstracted in essence by the semantic system.” (p. 184)

Fundamentally, abstraction is thinking and learning, fundamentally based on ‘exploration,’ and ultimately giving way to philosophy. And the moral of the story is that we need to take it all the way (and back again). Throughout our evolution we learned to think, and then think again, to refine the thought processes.

Combing the text, we have started to develop a definition of ‘abstraction’ unique to Peterson’s exploratory mapping model. Perhaps more important is not to overstate what it is, but what it does. Under the heading 4.2.3 The Strange Idea and the pages that follow, he highlights some benefits of our capacity for abstraction, which I’ve collated into a list:

“increasing self-understanding (self-consciousness)” (p. 201) “facilitates communication of morality (instruction in how to behave)” (p. 201) “to reason and represent, in behavior, imagination and word” (p. 202) “ease of communication” (p. 208) “increased adaptive flexibility” (p. 208) “tremendous heightening of adaptive ability” (p. 208) “to produce self-models that include the temporal boundaries of existence” (p. 225)

Sounds like a pretty useful tool. His repeated emphasis on abstraction as learning/discovery/mapping underpins the critical pedagogy that I am advocating: that abstraction is a key, if not the key, to critical thinking and learning, and that a root-level intervention in education reform and public policy would avoid many of our common socio-political pathologies. Because ‘abstraction as mapping’ is a self-evident methodology, the map is the proof, and can constantly be checked and revised. The adaptation is the pudding. The map is the sum total of human knowledge.

But Peterson also warns of abstraction as a double-edged sword. First of all, our capacity for abstraction is partial and imcomplete. We only have access to part of the puzzle. In another more dangerous sense, it is because new ideas can be threatening and will trigger our physiological and psychosomatic defense mechanisms, potentially in a cascading fashion, that can undermine entire belief systems. He points out that a “new idea is an abstract stranger.” (p. 201).

Humans can also abuse abstraction, as we have the power to deny, both consciously (refusal, out of self-interest) and unconsciously (rejection, out of ignorance). This has macro consequences when we consider the cascading ripple effects of actions motivated by false beliefs (such as religious dogma), or in reaction to threatening truths (such as climate change). Returning to this ominous sentiment, also expressed in the opening quote of this article, Peterson writes:

“The final emergent process of the developmental chain of abstraction can be applied to undermine the stability of its foundation. The modern and verbally-sophisticated individual is therefore always in danger of sawing off the branch on which he or she sits.” (p. 214)

Hence why he calls it the ‘strange idea.’ Put another way, critical thinking emancipates us right up until it runs up against society’s norms and beliefs, which may or may not be degenerate abstractions. Furthermore, the profound truth that all language is ultimately made up (socially constructed) is both freeing and constricting. We can write and speak with precision, but this does not guarantee we will be understood, or that the meaning will hold over time.

Or perhaps the caveat is simply that the more one abstracts, the more complexity one sees and has to process for reduction. We can reach incredible depths through abstraction and academic writing, but then there is a ‘So what?’ factor — people will find ways to disagree, or not care— for various reasons.

This idea that science ‘proves’ things obviously does not carry over easily to the social sciences, where no idea is safe from becoming politicized and bastardized. In this blog, I also touch on the vulnerabilties of abstraction. Namely, “vicious abstraction” (misrepresentation, over-simplification) and the “reproach of abstraction” (anti-intellectualism (bad reproach) and critique of ‘philosophizing’ (good reproach)). Yet I can think of no other solution than to boldly commit to good and virtuous “abstraction,” rather than shy away from it. It holds the heroic promise, that we all aspire to, to learn, and to adapt and survive, not to mention to triumph over evil in our mytho-poetic terms.

We need to continue to develop abstraction as an epistemology; a way of knowing and verifying. The larger point I want to make is if abstraction is mapping, and mapping is an increasingly objective investigative process of revealing the ‘matrix’ we live in, then how can we make the correct maps more equally distributed? — why do people still disagree and conflict over them? In short, because knowledge is power and the culture war is about epistemic legitimacy.

We know how abstraction works and doesn’t work. Peterson’s abstractions work in the case of Maps of Meaning. His diagrams illustrate a complex relationship of concepts about myth and philosophy in an efficient and neutral way. Like a blueprint, the more accurate and corresponding a model is, the more truth-value and functionality it has. Collectively, we have great critical thinking tools and knowledge repositories distributed in libraries, the internet, and universities. And yet in practice, in society, so much ignorance and evil persists.

How is ideology then still so pervasive, even among intellectuals in the information age? How can so many people get reality so wrong still? With godlike AI and AR enroute, we must get ahead of this problem. Benjamin Bratton foretells of an even more precarious abstraction, that will mediate our interaction with reality right down to the level of skin and beyond, via nanotechnology. We are going to have full spectrum dominance over reality, but late capitalism will not equally distribute these superpowers. At what point will we finally share a common map of meaning and stop fighting? Specifically, how can we end contention over obvious scientific certainties (such as man-made climate change; anthropogenic ecocide)?

Humans have collectively successfully abstracted (mapped) reality as a matter of curiosity and survival. This is our knowledge of the world. And yet we deny the benefits of these achievements to the collective at our own social expense. The short answer why is that there are powerful people in powerful systems swinging this double-edged abstraction sword with wreckless abandon, spreading misinformation because it’s profitable in the short term. It’s profitable in the short term because multitudes of consumers are programmed to fail at abstraction (as critical thinking), to buy into traps.

More questions: When will people collectively realize that investment in abstraction pays dividends? What are we going to teach AI? And what is it going to teach us? Abstraction is already instrumental in AI, but the real revolution will be when AI is so smart that we can no longer bullshit ourselves as a society. AI will tell us the truth; nay, it will prove it to us. There is no more rationale for war, only justifications and excuses. And if AI is used for military purposes, we will have Skynet. If AI is used for ecological and humanist purposes, we will have world peace and subservient droids.

This is my fundamental concern: If humans are so smart, why is our politics so stupid? To solve the problem, humanity needs to be able to answer these questions at the conversational level, as well as the systemic level of law and institutions. Because if we can’t agree on the present meta-crisis, we’re fucked. The sociology of knowledge has been addressing these question for much of the 20th century — knowledge is under the yoke of power — and few have listened, but Peterson sheds light on our ignorance about the matrix:

“The eternally extant domain of the unknown therefore constitutes the matrix from which all conditional knowledge emerges. Everything presently known to each, everything rendered predictable, was at one time unknown to all, and had to be rendered predictable — beneficial at best, irrelevant at worst — as a consequence of active exploration-driven adaptation. The matrix is of indeterminable breadth: despite our great storehouse of culture, despite the wisdom bequeathed to us by our ancestors, we are still fundamentally ignorant, and will remain so, no matter how much we learn. The domain of the unknown surrounds us, like an ocean surrounds an island. We can increase the area of the island, but we never take away much from the sea.” (p. 49).

The abstraction of Jordan Peterson is his schematic worldview and his explicit use of abstraction, which is certainly more accurate than the average person. This is in part evident in his totalizing diagrams, which give due space to chaos and the unknown. His rise to prominence as a public intellectual in an anti-intellectual political climate is of great import, as it guides the agenda of intellectual discourse, for better or worse.

We are going to need honest maps of meaning to navigate the 21st century, and his maps are one good place to start, with respect to psychology and psychohistory. But Peterson is a bad place to finish. More important than Peterson is abstraction itself. We are not slaves to this process, but rather gods of it. High-level abstraction is seeing the world for what it is, and what it can be. It is a new blueprint for Bildung (education). Point being, abs-tract.