One cannot truly exist without the other, although they exist in genuine tension” (35). He admits this can be paradoxical, but he sees such a balance as constitutive of the nature of reality: “these two modes of being are integrally interdependent. Ultimately, Peterson wants “balance between conservativism and originality” (34). Beyond Order provides a call to balance these two fundamental principles of reality, and guides us along the straight and narrow path that divides them.
While chaos, in excess, threatens us with instability and anxiety, unchecked order can petrify us into submission. What’s more, he offers strategies for overcoming the cultural, scientific, and psychological forces causing us to tend toward tyranny, and teaches us how to rely instead on our instinct to find meaning and purpose, even-and especially-when we find ourselves powerless. In a time when the human will increasingly imposes itself over every sphere of life-from our social structures to our emotional states-Peterson warns that too much security is dangerous.
Now, in this sequel, Peterson delivers 12 more lifesaving principles for resisting the exhausting toll that our desire for order the world inevitably takes. Jordan B. Peterson, clinical psychologist and professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto, helped readers impose order on the chaos of their lives. People can “break the rules ethically” but only after they “have mastered them first and disciplined themselves to understand the necessity of those rules” (85). This isn’t chaos, however, but rather liberated continuation of the original spirit and intention of the rules. It also repeatedly emphasizes the need for creative transformation, the need to change when the status quo has become corrupt. Yes, it does have the black cover, and it was written during a chaotic time in Peterson’s life. Peterson had referred to this arrangement in the introductory overture to his first book, and he calls that first book a work of “ordering principles.” But Beyond Order is not chaos so much as balance. The packaging of the books gives this away, as the two have identical cover designs except that the first is white while the second is black. Is it then the chaos book? Almost, but not quite.īeyond Order is indeed the yin to the previous yang. Whereas 12 Rules for Life offered order as “an antidote to chaos” (its subtitle), this book seeks to move “beyond” that order. Titled Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, it’s packaged as a complement to the first. After nearly dying last year, Jordan Peterson is back with a sequel to his bestselling 12 Rules for Life.
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