2015 Maps of Meaning 08b: Mythology: The Great Mother / Part 2 (Jordan Peterson)

It turns into Durga if you treat her properly. I didn't use Durga because I wanted to show that I actually got accused by someone that being a racist because they said, "Well, you use the endo goddess to indicate chaos and like the Greco-Roman goddess to indicate benevolence." That was obviously an indication of life. Anyways, it isn't. I just wanted to show that the idea of the benevolent goddess isn't limited to a single culture.

You know, there's Diana. She's got a lot of brass; that's what's down her front there. So she's like them, though, the nourishing element of being. That's the best way to think about it, and the nourishing element of being emerges in this sort of fashion. So that's the differentiation of the archetype. Way at the back, there's the predatory serpent chaos that lurks in the background, and then that fragments out as one more differentiating swap out in one direction into the feminine.

You know, in the feminine, this is a tough one because there's this weird interaction here with gender and archetype. So here's the other thing, and I'm floundering both on this because I have for a long time, because it's very difficult. Which gender of person are you most likely to see on the cover of men's magazines? A woman. What generally most likely see on the cover of women's magazine? Okay, why? Why is that? Yes, that's right. I think that's why. And that means that they're both possessed by the same archetype in a different way.

The archetype is the archetypal feminine fundamentally. For women, the archetypal feminine is a judge, and an ideal. The judge will ask, "How far do you deviate from that?" The ideal is, "To what degree can you emulate?" And then for men, it's the same damn thing. The judge element is exactly the same thing, and the possession element, well, it's slightly different, but it's not that different.

It's a strange thing because the visual image, the general digital image, is that of the feminine. So it's strange because I don't think the archetypal structures work the same in women and so on. The way of trying to figure this out is like the Sun. The hero is the Sun, like the male—not the shiny Sun. No, it's also that. It's like, but women obviously have an element of them that can be heroic and adversarial just like men. But then in women, that's complicated because the other primary element of their being is the maternal feminine element.

But that's complicated because women or men can also be quite maternal. Like for mammals, predatory mammals are unbelievably nurturing and feminine. You know, risen bears just eat their own cubs. So, manned, they're quite feminine as well as being masculine. So I kind of think of it this way: If you're thinking about what your personality structure is, for men, the hero is at the forefront, and the feminine mother is sort of behind that. And for women, it's reversed. The feminine mother is sort of forefront, and the hero's behind them.

But both of the archetypes are operative. So you can think about that. You can see what you make of it. But you know, because you might say, "Well, why would women?" Is it reasonable to presuppose? But for women, the feminine represents the unknown just like it does for men. And I don't think it is just like it is for men because I think for women, there's an element of the patriarchal structure that's more unknown than it is for men.

You know, and I think you see the reaction to that in part. You see the raptures of that in the feminist movement because the patriarchy is like the tyrannical father. You know, and the patriarchy exists, but it's not the tyrannical father. It's not the entire substrate of culture. It's just ridiculous. But I think because women are, you know, in some sense, they're outsiders to the male dominance hierarchy, that the male dominance art is more contaminated by the unknown for women than it is for men.

And I think it's more likely to be interpreted as the tyrannical father because of that. So anyways, I can't exactly sort it out because you end up with nested problems. So insofar as your primary mode of being is feminine, then your secondary mode of being is masculine. You're going to have all the characteristics of something masculine and all the characteristics of something feminine, but the manner in which they manifest themselves is going to be different.

And I just can't sort that out too clunky. Plus, I think that that is what we're sorting out right now in our culture. You know, ever since women got the ability to control the reproductive function, which was probably at least in part a consequence of an a priori psychological transformation. Because you could say, "Well, the pill freed women." But then you could say, "Well, what was the precondition for creating a society in which the person who invented the pill didn't get killed?"

You know, because the Catholic Church, for example, how people build was invented. Seriously, not happy, and no wonder. You know, so obviously there had to be some shifting in the underlying conceptual landscape in relationship to the relationship between men and women for that invention to even have come about. You know, and I think you can really see that starting.

If you read the classic Russian novels, you can see that the push towards equality that characterized women was really alive and well in 19th-century Russia among the aristocrats Caucasus. So, you know, like it has a pretty lengthy history—the waning, you mean, that widening of personality differences.

So, five differences? They're wider? I don't know, I don't know how to answer that exactly. So the point is that if you look at personality differences between men and women in the modern world, the most egalitarian cultures have the biggest personality differences—the gender differences. And so the technical reason for that is all the environmental variability has been eliminated. That's all that's left is genetic variability. And that's not masked in some sense by the environmental variability.

So it's powerful and profound, but it definitely shows that there's a lot of powerful genetic variability. It's powerful evidence for that. You know, but it also could be, you know, it could easily be that in this society what you're aiming for in an egalitarian society is the right for everyone to be different in their own way, whatever that happens to be. You know, and obviously that's going to be a limited right to some degree.

So an egalitarian society wouldn't necessarily eradicate personality differences. That would be a bloody totalitarian society like, "Get rid of all the differences to the degree that you're a female," and whatever the hell that means fundamentally. And I'm male. If we have to be the same, then that's going to be a function of intense control on the part of the state. You know, to the degree that that's intrinsic, we don't know.

How much of it is intrinsic? I would be very hesitant to say not. I mean, but it's also a prerequisite for long-term relationships between men and women, right? If we work a lot the same, or at least capable of being the same, then we wouldn't understand each other at all. I mean, I don't know if we do. We do, more than other creatures of our complexity—that's for sure.

So, yeah, and you know, it's certainly the case that if you look at a given individual and you look at the variability of their personal feelings, behaviors. The variability within a person is generally greater than the average variability within a population. So, you know, human beings, if you're an extrovert, you can be extremely introverted. Like, there are not very many extroverts at a funeral, you know? The noisiest people at a funeral will be the extroverts, but they're going to be hardly noisy at all.

You know, and an introvert can party themselves into a situation where they can't shut up. You know, so there's a lot of inter-individual variability. I actually think that one of the indexes of psychological health is the maximization of individual variability, because you should be able to be extremely compassionate, for example, when you're dealing with a sick baby. You know, and extremely uncompassionate when dealing with someone who's, you know, using their illness as an excuse not to pull their own weight.

But you need both of those, right? And you know, you'll end up with an average point as a consequence of your genetic structure and maybe your socialization. And it's sort of up to you that widen yourself out across the full spectrum so that you can call on those abilities when it's necessary. I think that's part of what differentiation as a person actually means, you know?

Because you come to be able to do more things, and so you can match yourself much more carefully to the immediate demands of the situation. So, yeah, we have the questions. Okay, so the symbol for anomaly, the feminine differentiates into the negative feminine and the positive feminine. Part of the issue is, how do you get more of the positives and keep the negative? That thing, and you know, that's a question that people have to ask themselves at the person of individual at the level of individual interaction with other people and with themselves.

But then it also works as a representation of the unknown and nature as such because in some ways, those are the same thing. So that's, you know, that's a differentiation. So this is the relationship between the hero archetype and the feminine. So what you have here is the chaos dragon differentiating itself into the feminine, which is half positive and half negative. And the feminine, they're being manifested in the form of—that's the Virgin Mary with Christ on her lap.

It's a using—you saw the same representation we were looking at with Isis and Horus. What's really quite cool about that is you see she's surrounded by this mandala, this, you know, almond-shaped opening fundamentally. And you see this is something that Renaissance artists did a lot. You see along the edges of the mat door, these little baby heads that are popping up with wings on them, and those are called putti. You know, it's very common that when you see representations of Mary with like the cosmos sort of billowing out behind her, because that's what you see.

It's like a hole into time and space that there's all these potential beings that are surrounding her. You know, it's these little baby heads with wings. What the hell are they? Well, what is this thing? You know, it's so strange, right? I went to a museum in New York where a number of Renaissance paintings of this type were arrayed in this one room. That's like a room with a few dollars—almost an amazing room—and there were people all from all over the world, and they're looking at these damn paintings.

They see, you know, this—it's like it's Mary, and she's sitting on the moon, and there's a bunch of like winged baby heads around her. And everybody's looking at this, tap them on the shoulder, and you say, "Why did you travel from Lane Cincinnati to come to this museum to look at what this woman do? We don't even believe in sitting on the crescent moon surrounded by baby heads." I don't know. I have no idea why they're there. They're fascinated by the painting. They're going to conjure up some reasons.

You know, you don't even notice how absurd it is until you take the picture apart. What the hell are these things, these putti? You know, I think what they are, are potential beings. That's the representation. So Mary represents the feminine domain from which potential being emerges, which is perfectly reasonable way of characterizing the feminine archetypes. You know, what are the pictures I will show you, which I just love, is Mary.

It's another representation of Mary, and she's got Christ in her hands, and she's holding him up to the left, and her foot is going on a snake's head, which is so cool. Because if you look at that picture and you strip away the Judeo-Christian presuppositions, and you just look at it like a damn biologist would, you'd think, "Well, of course that's what she's doing." You know, it's like Mama Jim keeps the damn infant away from the snakes, and that's the archetype.

And of course, it's the archetype because that is what you do. That's what you do when you're a mother, especially if you have nice, edible babies that snakes like to eat. And that isn't certainly something that characterized us in our evolutionary past, so it's no wonder it's a divine archetype. You know, of course it is. How could it not be? You might say, "Well, I don't believe in that." Well, it's like, "Hell, does that mean you don't believe in that?" No, I didn't even understand what that means.

You know, is that the mother of God? What do you mean? You know, it depends on how much divinity is embodied in your child. And believe me, once you have that child, you're going to think, "Hey, there's a pretty big chunk of divinity embodied in that child. No way is that snake going to get back. I'm going to keep it away from predators and, you know, evil doers, and try to raise it into the best possible thing."

It's like you may say you don't believe that, but what the hell do you know? Insofar as you're a good mother, you'll be acting that out like math. And I'm not going to say that's wrong because I actually think it's right. I think the child is a container of the divine and that your job as a mother is to facilitate the development of that child into the mythological hero. That's what you're up to, and that's a holy mission, insofar as you could use that word to describe anything.

And I failed to see how that is not real. I think it's the most real thing. So, but I also think the degree to which you're going to be able to do that as a mother will be the most rewarding thing you ever do in your life. And you'll figure that out. It's a powerful thing, and your whole life can change completely once you have your own child. It's like they're not like other children; they're your own child.

It's like they're the most important thing in the world right then. And from then on, if you're healthy, it's like your priority shifts. It's not you anymore, and that's a sacrifice. You know, it's a real sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that women are called on to make. It's a major sacrifice.

Okay, so then, you know, the mother gives birth to the hero. Okay, that's Hercules. It's not Christ; it's Hercules in this particular representation, and I love this representation. It's so cool. So Hercules, he's out there in the darkness on the water. So it's the watery chaos. So that's where he's situated himself voluntarily, and he is in this container.

Now, it's a good thing. You can think about that as a maternal container or you can think about it as cultural protection. It doesn't really matter. And then he's got this club, and if you look on the club, it's got these weird bumps. But if you look at the bumps, what you understand is those aren't bumps; those are eyes. So he's just like murder. He's got this club. Then what's the club? It's like attention; that's it.

You know, what if you're going to club something? You must pay multi-speed attention to it. Maybe it's like a rampaging lion, and you turn away from it. Well, it’s going to eat you, so the club's useless without the attention. But you know, the picture says a club, which is a weapon. A weapon is a form of meta-attention story. I thought every person's attention is a meta weapon.

It's the ultimate weapon against the unknown. And so there's Hercules; he's got his eyes wide open. He's peering out into the darkness. He's got this lion head on, and that's because he killed the lion. You know, men used to do that. Know the neighbors? Shepherds out in the desert, and in the Middle East, one of the things they used to do was kill a lion with a spear. It’s like that's really worth thinking about, man.

That's hard to do. That would be very frightening to do that, and so men used to do that. So that's really something to think about. Anyway, so he's got this lion suit on, and a lion is king of the beasts, roughly speaking. So it represents the thing that set the talk with the doorman in Turkey. You all know that because otherwise he could have understood the Lion King.

And the lion is a solar beast because it's yellow. But it weren't. So you know, it's a daylight creature. It's out there where everything's sunny. So it's associated with the Sun and illumination and enlightenment. So it's like lions, sun, sun with eyes, goes out to conquer the unknown. That's what the mother does if she raises the proper Sun, right?

Now, she's also doing that for the daughter, but again, that's complicated because women are complicated, and their role is very, very complex. And so to some degree, they're the hero. But to some degree, they're the mother of the hero, and those are, I would say, I don't know. You could say that, in some sense, a conscious mother gives up her own individual heroism as a sacrifice to the potential heroism of her children, you know.

And that's worth thinking about because my guess is that for most of you, your mother did that. You know, now you want to—you know, my wife had a dream once about putting on her great-grandmother's shoes, her grandmother. She really liked her grandmother, a very feminine person. And only, you know, cookie-making, apple pie-baking, piano-playing grandmother, she had them down preparing love people in the old folks' home even when she was 18. She was really cheerful and tough, but she is a great person. I really liked her.

But when my wife Jane Diversy dreamt, she was trying on her shoes and the shoes were too small. You know, and that was very interesting because what she came—he came to me was the—and she loved her grandmother. There's no doubt that that role, despite her grandmother having fulfilled that so well, it wasn't enough. And you know, women have kind of decided that, and maybe that's for the best because now there are all these smart women running around doing useful things. And you know, that's probably good.

But exactly how to sort that out was not yet being figured out. So what time is it?