Maps of Meaning

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1999

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Key Figures

Jordan B. Peterson

Jordan Brent Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is the author of Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), 12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018), and Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (2021). In addition to being an author, the Canadian is a professor of psychology, a clinical psychologist, and a YouTube personality. He is married to Tammy Roberts and has two children, Mikhaila and Julian. Peterson often mentions his family in his lectures and writings.

As Peterson recounts in Maps of Meaning, he grew up in a religious household in Canada’s Alberta province. Although he initially chose to major in political science at the University of Alberta, he grew disenchanted with the approach to teaching and studying politics, so he turned his attention to psychology. Peterson holds a PhD in clinical psychology from McGill University in Montreal. After teaching at Harvard University, he returned to Canada in 1998 and joined the psychology faculty at the University of Toronto.

Maps of Meaning is a genre-defying book that combines disciplines as disparate as history, psychology, mythology, and neuroscience. It sold less than a thousand copies in its first publishing run and garnered few reviews at the time. However, Peterson began receiving media coverage in the 2010s for his critique of political correctness as well as his controversial views on gender identity and expression, and this attention renewed interest in his writings and lectures. By 2018, Peterson’s lectures—often posted as YouTube videos—had millions of views. Released as an audiobook in 2018, Maps of Meaning climbed to fourth place in the monthly Audio Nonfiction category on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Peterson is an influential and polarizing thinker whom many consider right-wing, but he characterizes himself politically as a liberal and a traditionalist. In the Los Angeles Times, libertarian journalist Cathy Young commented that “Peterson’s ideas are a mixed bag […] But you wouldn’t know this from reading Peterson’s critics, who generally cast him as a far-right boogeyman riding the wave of a misogynistic backlash.” (Young, Cathy. “Op-Ed: Hate on Jordan Peterson all you want, but he's tapping into frustration that feminists shouldn't ignore.” Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2018. Accessed 14 September 2021.) One reason his politics are difficult to pin down is that he refuses to ally himself with ideologies. Additionally, he often uses ideas from various disciplines to illustrate a point.

In Maps of Meaning, Peterson comes across as a highly intelligent and sensitive person genuinely troubled by the state of the world. His lapse from religion created an existential vacuum in his life, suggesting that he sought meaningful structures, yet his disenchantment with socialism suggests that he is an individualist who abhors restrictive group identities. The book’s references to his personal struggles, his family’s stories, and a letter to his father indicate an openness to vulnerability. Sharing insights from world cultures and philosophies, Peterson seems a polymath—yet despite his admiration of Taoism and other Eastern religions, Peterson’s views sometimes reveal a bias toward Christianity, masculinity, and Eurocentrism.

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Born into a family of clerics, Jung went on to study medicine at the University of Basel. Jung’s work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, literature, philosophy, and religious studies, and he is notable for developing psychotherapeutic methods that drew on myth and religion. Jung is central to Maps of Meaning because his work—particularly his theories on psychoanalysis, myth-studies, and religion—profoundly influenced Peterson.

Although Jung is now regarded as a seminal thinker, in his time he faced criticism for his theories, especially when he fell out with his mentor Sigmund Freud after the publication his first book, Psychology of the Unconscious (1912). In the book, Jung’s theories of the unconscious significantly diverted from Freud’s ideas. The rift led Jung to establish analytical psychology as a therapeutic method separate from psychoanalysis. After his break with Freud, Jung focused on his study of dreams and comparative mythology. He developed the theory that dreams came from an area of the mind that he called the collective unconscious, which everyone shared. He combined this controversial theory with the concept of archetypes or instinctive patterns, which have a universal character and find expression in behavior and images. According to Jung, myths—like dreams—were rich in archetypes. Because of Jung’s radical views, Peterson regards him as an icon, one who actualizes the revolutionary hero archetype.

Many consider Jung’s study of the Hermetic tradition important. He postulated that Christianity (especially the archetype of the fall and redemption of humans) was part of a historical process necessary for the development of consciousness. For Jung, the heretical movements deviating from Christianity, such as Gnosticism and alchemy, were manifestations of unconscious archetypal elements that did not find adequate expression in the religion’s mainstream forms. In Maps of Meaning, Peterson explores Jung’s study on alchemy in considerable detail.

Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher and writer Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is best known for his theories on truth, morality, religion, power, language, and the meaning of existence. Considered one of the most important Western philosophers of the modern era, Nietzsche predicted “the death of God,” foreshadowing the dissolution of traditional religious systems. Interpretations of Nietzsche’s works vary widely: Some critics think that he espoused nihilism; others, like Peterson, think that Nietzsche critiqued religion to spur a restructured belief system and metaphysics. What most interpreters agree on is that Nietzsche propounded the philosophy of seeking one’s inner, individualistic goal—even if it meant struggling with inherited philosophical and epistemological systems. Peterson is influenced by Nietzsche’s idea of the exemplary human, or ubermensch, who pursues a vision of perfection despite opposition.

Like Jung, Nietzsche was born into a family of clerics. Educated at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig, he specialized in the discipline of Philology, which involves studying the structure of languages. He is the author of several books, most famously The Birth of Tragedy (1872) and Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883).

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

A.I. Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was a Russian novelist and historian who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. Trained in Mathematics and Literature at university, Solzhenitsyn fought in the Russian army in World War II. However, in 1945 authorities arrested him for writing a letter in which he criticized Joseph Stalin, and Solzhenitsyn spent eight years in prisons and labor camps and three more years in enforced exile. Allowed to reenter Russia in 1956, he began to write about his experiences in the Russian labor camp system.

Beginning with his hugely successful 1962 short novel, Odin den iz zhizni Ivana Denisovicha (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), Solzhenitsyn authored several books about his life in the Soviet camp systems, including his magnum opus The Gulag Archipelago (a three-part series beginning 1973). However, the Russian government often stopped the publication of his books, perhaps because of their popularity. In 1970, Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for Literature but declined to go to Stockholm to receive the award lest the Soviet Union refuse to readmit him upon his return. Peterson draws from Solzhenitsyn’s writings to critique the totalitarian aspect of communist regimes. In addition, he is influenced by Solzhenitsyn’s ideas that Russia might draw on the resources of its traditional Christian values to form an alternative to the Soviet regime.