[1] Jordon Peterson 12 Rules for Life An Antidote to Chaos, Also “A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.”
Recap
In part 1 of Dangerous Dealing with the Anti-Fragile, “Who Says Violence Doesn’t Solve Anything?” I considered how this sentiment fails to reckon with the unchecked human heart, prone to violence as it is, unfit for civilized society, ready to kill, steal, and destroy.
One does not find peace by wanting peace. Peace must be fought for, and only those who understand little of human nature imagine that this is a contradiction. Peace must be taught. Peace comes through righteous violence against those who would destroy peace and breach other people’s natural rights. It is the fundamental duty of government to violently defend natural rights and viciously punish those who violate them. Kindness to criminals is cruelty to the community. Only the willingness to punish, kill, and risk being killed to defend your people’s natural rights (encapsulated in the biblically considered phrase, “life, liberty & property”) can preserve the environment in which a free people can maximize their potential as Imago Dei.
Recap Therefore
Just so, in sustaining our societies we should cultivate citizens who understand this. We should raise boys performing their duties as builders, protectors, and providers and ready to fight, kill, and die if necessary for this call. We want warriors tending gardens, not gardeners defending against wars and against the criminally minded. We want women dedicated to nurturing these qualities in their homes, in their girls and their boys, supporting their men in the fight for peace and civility.
Suck It Up Buttercup
Many think about societal violence timidly, like scared delicate little flowers who can’t stomach anything aggressive… except their own aggression against aggressiveness usually. They act as if the goal were to create a passive society where men are like sheep nuzzling in a field, robbed of even the capacity of aggression; these create a dangerous world. Not only because this ignores basic human nature, and imagines that we can safely make anything we like out of people if we only apply the right pressures, but also because, as noted in part 1, other peoples in the world raise their offspring to hatred, violence, and a passion for the domination of others.
Stupid Imaginings About Our Precious Little Babies
I remember and old Christian song for kids that went, “So why not let the children run the world instead, a child would never make an Atom Bomb and drop it on your head, so if we love each other maybe then the world would understand that love is the road to the garden of Eden once again.”
This is of course quite silly. Maybe the song’s author never spent time in the same types of school yard recesses that I did, but more likely than not they just blame what they see on false causes… causes they assume because they have, at their core, an unbiblical worldview.
The Truth About Our Little Darlings
Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. Unrestrained children are brutal mono-culturalists and the only thing that would prevent them from making and dropping an atom bomb is that they would be too stupid to pull it off. If they could pull it off, they would, in point of fact, be far MORE likely to do it than the adults around them with fully developed frontal lobes.
Give Blame to Whom Blame is Due
Even so, it is this kind of sentimental garbage and the broken worldview that stands behind it that creates a truly dangerous world. By blaming environment more than human hearts, those under the thrall of humanist delusions have aggressively focused on cleansing society from a certain type of supposed aggression-causing stimuli… negative feelings of competition, awareness of danger, disappointment, expectations around behavior, roles, morals, accomplishment, fitting in, etc.
Dangerous Protections
By creating this unrealistic bubble around our kids, protecting them from the “harsh” realities of being human, we have actually robbed them of the necessary stresses that prompt them to become what they need to be in order to survive and thrive in the real world. Yeah, I know, many think they make their dream world a reality by raising kids to dream that sugar plum world, but it just isn’t so. All we do is render them incapable of navigating the necessities of life in community.
What it Means to Be Anti-Fragile
Human beings are what some behavioral therapists have labeled, “anti-fragile.” Fragile things break with rough handling… like china plates and buttercups. Non-fragile things are neither hurt nor helped by rough handling… like ball bearings and the egos of narcissists. Anti-fragile things, however, need a certain measure of rough handling to survive and thrive… like cactuses and muscles. Many of the “negative” things that we want to eradicate from our society are actually necessary components of shaping the best kinds of people and beautiful societies.
It’s a Brutal World, Get Used to It
The world without people (i.e. nature) is ruthless. Lions and tigers and bears and mosquitoes roam about. Tornados and earthquakes and forest fires from lightning happen with or without us. The sun scorches, winter freezes, rains come, dry spells too. The food of the wild becomes abundant and scarce based on forces that often have nothing to do with us. What food there is must be hunted and fought for so that only the wise, the strong, the fast, or the lucky survive.
Anti-Fragile Darlings in a Brutal World
The world with people merely adds anti-fragile humans into the mix. The smartest of God’s creatures, but not always the wisest, we are our best when constrained, disciplined, and educated to reality. Competition and scarcity refines us or weeds us out. The cream rises and the skim settles to the bottom. It is not just the physically strong and fast who rise, but those who master life in community the best, those who learn quickest about what does and doesn’t lead to thriving community.
Our short-sighted self-interest needs curbing but without the delusion that we can remake ourselves by removing necessary survival instincts in a world of scarcity and competition. Muscles need exercising. Brains need challenges. People need purpose and mission; they need obstacles to navigate and challenges to overcome.
An old philosophy saying goes, “You can’t drive nature out the door without it flying in your windows.”
Thriving as an Anti-Fragile Being
Just so, people can’t thrive if they can’t handle difficult realities, like disease and death and being disliked or even despised. Our children must be able to deal effectively with being under threat and needing to rise to the challenges of staying alive in a brutal world, rather than feeding on the useless daydreams of wishing for a world without such things.
So, free is bad for us. Easy makes us weak. A stress-free life devoid of expectations and demands makes us soul sick and dangerously frivolous. The lazy desire to hide from harsh realities makes us vulnerable to the lies of those who promise “free and easy” in order to draw us down the ramp to oppression and slaughter where beautiful worlds and human hopes go to die.
Our children need to learn the hard things of life in a controlled environment to prepare them for the hardships of an uncontrolled environment. They need to be made to pay a price for error and disobedience and wrong-doing. They need the stress of duty and responsibility, unremunerated chores and the demand to learn and adapt.
Small Things Anchor Big Things
Small things anchor big things. So, manners and civility and curbing one’s tongue, and both learning and conforming to the rules of engagement in different settings are important. Even in grammar, one must learn the rules if one hopes to “break the rules” productively.
This does not just include the “negatives” of long-suffering discipline in the face of hard things, but also remembers the positives of remaining calm, self-restrained, and respectful in public exchanges in general… acting with a mindfulness of the wants and needs of those around them.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
This includes learning respect for law and authority, respect for other people’s person and property and time and energy, and respect for the aged and the vulnerable. They need to learn service, and self-sacrifice, and generosity. They need to learn to engage others intentionally and pepper that engagement with “Please” and “Thank You,” “You’re welcome,” and “Would you mind if,” and “excuse me,” and “My Apologies.” And let us not forget, “Mr.” and “Mrs.” and “Yes, Sir,” and “No, Ma’am.”
Life’s Not Fair, Get Used to It
They need to value fair competition, but understand that outcomes are never equal, and life isn’t fair. They need to value winning, but value fair play more, and be both a gracious winner and a gracious loser. So, nix the participation trophies will Ya?
One Law to Rule Them All
They need to value mercy and grace, but to champion a type of universalism in law and order, holding everyone accountable to it. They need to despise dishonesty and corruption and wholly support systems of brutal justice against those who violate other people’s natural rights. Six times Scripture tells us not to allow pity to hold our hand from justice… because kindness to the criminal is cruelty to the community.
Chesterton’s Fence
Children need to learn the restraining patience of “Chesterton’s fence.” They need to be slow to “change the world,” when they can barely change their own socks. They need to learn the deeper whys and hows of the way things are. Never remove a fence until you can fully articulate why someone once put it up and have tried earnestly to discern what the unintended consequences of taking it down might be.
Getting all this wrong with anti-fragile beings will cause untold devastation in society.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
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