this was one interesting psychology course I took...I only took the intro to Maps of Meaning, though, his second-year course

http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~peterson/mom.htm

but I read the book
and my disclaimer will say that there is a good chance that I have completely misunderstood Dr. Peterson, if you want to know what he really thinks, go to his website...

it seemed to me that his approach to religion had some important cornerstones

one; the feminine aspects of god are as important as the masculine

two; the "evil" aspects of existence are just as godly as the "good"...

I came up with my own chart...it's a bad use of the four elements, I know...

in the beginning
air and water
chaos


earth /sun
mother/ father
nature/ ancestors
body / mind
emotion /reason
unknown /known

fire
child
sexuality
trickster
life
christ/devil..."twins"

of course not all sexuality is procreative- (that would get kind of ridiculous, don't you think?)
to take this literally would be fairly sexist and heterosexist indeed


BUT it may have some mythological significance


nature and ancestry give birth to procreation

the physical and the psychological give birth to the sexual

a mind connected to a body is life


Peterson talks about the importance of the "father" as a guiding figure but also the importance of his not becoming over-rigid and forbidding the influence of the "mother" as a regenerative figure

(if the "father/mother" element is bothersome feel more than free to substitute non-gendered terms, I just can't think of any right now)

in a sense, it is important that old kings die and make way for new kings
and that the mother continue to bear new kings

Peterson also talks about how Christ and the Devil are necessarily intimately connected- they are not really antagonists, they are more like brothers...however the first is willing to admit his weaknesses and learn from them while the other is not, and hence becomes not just flawed but intentionally evil

it seems to me that Christ/Devil is one manifestation of the Trickster, like Anansi or Coyote...

and Peterson's main claim seems to be that this is how monotheism was intended to be practised

wow

what happened?

Somewhere it seems that the feminine aspects of god were at the very least disregarded...Mary plays a role in the New Testament but it is limited, and the Old Testament is not necessarily better in this regard

and sometimes they were even outright persecuted, look at the way witchcraft was treated after patriarchial monotheism took hold in Europe

Also, the Devil was banished from heaven, of course...and not only did HE ignore his weaknesses but large masses of people were instructed to ignore HIM...


Interestingly...one of the pagan gods was/is often represented as having horns...


According to Peterson, people who ignore the evil aspects of human experience are chosing to be themselves evil

or perhaps there were but few evil people controlling the society by taking from them the means with which to control themselves...this gets a little Foucault's Power/Knowledge, I know...I have very few original thoughts

this is interesting to me after taking classes in post-colonial theory and also sexual diversity theory

why do heterosexual european men have such a history of doing horrible things to others?
(it may be good to note that the vast majority of people I have met in the above categories are actually wonderful people...)

...European "myth" did not stop having evil and unknown elements, just that these were transposed onto other people...women, the colonized- how convenient then that it was the feminine aspects of god being ignored...and these HUMANS were treated in the same way that European myth had come to dictate that these ELEMENTS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE should be treated

and sexuality, with its necessary influence of nature, became evil

whatever, I am still trying to figure out what art has to do with all of this

it may be that art stands in the midpoint between emotion and reason- sort of like sexuality
and is a way to regenerate the known with the unknown, essentially, making it a little bit evil, like sexuality...

I am trying to write an essay about art, and why it is often either trivialized or viewed with suspicion

At the end of madness and civilization Foucault comes to a few interesting conclusions, on eof them seems to me to be that the difference between a mad person and an artist is simply whether or not he or she produces art

so, the artist channels madness into something we all can use...this is both a very important and very dangerous position to be in, especially when a society does not view this regenerative process in a particularly positive light...

aaaahhh it's not pacific time over here and for me in these past couple months this hour has become known as late at night....