Should firefighters exercise or save people from fires?
I was rewatching an old Jordan Peterson clip recently.
An audience member during an appearance Peterson made on Australian tv asked this question:
“I want to know what is your answer to young people for some of the really big problems facing humanity like the climate catastrophe, like economic crisis, like the precarious job market. You talk all this much about individual responsibility. Most of us are never going to be able to afford to have all of these assets to have responsibility over. So what is your advice beyond banal comments like ‘clean your room’?”
Peterson wasn’t very impressed with the description of his stance on personal development as “banal,” but eventually, he presented this answer:
“Fundamentally, I’m a psychologist. My experience has been that people can do a tremendous amount of good for themselves and for the people that are immediately around them by looking to their own inadequacies and their own flaws and the things they’re not doing in their lives and starting to build themselves up as more powerful individuals. And if they’re capable of doing that, then they’re capable of expanding their career. And if they’re capable of expanding their career and competence, then they’re capable of taking a place in the community as effective leaders. And then they’re capable of making wise decisions instead of unwise decisions when it comes to making collective political decisions.”
I think a lot in metaphor, and the metaphor that came to my mind to illustrate Peterson’s point is the question: Should firefighters exercise or save people from fires?
The first point is, why would those be presented as either or? Firefighters do both.
Second, there is a direct correlation between exercise and saving people from fires. A firefighter who doesn’t exercise would be totally incapable of saving people from fires.
Peterson’s point, and it is well worth taking, is that a firefighter who spent all his time and energy searching desperately for people to save from fires will not do as good of a job as a firefighter who spends all his time and energy training to save people from fires until he is called.
There are huge problems in the world. And it is up to us to solve them. But the problems in the world aren’t going anywhere. And you’re not the best you can be yet. So get better. Get stronger. Get smarter. That way, down the line when a problem calls you by name, you will be in a position to do something useful.
