story Maps of Meaning

[Alcove Audio]

As one more way to fill the hours of lockdown I have been watching Jordon Petersons 2017 "Maps of Meaning" lecture series based upon his book of the same name. Very interesting stuff, at least to me. He delves into arch types and the basis of stories throughout history (story and meta-story). He goes through it all from numerous perspectives - evolutionary, biologically, anthropologically, sociologically and, of course, psychologically, as he is a clinical psychologist with a doctorate. He delves into mythological stories, the Bible (I plan to watching his Bible series next), films/theatre, propaganda (most especially the Soviet Union and the Third Reich) and art, as well as many other topics. Each lecture is between 2 and 2.5 hours long, but it takes me a lot longer as I am having to expand my knowledge of the concepts he presents, as well as sourcing many of the things he says. He most definitely diverges into many other associated topics - he'll sometimes sidetrack for half of an hour to provide additional information pertaining to the immediate sub-topic at hand - so his dissection of the Disney film "Pinocchio" takes up two of his 2+ hour lectures. (He points out much of the mythological/religious iconography in both the visuals and the story. The opening shot looks very much like a Christian Nativity scene, and Pinocchio & his father being swallowed by Monstro the Whale is a derivation of the story of Jonah in the Old Testament, for example.)

Just as an extremely simplified example of how he ties evolution, biology, anthropology, etc. together...

As pre-human primates we were prey as well as predators. The predators were birds, which come from above, four legged ground predators with teeth and claws, and snakes which hide in the grass and suddenly strike from below. So the concept of the dragon, which appears in many disassociated early civilizations, comes from our most basic instincts as prey animals. A dragon is a toothed flying snake with four legs/claws, a combination of all of our most primordial fears. He ties dragon stories (the heroes quest?) to the defeat of fear (growing from a child into a self-aware adult) and the quest for knowledge (represented as the dragons gold). As I said, extremely simplified, it is much, much deeper than that. Just for fun, in one of his diversions points out that there were/are specific primate calls to notify the primate family/troop as to which type of predator was approaching. When a human swears it comes from that same neurological space in the brain as our primate ancestors used as predator alarms.

He points out that many of the greatest stories from all cultures throughout human history derive from these basic primordial and sociological places. Horror films are based upon our instinctual prey animal fear of being eaten, for instance, and that participating in a group scare, so to say, is a way of overcoming those fears. Again, far more complex than that, but you get the gist.

Anyway, as someone who is thinking of writing I was wondering if any of the screenwriters here actually think like that, or if it is just instinctual with you, or......…

Here is a short section of one of the lectures that references "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." It's what convinced me to watch the series.

 

[sfoster]

You yourself may not perceive a dragon to be scary, but if they really did exist, as big and ferocious as a T-Rex that could fly and breath fire, and you actually had to face one all by yourself with a long pointed stick and an oversized knife I think that you might be a little scared.

You could make a Barbie doll fly and breathe fire and I would be scared to face it. Does that mean that barbie dolls are a conglomeration of our most primal fears? Of course not. it means im scared to get burned alive. and im pretty frail too tbh.

when I look at scary stories it’s like.. the monster destroys its creator. Or it’s still alive and you can hear it lurking at night. A scary story isnt “and then I went off to the mountains and I hunted it down and I got a ton of gold! more than i can spend in a lifetime. and now women think im sexy AF too. My life is better than i ever could have imagined!!” nothing about that story is scary to anybody man. it makes you want to BE the hero, it makes you jealous of him and his glory. That’s not scary. Dragon stories are not scary.

More modern example that film candy man scary as hell. I don’t want to be any of those characters!! Keep me the hell away from that place. THATS scary

 

[sfoster]

Well personally I think I hit that jungle snake story out of the god damn ball park and I feel like it didn’t resonate with you at all so we are just on totally opposite pages here

Also everything comes from somewhere. To say that the stories we create are influenced by our genetics and the world... really makes me wonder - is there any other alternative? did you have the impression that humans are totally random creatures before this lecture? Or that stories came from divine inspiration or something? I dont understand what possibility exists other than our DNA and environment as a basis for stories.

 

[Feutus Lapdance]

Well personally I think I hit that jungle snake story out of the god damn ball park and I feel like it didn’t resonate with you at all so we are just on totally opposite pages here

Also everything comes from somewhere. To say that the stories we create are influenced by our genetics and the world... really makes me wonder - is there any other alternative? did you have the impression that humans are totally random creatures before this lecture? Or that stories came from divine inspiration or something? I dont understand what possibility exists other than our DNA and environment as a basis for stories.

Natural selection and the work of Carl Gustav Jung ..... His biggest opponent to his maps of meaning is Sam Harris. He believes, (like you do) That there is infinite way to interpreted symbols and story's .

 

[Alcove Audio]

sfoster -

If you really want to argue the assertions why don't you watch the lectures and then argue with Dr. Peterson himself? Write your own book debunking his research and conclusions.

As I have mentioned previously, the point of the lectures is to examine the roots of meta-story in biology, anthropology, sociology, etc. Over the course of 18+ hours I have found that he makes some very good points that make some sense to me. If you don't find them pertinent that's entirely your choice.

 

[sfoster]

sfoster -

If you really want to argue the assertions why don't you watch the lectures and then argue with Dr. Peterson himself? Write your own book debunking his research and conclusions.

As I have mentioned previously, the point of the lectures is to examine the roots of meta-story in biology, anthropology, sociology, etc. Over the course of 18+ hours I have found that he makes some very good points that make some sense to me. If you don't find them pertinent that's entirely your choice.

I understand that nobody actually gives a shit about what i have to say.
so writing a book is the last thing i would do. and yeah he has classrooms full of people listening to him

I get it. who am i to question people like him or slyvia browne when they have a whole crowd listening ?

 

[Feutus Lapdance]

If I would not cared, I would not have replied. I want to understand your perspective. Its not a Uncommon criticism. There are many people disliking Jordan. Most because of his political views, religious viewpoints, environmental reasons and the MGTOW movement hates him because he describes them as Pathetic Weasels. Most of the people that I know personally just consider him to be a arrogant man. That might be true....

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

I've only watched Part 1 so far but here are MY takeaways as far as STORY is concerned...

Most of us tell boring stories... There are too many details and we get bored easily... Especially today. Having said that, as soon as we add a TWIST to our story? Some kind of problem that we need to solve? We're interested to know if and how he or she solved the problem. We can live vicariously through that free lesson of problem solving.

Through subconscious trial and error of telling stories, we learned that the story is more exciting WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS. The more SOMETHING HAPPENS, the more our listeners can IDENTIFY and live vicariously through the telling of said story. Story has now evolved to where the storytellers only tell the most interesting and exciting parts of the story... Of their experience.

So in a way... You might think fiction isn't true yet in a different perspective, fiction can be MORE TRUE than reality. It's HYPER-REALITY or hyper true and also meta true. You're listening to something that can be SOMEHOW universally applied to a lot of people's lives.

We all inhabit our stories. Stories... As in life itself is where we're doing something and of course what we're doing is trying to achieve something BETTER than we previously had or have. In other words, we are constantly in a state of INSUFFICIENCY but TRYING like hell (each in our own way) to IMPROVE our constant state of insufficiency. Life and its meaning is directly proportionate to the amount of responsibility and obligation one chooses to take on. Most human beings require some kind of load when it comes to obligation and responsibility and since LIFE = SUFFERING, we are always searching for ways to LESSEN our suffering and in certain ways, obligations and responsibilities help to achieve that end.

Don't get me wrong... I don't think (at least in Part 1) that he was talking about STORY as much as he was talking about LIFE and how we live it but even so? I think there are some things about the human condition to be learned from here.

 

[Alcove Audio]

I understand that nobody actually gives a shit about what i have to say. so writing a book is the last thing i would do. and yeah he has classrooms full of people listening to him

I get it. who am i to question people like him or slyvia browne when they have a whole crowd listening ?

You can question anything that you want. Who are you to question? Well, damn it, you are sovereign individual with a brain that allows you to perceive the world, that's who you are. You have every right, in fact the responsibility and obligation, to question anything and everything. If you want to people to care about your opinions you must articulate them well in a way that people can understand and to which they can relate. Isn't that our job as filmmakers? Dr. Peterson makes a point that great artists, no matter the format - be it painting, theater/film, sculpture, dance, music, etc. - are all storytellers who tell stories to which their target audience can relate, and that they are always at the forefront of cultural trends.

You seem to feel that I am an advocate for Dr. Peterson. Yes, I find many of the things he has to say quite interesting. That does not mean that I advocate everything he says. That's why I pause the lectures and then spend time researching what he has said, because I don't understand, or I need clarification, or I need verification. I don't agree with some of his positions, agree with others and have suspended judgement on the rest. That's why I said if you want to argue his points you should argue with him, because I am not his advocate, although you want to debate with me as if I were.

I am about to embark on the last lecture of this particular series. What I have gleaned so far about his viewpoint is this...

As human beings we are the products of the evolutionary process. Therefor we are subject to the most basic of biological impulses - survival, which means propagation of the species.

As the only self aware species on the planet survival lessons needed to be passed on. These lessons were passed on in the form of narrative stories.
For tens of thousands of years oral history was the only form of education that could be applied to the communal group. And that these very early stories, whether they come from the Middle East, Asia or the Americas - all of which were totally disconnected from each other - were/are the same stories; the creation of the world, etc., and share similar motifs.

In addition, these disparate cultures use very similar metaphors, such as the dragon. That these seemingly universal metaphors spring from our genetic coding as prey animals. That these stories are/were, in their essence, an attempt to understand and explain the meaning of life. That these stories are examples of our attempts to make order out of chaos (the meaning of life) and how these attempts went well or created horrors and the lessons to be learned.

It is quite obvious that Dr. Peterson has a biased viewpoint; completely understandable as he has a doctorate in psychology, teaches psychology and is a practicing clinical psychologist.

So, once again, just because I am listening to what he has to say does not mean that I agree with what he has to say.

My initial question was "do these concepts influence the writers on this forum?" You descended into the minutia and personalizing it instead of looking at the overall picture or even answering the question. That is why I left off of the argument.

I neither defend nor disparage Dr. Peterson. I find his viewpoints interesting. I find the way that he develops his positions informative. I am experiencing his lectures as a way of expanding my own personal viewpoint so I can reach my own conclusions. His lectures are a way of adding information to my personal data pool. That's all.

 

[sfoster]

I watched the video for fifteen minutes but didn’t enjoy it. Nothing to influence my writing. And I didn’t agree with everything he said either.

However, you did answer my question; you don't think in that way. That's what I wanted to know.

My initial question was "do these concepts influence the writers on this forum?" You descended into the minutia and personalizing it instead of looking at the overall picture or even answering the question. That is why I left off of the argument.

Umm okay if you say so but that timeline doesnt add up.

I'll just leave your thread alone.
I didnt realize you were so adverse to exploring the actual meanings behind these stories and that you would have such a negative reaction to me contradicting him or trying to debate the subject. This will be my last post in your thread. Not here to hijack the conversation.

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

I'll just leave your thread alone.

Dude... That's not what he's saying at all. It's somewhat obvious from the thread that what he was doing was, after having listened to Dr. Peterson, was simply asking if watching/listening to the lecture influenced anyone else on the forum. For me personally? I like Peterson. I have yet to hear anything he's talked about that has repulsed me or made me turn him off so when I read the original post? I was extremely curious to hear what Dr. Peterson says about the subject? Why? Because I sure as HELL don't know everything there is to know about storytelling. Snakes don't scare me. Sharks don't scare me. People don't scare me. That could be because I'm a retired Combat Search and Rescue Operator but I am a storyteller and I ALWAYS want to learn more about the HUMAN CONDITION. And? Even if I end up NOT learning anything here? Dr. Peterson is one of the EXTREMELY FEW people in this world where, after having listened to him? I won't feel like I've completely WASTED my time like I end up feeling most of the time when I watch and or listen to someone.

I personally believe @Alcove Audio would enjoy to hear your differing opinion on just about anything but let's be honest here... You've done the same thing with me in other posts... You get personal. Which is fine. I can take personal. LOL. But some people just want to explore the information they made their post about. They don't want to feel as if they are being attacked. They've simply thrown some information UP for discussion.

No offense but often? Your replies FEEL like you're attacking instead of offering something up for friendly discussion. Often? Your replies come off as black or white -- one way or the other. Your way or the highway so to speak.

Which is fine. That's who you are. Unfortunately, I think some tend to think it takes away from the overall discussion that was posed here in the first place.

I don't think anyone wants to come to IndieTalk to defend themselves or even FEEL like they have to.

Make sense?

Having said all that? I'm not even saying that being personal or attacking anyone is your intention. It took me a few posts after I came back here to understand that. Plus? I'm never gonna sweat somebody I don't even know. So please don't take offense at what I've written here. It's not meant as such. Just giving you my two cents.

I personally LIKE hearing your differing opinions... Why? Because I personally like to hear all sides of any equation. Even sides I might not agree with because it'll either solidify my position MORE or get me to try to understand something about the equation I wasn't taking into consideration in the first place.

Last but not least? Not trying to offend anyone here. Not trying to stick up for anyone here either. I'm sure we're all capable of doing that ourselves. I just felt your reaction to @Alcove Audio's reply to you was misunderstood a bit.

 

[StoneJack]

pretty interesting discussion.
Origins of fear as roots for storytelling is an interesting subject. Fear, I guess, is very subjective thing, so it is given that people disagree. I liked Peterson's analysis of Harry Potter's story as an exploration of fear, which is programmed by human genetics and history. The premise is somewhat familiar - we all fear darkness, unknown threats, predators lurking in the night- but the predators themselves may have different forms and different abilities to harm us - that led to disagreement between dragons and fire-breathing barbies- but, yes, the presentation was very slick and the twists in the presentation also interesting. I think that there is much one can derive from Peterson's ideas for storytelling (I like that kind of integrated storytelling - for me one of best is Jared Diamond's "Collapse" or "Guns, Steel and Germs" - which integrated history, geography and economics, but I digress). So, back to storytelling - i think there are few valuable points from the story telling point of view, in particular the genetic programming in us and how it can be explored.

 

[Feutus Lapdance]

I should make time to read "Guns, Steel and Germs". Its been on my list of books I have to read for so long.

 

[Alcove Audio]

.....predators themselves may have different forms and different abilities to harm us - that led to disagreement between dragons and fire-breathing barbies...

One of the many points of the lecture series was not if dragons in and of themselves were scary, but that dragons were an amalgam of the predators that would eat us (our ancestors) - birds come from the sky, clawed/fanged predators lurk on the ground, and snakes/reptiles come up from below. So combining the three into a dragon makes for the ultimate predator. The concept of the dragon as a symbol that combined all three predatory aspects into one beast represented the ultimate fear. Dr. Petersons point was that completely separated, disparate cultures independently came up with the same symbol. In coming up with the same symbol, accounting for cultural variants, it showed that even early humans (and us) all had the same basic genetic fears encoded in their DNA, and that these instinctual fears manifested in near identical symbologies despite the vast physical and cultural distances, indicating, at least to Dr. Peterson, that the basic psychological thought processes are the same for all homo sapiens. This is what is behind his concept of meta-story, or the pyscho-genetic causalities of storytelling. To further the metaphors, the dragons gold is, in actuality, knowledge, so dragon stories themselves are metaphors about overcoming our fears to obtain the "wealth" of knowledge.

I'm putting all of Dr. Petersons perspectives in my data bin for further cogitation.

As an aside, I have Sam Harris and Camille Paglia on my "to watch" lectures list. Man! There are so many things to cover. Physics, biology and the incredible number of subsets.......... The learning never ends, especially my continuous education in sound/audio.

 

[CamBlamo]

You might really enjoy "Sapiens" book 1 and 2. They go into a lot of what Jordan Peterson finds fascinating, and its not as charged because it deals more with teaching history than politics or man vs. woman, alpha vs. beta mentality.

 

[Alcove Audio]

You might really enjoy "Sapiens" book 1 and 2.

I'll put it on my list. It's probably going to be a while. Since I've been under lockdown I've been reading more and watching more, so the book list has gotten rather lengthy.

 

[Feutus Lapdance]

Loving Wim Hof and Hating Jordan Peterson.would make this an interesting watch

 

[Constantin]

Wim Hof ... Never heard of him but had a listen to the video. His views are interesting and breathing exercises are well understood to beneficially affect health. Another way to combat inflammation and illness (brought up by Mikhaila, she's such a smart and well-informed gal) is fasting...Specifically WATER fasting with no food for days ... the beneficial effects of doing this are nothing short of miraculous, but some care should be taken when breaking the fast due to the insulin shock that may occur when you reintroduce food into the system. The more you do it, however, the better you get at it also.

As for Jordan Peterson, he is a great thinker and has helped numerous people but I was always critical of his defense of using drugs to combat depression (I hope he finally is starting to change his views on that -- about time if he has).

It did not surprise me he had terrible side effects with the anti depressants he was taking. The medical mafia is doing everything to suppress our natural body's ability to cure itself and so they poison us with cholesterol medication, blood pressure medication, aspirins. And don't get me started with the vaccination propaganda that we are being inundated with from this so-called pandemic.

I suspect 2021 will be a disaster once the full rollout of vaccinations is carried out and the side effects will be revealed. I suspect they will blame a new strain or something else but will never tell us the truth.

The way this COVID pandemic has been handled is criminal and completely unnecessary for a great deal of people with an adequate immune system. For the most vulnerable, however, the use of ivermectin as a cure has been completely ignored by health care professionals. Just criminal...

I am so impressed with Mikhaila, she's such an intelligent, no nonsense person who took it upon herself to figure out how to fix her own health problems once she bypassed the medical "experts" to cure her various auto immune issues with food. Let food be thy medicine!

I wonder what her thoughts are on the vaccinations that are being forced out from labs to the masses of sheep in such an insane pace. As the Chinese curse states "May you live in interesting times"

 

[Constantin]

I suspect 2021 will be a disaster once the full rollout of vaccinations is carried out and the side effects will be revealed. I suspect they will blame a new strain or something else but will never tell us the truth.

A new documentary will be released this month detailing the absolutely horrific truth of what I was eluding to two years ago. The vaccine rollouts over the last eighteen months have resulted in death and injury to many unsuspecting victims of the jab. One of the strangest phenomenon is the formation of a fibrous clotting substance found within the arterial walls of many vaccinated people. The discovery was first reported by embalmers and morticians from all around the world who are having difficulty embalming the deceased; they cannot inject embalming fluid past these calamari-like strands so they have to pull them out by hand.

The documentary, not yet released, is called Died Suddenly and if you have not heard about it yet, you will.

As I mentioned years ago, this strange phenomenon will be linked to an as yet defined new virus -- but do not be fooled -- it was the result of the 2021 and 2022 mandated vaccine rollouts. The solution by these eugenicists will be to usher in yet another new vaccine but I suspect governments and the medical establishment will be met by outrage and massive civil unrest instead as the people will demand modern Nuremburg trials for answers.

Those who have planned this from the beginning anticipate the civil unrest but have contingencies in place to incarcerate the "anti-vaxxers" and have them "catch" something while being held captive.

 

[ExpatTraveler2]

What a fascinating thread!

Jordan Peterson: I've watched 4 or 5 Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube. Way too often, he would start a sentence then go off on tangents, sometimes tangents of tangents, and never complete the thought in the first sentence fragment. One video seemed to be nothing but tangents. Surely his books are much clearer, so while I might someday read something he wrote, I'm done watching his videos. Yes, he diverges, he sidetracks, and that, IMO, is not a good teaching method, IMO.

Archetypes: Yes, I think it's good for writers to understand archetypes. I've read and I recommend The Hero's Journey by that “Follow your bliss” guy, Joseph Campbell. Also saw his PBS discussion with Bill Moyers on the same topic (probably available on YouTube). Fascinating! It focuses primarily on the Hero archetype and also covers the classic story structure (beat sheet) for this archetype. Jordan Peterson isn't the only source, and perhaps isn't the best source for that info.

Dragons: All that said, I find your dragon example interesting! I had assumed that dragons were mythological remnants, left over from when alligator and crocodile-type critters might have long ago plagued southeast Asia. (Damn my vivid whacky imagination! ) “He [Jordan Peterson] ties dragon stories (the heroes quest?) to the defeat of fear (growing from a child into a self-aware adult) and the quest for knowledge (represented as the dragons gold).” Claiming that dragon gold represents the quest for knowledge -- to me, that seems just wrong. I think of dragon's gold as plunder acquired through theft and violence.

So overall, I feel that there are other sources of information and wisdom that are clearer than Jordan Peterson. His lecture style is just too scattered for me.

Oh, and I want to comment on the first comment made by @mlesemann. She wrote, “I usually get a tiny kernel of a story idea, and build from there.” Yes! I think that's a great approach to writing fiction. Back when I was studying the craft of novel writing, I learned that it's good to have three story ideas before starting to write a novel. For example, (1) protagonist is a ski instructor. (2) Bank robbers pull a heist then hide out in the ski resort. (3) protagonist's girlfriend is a corrupt cop who went crooked to pay for her mother's medical needs.