Am 13.12.2018 entdeckt Alard von Kittlitz in der ZEIT, dass man ganz wunderbar und ungeniert über andere Menschen und deren Ansichten urteilen kann, wenn man sich nur auf Sekundärquellen stützt. Objekt der Entdeckung ist Jordan Peterson, zu dem Herr von Kittlitz einiges aus "einem sehr langen Artikel des Spiegels entnehmen konnte", der "offenbar in seinem erfolgreichsten Buch" für etwas "plädiert" (Herr von Kittlitz "hofft, dass er das richtig wiedergibt") und der dafür auf eine gewisse Weise "zu argumentieren scheint". Es ist für Herr von Kittlitz sogar möglich, anhand der vorliegenden Information festzustellen, was "Leute wie Peterson behaupten". Aufhänger ist das Beispiel des Hummers, der in Dominanzhierarchien lebt, und was das mit uns Menschen zu tun haben könnte.
Die Kolumne endet wie folgt: "Lasst uns doch in Zukunft, wenn es um erwachsene Themen wie Geschlechterverhältnis, Gerechtigkeit, Humanität geht, bitte nicht mehr, am liebsten wirklich nie wieder, irgendwas hören über lobster oder Wölfe oder Bienen und wie die das so machen in ihrer animalischen Natürlichkeit, und stattdessen weiter ernsthaft darüber nachdenken, wie wir insgesamt kultiviertere Wesen werden können."
Und nun zitiere ich Jordan Peterson (Ende des ersten Kapitels der "12 Rules for Life", "Stand up straight with your shoulders back" - ich rate von der deutschen Übersetzung ab, die nach Frühstücken eines kleinen Kaspers entstand; man lese beispielsweise Bernhard Lassahns Rezension. Der unten zitierte Abschnitt wurde allerdings durchaus vernünftig übersetzt.):
To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).
To stand up straight with your shoulders back means building the ark that protects the world from the flood, guiding your people through the desert after they have escaped tyranny, making your way away from comfortable home and country, and speaking the prophetic word to those who ignore the widows and children. It means shouldering the cross that marks the X, the place where you and Being intersect so terribly. It means casting dead, rigid and too tyrannical order back into the chaos in which it was generated; it means withstanding the ensuing uncertainty, and establishing, in consequence, a better, more meaningful and more productive order.
So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.
People, including yourself, will start to assume that you are competent and able (or at least they will not immediately conclude the reverse). Emboldened by the positive responses you are now receiving, you will begin to be less anxious. You will then find it easier to pay attention to the subtle social clues that people exchange when they are communicating. Your conversations will flow better, with fewer awkward pauses. This will make you more likely to meet people, interact with them, and impress them. Doing so will not only genuinely increase the probability that good things will happen to you—it will also make those good things feel better when they do happen.
Thus strengthened and emboldened, you may choose to embrace Being, and work for its furtherance and improvement. Thus strengthened, you may be able to stand, even during the illness of a loved one, even during the death of a parent, and allow others to find strength alongside you when they would otherwise be overwhelmed with despair. Thus emboldened, you will embark on the voyage of your life, let your light shine, so to speak, on the heavenly hill, and pursue your rightful destiny. Then the meaning of your life may be sufficient to keep the corrupting influence of mortal despair at bay.
Then you may be able to accept the terrible burden of the World, and find joy.
Look for your inspiration to the victorious lobster, with its 350 million years of practical wisdom. Stand up straight, with your shoulders back.
Wer denkt hier nun "ernsthaft darüber nach, wie wir insgesamt kultiviertere Wesen werden können"?