“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Dr. Peterson says life is tragedy and suffering*. Peterson answers Nietzsche’s why, by asserting meaning and purpose are found in bearing as much responsibility (Nietzsche’s how) as you can to reduce suffering in this world.
Question I: Why bring children into this vale of tears?
One way of radically reducing tragedy and suffering is to cease procreating human beings. So, Dr. Peterson, why bring children into this vale of tears? How do we justify bringing children into a world of woe?
“If it is true that I am to die utterly,” we say to ourselves, “then once I am annihilated the world has ended so far as I am concerned—it is finished. Why, then, should it not end forthwith, so that no new consciousnesses, doomed to suffer the tormenting illusion of a transient and apparential existence, may come into being? If the illusion of living being shattered, living for the mere sake of living or for the sake of others who are likewise doomed to die, does not satisfy the soul, what is the good of living?”
— Miguel de Unamuno. Tragic Sense of Life, p44.
“It is inhuman, for example, to sacrifice one generation of men for the generation that follows, without having any feeling for the destiny of those who are sacrificed …”
— Miguel de Unamuno. Tragic Sense of Life, p16
Question II: Is there an afterlife?
I’ve never heard Dr. Peterson even mention an afterlife. Jordan recommends living as though God exists, but his prolix dodge of Does God exist? suggests belief in neither.
*Life is suffering. Right, indisputable. What do you do about that? You voluntarily accept it. And then strive to overcome the suffering that is a consequence of that.
And you do that for you, and you do that in a way that makes it better for other people. And then that works.
And one question might be well how well does it work?
And the answer is you. The only way that you can find out is by trying it.
That’s it. That’s the existential element of it. The proof is to be derived by the incarnation of the attitude in your own life. No one can tell you how it will work for you.
It’s the thing that your destiny is to discover that.
And you have to make the decisions to begin with.
It’s like because you can’t do this without commitment.
You have to commit to it first. That’s the act of faith that Kierkegaard was so insistent upon.
You have to say I’m going to act as if being is good. I’m going act as if truth is the pathway to enlightenment.
I’m going to act as if I should pursue the deepest meaning possible in my life.
And there’s reasons to do none of those. They’re real reasons, so it’s really a decision, but you can’t find out what the consequence of the decision is, unless you make the decision. I think the same thing happens when you get married, by the way. If you think you might leave, you’re not married. And you think, well, the marriage did not succeed. It’s like, well, maybe you were never married, because the rule is, you don’t get to leave. And there’s a reason for that rule. — Jordan Peterson, youtube