The Legacy of Faith: A Meditation on Jordan Peterson’s 4th Rule for Life:

Compare Yourself To Who You Were Yesterday, Not To Who Someone Else Is Today.

The two people alive today who I am most overcome with admiration for and whom I most want to emulate are Dr. Jordan Peterson, my intellectual “Internet Dad,” and Jo Rowling, my favorite (living) woman author and role model. As a writer myself, I feel how easy it is to fall into the trap of comparing where I am now on my journey to where those two are today. I find myself inspired to continue my journey when I see what those two I love and admire so much have accomplished.

But there seems to be, amidst the many fans (distinct from friends) of both Jo Rowling and Dr. Peterson, the idea that canceling the two of them will make room on the world stage for their own accomplishments. The embittered spirit of Cain, who slew his ideal brother, Abel, is embodied in cancel culture. Perhaps if each of us as individuals would practice the fourth rule for life, “compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today,” we could end cancel culture overnight.

The common refrain in cancel culture is that public figures such as Jo Rowling and Jordan Peterson, who are globally loved and admired, are “destroying their legacy” by taking the stands that they have each taken on certain controversial issues. The irony of it is that neither of them are the least bit concerned about what legacy they are or are not leaving behind; they are worried about doing what they believe to be right while they are still on this side of Paradise.

St. Paul describes those who participate in this comparison game: “Who, measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.” In another epistle, he tells us that cancel culture will come back to bite us: “If you bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

Cancel culture is utterly without grace, without mercy, without forgiveness. Consider Dr. Peterson’s solemn warning to Ethan Klein of the H3H3 podcast:

“Those who engage in cancel culture generally live to regret it. … You will be held to higher and higher and soon impossible to maintain ethical standards by the very mob you currently wish to please. Then you will make a mistake, and they will devour you. With glee. Please take this warning seriously.”

In Megan Phelps-Roper’s masterpiece documentary The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling, Jo asked a very simple question of those who would cancel her: “What if you’re wrong?”

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Cancel culture raises an important question, however: why should such flawed and imperfect people be worthy of the calling to be the “Intellectual Internet Dad” and “Witch Internet Mum”?

What prompted me to open my heart to Dr. Peterson more than anything he has said or written is precisely how transparently flawed, imperfect, and utterly human he is. He constantly course-corrects after engaging with good-faith criticisms, stating that he is truly trying to get it right. This is someone I, in all my failures and imperfections, can emulate.

What prompted me to open my heart to Jo Rowling was very similar. I did not read Harry Potter as a child; I was raised in a fundamentalist evangelical Christian sect with cult-like tendencies, and we were the original cancelers of Harry Potter. I came to Harry Potter as a well-educated adult steeped in mythology, Biblical lore, and classic literature, and discovered a kindred spirit in the author. With all the controversy surrounding her as far back as I could remember, I did not open my heart to her until I heard her out, in the aforementioned documentary. With Megan as a gentle and compassionate interlocutor, Jo turned herself inside out in the interviews. When I finished listening, I burst into tears and sobbed, out loud, “When I grow up, I want to be just like Jo.”

Anyone familiar with Dr. Peterson’s work has doubtless become familiar with his series of lectures on Genesis. In Genesis, and in Exodus, the flaws and foolishness and mistakes of the great patriarchs and matriarchs are drawn with an unsparing hand. And yet the New Testament book of Hebrews, the Old Testament worthies are remembered in Hebrews chapter 11, sometimes called the “Hall of Faith,” by their acts of faith. Their flaws, mistakes, and foolishness are long forgotten, and all that remains are the great acts of faith. The author of Hebrews doesn’t write about Noah’s drunken nakedness or Sarah’s laughter or Abraham’s cowardice. He writes only of their great acts of courage and faith. Dr. Peterson’s and Jo Rowling’s acts of courage and faith will be remembered long after the hit pieces, “concern porn” articles asking what has happened to them, and “mean tweets” have disintegrated into meaninglessness.

Consider Dr. Peterson’s heartfelt words to Piers Morgan: “We all make our mistakes as we stumble uphill.” Perhaps we can learn far more by stumbling uphill beside our role models and offering our hands so that we might help each other scramble up than we would be expecting them to be infallible examples. It is the very humanity and vulnerability of our role models that teach us that we, too, can be a force for good in the world; not in every fine detail, but a net good. This is the core lesson from the life of Harry Potter‘s archetypal wise teacher, Dumbledore.

St. Peter famously said to Our Lord, in reference to St. John, “Lord, what shall this man do?” Our Lord said simply, “What’s it to you? Follow me.” Perhaps we should stop worrying about Jo Rowling’s or Dr. Peterson’s legacies, which are between themselves and God and worry about our own.

As I tell my kids, “I don’t care what your brother is doing. You do what you know is right and let Mommy sort it out.” In other words, compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

Author’s Note: If you have enjoyed this essay, look for the continuation of my meditations on the Twelve Rules.