Lobster’s Evolved
If you haven’t heard by now, Lobsters have become some philosophical, pop culture icon lately. There are viral memes about lobsters, “lobster evolved” facebook groups, lobster subreddits, it’s everywhere. Dr. Jordan Peterson has created somewhat of
Jordan Peterson is the controversial, yet brilliant, University of Toronto professor that has become a father figure to millions of people by only telling them to “clean their room”, while also pissing a lot of people off by refusing to used preferred pronouns when referring to someone who identifies as nonbinary (read not a him or her). He’s that uncle that so many have wished for that whips you into shape, but in broad circles of the left, he’s the alt-right.
But I’m not going to jump into the continually moving the goalposts around what is offensive to people because honestly, it’s a boring topic at this point. I want to write about lobsters…
Peterson introduced the lobster in chapter one of his global best seller “12 rules for life” titled Stand up straight with your shoulders back. The entire section is primarily about standing up tall and taking on life with as much nobility as you possibly can. To not languish through life feeling as though you are at the mercy of circumstances, but to take on the suffering of life that can be brutal at times.
He uses the Lobster to speak to why this is important. Believe it or not, and I didn’t know this before reading the book, we are related to lobsters. One of the critical points of this comparison is there serotonin that drives much of the lobster’s behavior both then and now, and how that same serotonin is an essential variable in human behavior today. Now naturally you can’t attribute causation from this comparison, but it’s relevant and real, and Peterson lays out why.
Putting it all on the line
When explaining why it’s important to stand up straight with your shoulders back, he describes how if you put two lobsters that are entirely unfamiliar with each other in a tank together that within 30 minutes that the two will have established a dominant and a subordinate and that their posturing at that point will match the hierarchy. The dominant lobster will stand up tall with his claws in the air, and the subordinate will often turn around and face the corner utterly dejected.
Now there are all kinds of scientific research into this type of behavior, and I’ll spare you the details, but it’s important to realize this type of scenario plays an important role and that it is an entirely natural process. The two house dogs that are laying in front of me have played this very situation out before with each other.
So where does your posture while walking down the hallway at work and serotonin come into the picture? What if I was to tell you that if you were to give the subordinate lobster antidepressants that caused its serotonin levels to increase, thus causing it to lift its claws up higher? To the point that it ended up being the dominant lobster in the tank?
Low levels of serotonin are associated with low levels of happiness, depression, and even shortened lifespans. Higher levels of serotonin don’t just make you a big, bad lobster either. A higher level of serotonin has been correlated with charismatic
Between all this the critical point is that the reason that you stand up straight with your shoulders back is that you are not just signaling to the world that you are ready to take on life and win, you’re signaling to yourself as well. There are ancient models in your brain that are calculating the signals that you are receiving from the world around you to help you attribute where you stand in that world.
Stand up Straight
Peterson’s central message in chapter one that we often infer low social status from our environment, perhaps through bullying, abuse, or parenting.
Peterson states that the reverse can and needs to be true. You need to signal higher status outwardly, not only to signal to others that you are confident that you will find dominant life but to indicate to yourself that you expect to dominate life. When you do that, crazy enough, people start to treat you like they know you will be successful in whatever you do.
Peterson’s first chapter is put almost too simply as Stand up straight with your shoulders back. This is such a deep topic disguised in an amazingly simple statement that it’s almost lost in lobster and evolution talk. I’ve had to read the chapter a couple of times to parse through everything and I’m still working through it now, but I think I’m starting to get it.
Towards the end of the chapter, Peterson drives home the importance of stepping up, speak your mind, put your desires forward, and dare to be dangerous. This is the beginning of a habit developing self-respect, accepting the demands of life, occupying your territory, and standing up when things get hard in life like they undoubtedly will do.
Is all this to say that true ability in life is of no importance? There are those that are born better at this game that biology made up a long time ago in the lobsters, but make no mistake about it. Those who were born with less ability than others would be much better off standing up and owning the challenges of life with nobility and ultimate accountability than those with equal ability but instead chose to turn and face in the corner or roll over and expose their throats when challenged.
I guess the final question would have to be, which one are you going to be moving forward?