And that can take you places—well, that merely to imagine properly can be traumatic. And I've seen that with people many times. And I think that anybody who uses their imagination on themselves can see how that happens, because I can't imagine that there is a single person in the room who hasn't nursed fairly intense fantasies of revenge, at least at one point in their life—and usually for what appear to be good reasons. It can shake your faith in Being to be betrayed, but if it shakes it so badly that you turn against Being itself, that's certainly no solution. All it does is make everything that's bad even worse." - Meaning and context.">

You plunge into that underworld space, and that's also where you begin to nurse feelings of resentment and aggrievement and murder and homicide—and even worse. If people are betrayed enough, they become obsessed with the futility of Being itself, and they go to places where perhaps no one would ever want to go if they were in their right mind. And they begin to nurse fantasies of the ultimate revenge, and that's a horrible place to be. That's hell. That's why hell has always been a suburb of the underworld, because if you get plunged into a situation that you don't understand, and things are not good for you anymore, it's only one step from being completely confused, to being completely outraged and resentful, and then it's only one step from there to really looking for revenge.
And that can take you places—well, that merely to imagine properly can be traumatic. And I've seen that with people many times. And I think that anybody who uses their imagination on themselves can see how that happens, because I can't imagine that there is a single person in the room who hasn't nursed fairly intense fantasies of revenge, at least at one point in their life—and usually for what appear to be good reasons. It can shake your faith in Being to be betrayed, but if it shakes it so badly that you turn against Being itself, that's certainly no solution. All it does is make everything that's bad even worse.

— Jordan Peterson

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "You plunge into that underworld space, and that's also where you begin to nurse feelings of resentment and aggrievement and murder and homicide—and even worse. If people are betrayed enough, they become obsessed with the futility of Being itself, and they go to places where perhaps no one would ever want to go if they were in their right mind. And they begin to nurse fantasies of the ultimate revenge, and that's a horrible place to be. That's hell. That's why hell has always been a suburb of the underworld, because if you get plunged into a situation that you don't understand, and things are not good for you anymore, it's only one step from being completely confused, to being completely outraged and resentful, and then it's only one step from there to really looking for revenge.
And that can take you places—well, that merely to imagine properly can be traumatic. And I've seen that with people many times. And I think that anybody who uses their imagination on themselves can see how that happens, because I can't imagine that there is a single person in the room who hasn't nursed fairly intense fantasies of revenge, at least at one point in their life—and usually for what appear to be good reasons. It can shake your faith in Being to be betrayed, but if it shakes it so badly that you turn against Being itself, that's certainly no solution. All it does is make everything that's bad even worse." in the context of ""Biblical Series II: Genesis 1: Chaos & Order"" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Jordan Peterson" (Quotes, Lectures, Biblical Lectures) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Jordan Peterson

About Jordan Peterson

Jordan Bernt Peterson (born June 12, 1962) is a Canadian clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999), 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2017), Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (2021) and We Who Wrestle With God (2024)