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Foundational is NOT beginner: this is why you must not confuse the two
I was listening to "The Roommate" interviewing Charlie Houpert.
Charlie says that Jordan Peterson is a self-help teacher for "beginners":
Charlie: every grade needs a teacher and there's nothing wrong with being in second grade. If you didn't have that role model to teach you some of the basic things that we're talking about goal setting and all that kind of stuff and someone else did I am so grateful that somebody else like Jordan Peterson is covering very fundamental content for a lot of people
Charlie is (covertly) framing Jordan Peterson as "beginner-level teacher".
The interviewer, who happens to be a Jordan Peterson's fan, also takes some offense on that (interesting to also see how they mended that, quite good on both sides).
It feels to me Charlie is mixing up "fundamental" with "beginner".
There is certainly an overlap between the two.
Yet, they are far from being the same.
Fundamental = Foundational ≠Beginner
"Fundamental" is NOT necessarily beginner.
Fundamental means "foundational", such as, the main strata that provide the solid foundations for all the rest.
But that strata is independent of beginner / advanced.
Ideally, you tackle that first, when you're first learning -which makes it seem "beginner"-.
However, that's not often how it goes.
A very accomplished and high-value person in life might still have major "holes" in the fundamentals of many areas of life.
Sometimes, even in their own discipline and expertise -I know for one that I still surely have many "holes" to cover, including in power dynamics, and including many blind spots-.
Or in disciplines that are helpful to most anyone -like social skills / power dynamics-.
It's a bit of a power move to tell of someone else that they're doing beginner stuff -implying you're doing advanced-.
But I'm pretty sure Charlie didn't mean it as a power move -and it's something we also do here when we say that TPM covers more advanced stuff-.
We do more advanced stuff on TPM, but we also cover fundamentals here.
And it's the same that Jordan Peterson does.
Foundational Spans From Beginner to Advanced
Jordan Peterson covers a lot of fundamentals, but he goes deep.
He takes many fundamental topics and tackles them to advanced levels.
Peterson also adds different points of view to those fundamentals that also make him a trailblazer.
For example, Charlie commented on Jordan Peterson rule of "cleaning your room before you criticize others" as an example of "beginner".
But that's not beginner, that's fundamental.
Peterson starts from a beginner-sounding rule, but extrapolates it to a host of personal and social issues that stem from not tackling that fundamental well that it goes from beginner-sounding to advanced.
I wouldn't even classify as either beginner or advanced. It's simply fundamental, not about being "beginner or advanced".
Plus, it's one thing to understand one "simple" rule, and another is to truly internalize it and apply it. The way Peterson tackles it, it encourages more people to take it seriously -and apply it-.
Example: Social Exchange is Foundational, Not Beginner
The same can be said for some TPM or PU topics.
For example, take the social exchange.
The social exchange is foundational.
Part of it is also beginner stuff.
For example, "focus on giving and make sure you're not taken advantage of" is an approach that might sound obvious to many well-adjusted people.
Yet, how you apply that rule is where the rubber meets the road.
Furthermore, the social exchange is a topic.
It's not beginner or advanced per see. It's a topic. A foundational topic.
It starts off with beginner-level concepts, but it spans all the way through from beginner to advanced.
When you dig deeper into it, you realize that it goes from beginner, to intermediate, to really advanced -especially the more Machiavellian uses and approaches-.
Moral of the story: tackle the fundamentals
Don't discard the foundations just because they sound "beginner" at first blush.
They're foundational for a reason.
And foundational transcends the dichotomy of beginner/advanced.
