It's interesting that in 12-step programs such as AA, NA, et al, this principle of understanding others is stressed as crucial to success in their program. They say if you point your finger at someone, you have your other fingers pointing back at you. Try it, it's an apt comparison, and it makes a good point. Don't criticize others if you are essentially the same as they are, if you are capable, and likely, to act in the same manner as they do. Dr. Peterson points out that if you think you wouldn't have been a concentration camp guard working for the Nazis, that anyone who does so is evil, then think twice. What if you had a wife and children you loved, and taking this "job" is the only alternative to starvation? I've often thought that I'd never participate in the rape, slow torture, and murder of innocent people. Who wouldn't? But I never say I am incapable of evil, that I am so good that I'd never think of it, not once, not ever...and then, the choice is my entire family's destruction, or a concentration camp job brutally torturing innocents, and then what do I do? Let my wife and kids starve so I can have a clear conscience? Flee, you say? In Nazi Germany, many people were so poor that they couldn't travel across town, let alone flee the country. So what Peterson is saying is, think twice before claiming moral virtue in comparison with others. Why? because you have better, more important things to do then "taking someone's inventory".
