Well, you can take this snippet like that, but I think he's being very clear that freedom is conditional to having an arbitrary set of social "rules". That's exactly the same argument communists in Europe use: You can't have true freedom without redistribution and "social cohesion". It's the same argument, just with a different set of arbitrarily chosen "rules".
Discussion
To make my position clear: the only set of "rules" are the natural rights common to all individuals, derived from the only positive right, namely, the right to oneself. That's all the "rules" a society requires.
I’m not disagreeing with your point necessarily, but in reality every society has its own “rules”.
These certainly shouldn’t form some arbitrary social contract that you or anyone must adhere to, but the principle of “when in Rome” tends to be quite useful to keep things smooth.
For example, we drive on the left in Aus. Our brains are wired to look right then left because of this. We’re wired to stand on the left of an escalator walk on the left side of a path past someone else.
These are “rules” that we all accept, from local communities through to the nation.
Now throw in a bunch of Asians who drive on the right, whose traffic was built for motorbikes not cars, and whose idea of personal space isn’t the same as an Australian’s - now you’ve got disharmony because people came to Rome and wanted to live like they’re still in Delhi or Hanoi.
Everything should stem from natural rights, and communities should govern themselves. The modern challenge is that ideological and moral lenses are applied at too high a level such that there is constant disharmony and rather than seperate so people can maintain their identities, we just get smushed together more which makes it worse.
I absolutely agree with you on natural rights. And I also see the danger conservatism poses to liberty.
Still, I think they’re more reachable than leftists and we need to insist precisely on the fact that natural rights and their logical derivation are all the rules we need. If Peterson could understand that I think he could agree. Conservatives simply misunderstand Libertarianism and think we need the State to impose the set of rules.
I think conservatives are actually more dangerous for liberty than leftists precisely because of that misunderstanding, but that is why we should seek to educate them, because you’re never getting statism out of leftism, but it could happen with some conservatives.
I hope you understand my view.