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joshua_weir's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
forestidylls's review
4.0
A fascinating commentary and analysis of life, Jordan Peterson makes a compelling case for how to live a better life. Despite not being a Christian, he still uses Christianity as a base for many of his conclusions, inserting other historical theories and philosophies as well to make his points. While difficult to read, I certainly recommend it, especially for anyone who is flailing through life or having a hard time reconciling the tragedies of life with living it.
bittersweet_symphony's review
3.0
Regarding the 12 Rules, I echo the similar criticism that others have given--the book has a meandering structure. Peterson explains in his preface how this book came to be--distilled down from a much longer list of rules--and why he has it organized in this way. Still, I found it wandered through many thoughts that weren't totally relevant to the chapter headings, and not the clearest even when it broke down into the subsections. His conversational style mostly works for him though. His book exists as a blend of self-help and life philosophy. Although I wasn't particularly moved and enlightened by it, I know several people who have been (Peterson has mentioned receiving thousands of emails from readers, some who came back from suicide's ledge to live thriving lives).
As for Peterson, I have my disagreements with him, but I appreciate his existence as a recently brandished public intellectual. He's part of the new counter-culture, if one can say that about a person who is offering order as an antidote to the excesses and chaos that have derived from Postmodernism and Critical Theory. He stands far more traditionalist than me, but I value his role as a corrective against the deconstructive nature and illiberalism coming from the far left. He's a classical liberal drawing from the accumulated wisdom from millennia of mythology, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. I would have loved much deeper dives into mythology, particularly those from non-western traditions. Also, he commits a great heresy among mythologists of taking the symbolic literally (including that many of his claims around gender are too binary).
He occasionally misspeaks when it comes to politics, but he provides a philosophy of empowerment grounded in individual responsibility. Get your shit together before you go about shaming and telling other people what to do. Meaning supersedes the pursuit of happiness, which is a distractor. Life at its base is suffering, but we can find ways to thrive within and because of our human limits.
I'd be interested in reading his Maps of Meaning, if it didn't cost $60.
For further thoughts on Peterson and the pitfalls of postmodernism, see my article published in Erraticus.
As for Peterson, I have my disagreements with him, but I appreciate his existence as a recently brandished public intellectual. He's part of the new counter-culture, if one can say that about a person who is offering order as an antidote to the excesses and chaos that have derived from Postmodernism and Critical Theory. He stands far more traditionalist than me, but I value his role as a corrective against the deconstructive nature and illiberalism coming from the far left. He's a classical liberal drawing from the accumulated wisdom from millennia of mythology, psychology, anthropology, and neuroscience. I would have loved much deeper dives into mythology, particularly those from non-western traditions. Also, he commits a great heresy among mythologists of taking the symbolic literally (including that many of his claims around gender are too binary).
He occasionally misspeaks when it comes to politics, but he provides a philosophy of empowerment grounded in individual responsibility. Get your shit together before you go about shaming and telling other people what to do. Meaning supersedes the pursuit of happiness, which is a distractor. Life at its base is suffering, but we can find ways to thrive within and because of our human limits.
I'd be interested in reading his Maps of Meaning, if it didn't cost $60.
For further thoughts on Peterson and the pitfalls of postmodernism, see my article published in Erraticus.
telostai's review against another edition
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
loutimney7's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
chance4change's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
The CODA chapter is a great summary and one that I will likely revisit.
creativiteaplans's review
5.0
This is a self help guru book. The rules are actually just good manners and Christian related living, so just the way we should live. I’m Christian so might be bias there.
He really is the father telling us off. I connected with much of the essays in it and gotta say the reading went by fast too cause it’s interesting and uplifting.
He really is the father telling us off. I connected with much of the essays in it and gotta say the reading went by fast too cause it’s interesting and uplifting.
susannadkm's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
1.5
1.5 stars rounded up. I read this book because my friend said he'd be interested to hear my thoughts.
Peterson's principles aren't revolutionary, but he endlessly philosophizes with such self-importance as if he's enlightened and even establishing a new religion. In fact, this book is almost as long as the New Testament! It would have been better as a long-form essay; every chapter was WAY too long.
My biggest issue was that he seems to idolize bits and pieces of the Bible while espousing a "me-first" mindset and rejecting Jesus. My friend and I agreed this would be dangerous for immature Christians to read.
The best takeaway I got was to be precise about what you want to change when you are confronting a problem in a relationship. ("You have to consciously define the topic of a conversation, particularly when it is difficult—or it becomes about everything, and everything is too much. This is so frequently why couples cease communicating. Every argument degenerates into every problem that ever emerged in the past, every problem that exists now, and every terrible thing that is likely to happen in the future. No one can have a discussion about 'everything.' Instead, you can say, 'This exact, precise thing—that is what is making me unhappy.'")
That's not bad advice. But it's also not good enough to make up for all the generalizations about what women want from men (women want men who take unnecessary risks and want men to toughen up?). It's not enough to make up for emphasizing how chaos "is symbolically associated with the feminine," and then subtitling his book "an antidote to chaos." So this is an antidote to femininity? ("Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection.... It is Woman as Nature who looks at half of all men and says, “No!” For the men, that’s a direct encounter with chaos, and it occurs with devastating force every time they are turned down for a date.")
And then there's the bizarre paragraphs analyzing fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty. (He concludes that women "may not" need men. "In any case, it is certain that a woman needs consciousness to be rescued, and, as noted above, consciousness is symbolically masculine.") Weird.
On the other hand, Chapter 5 on raising children was genuinely interesting. (Peterson's suggested rules for kids: "Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.")
I listened to the audiobook, read by the author. Since I didn't like him or the book, I found his narration grating and listened at 1.5x to finish faster. (Not to mention his accent, saying "Gawd" and "jawb." So irritating.)
All that to say, I did not like this book, but it wasn't as bad as I expected.
tyndareos's review
1.0
15/100
I expected something else and thought it would be a self-help book which concentrates on life in general and with rules, maybe something like habits or known concepts which do work like flow.
But No, there is also an absurd interpretation of the similarities of hierarchic behavior between humans and lobsters.
Also, an autobiography in disguise and a long preaching with bible quotes all over and mentions of God and Jesus.
Before I read this book, I watched some Videos which I enjoyed but which also had no religion in them, and it was mostly about Psychology.
He interprets Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, in an own way, which I don't.
Also, he talks a lot about his : Wife, daughter, son, brother, brother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law and so on.
Cant recommend it
I expected something else and thought it would be a self-help book which concentrates on life in general and with rules, maybe something like habits or known concepts which do work like flow.
But No, there is also an absurd interpretation of the similarities of hierarchic behavior between humans and lobsters.
Also, an autobiography in disguise and a long preaching with bible quotes all over and mentions of God and Jesus.
Before I read this book, I watched some Videos which I enjoyed but which also had no religion in them, and it was mostly about Psychology.
He interprets Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, in an own way, which I don't.
Also, he talks a lot about his : Wife, daughter, son, brother, brother-in-law, sister, sister-in-law and so on.
Cant recommend it
azureyoshi's review
1.0
I never intended to read this book given his reputation of being homophobic. However, I know more than a few people at work that spoke highly of the guy (coincidentally all straight men), so I decided to give him a fair shake to see what he had to say.
This book is PAINFUL. Gotta love when one of the "rules" is to be precise in your speech and then the book is 400 pages of bloated nonsense.
Read Marcus Aurelius if you want similar advice without Peterson's regressive opinions and bizarre analogies (ie, lobsters to justify standing up straight) attached.
This book is PAINFUL. Gotta love when one of the "rules" is to be precise in your speech and then the book is 400 pages of bloated nonsense.
Read Marcus Aurelius if you want similar advice without Peterson's regressive opinions and bizarre analogies (ie, lobsters to justify standing up straight) attached.