Lately, most of my leisure time has been divided between my new hobby (embroidery, holla!) and rediscovered old ones (blogging, holla!), so reading has taken a backseat. For comfort, I’ve been reading some of the usual suspects (Anne Perry, the Maisie Dobbs mysteries, some previously read historical non-fiction), which probably do not warrant a post. I’ve got a few promising books coming my way – and a couple of vacations coming up as well – so I will have more to report later, but for now I only have one to talk about: 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson.
If you’re Canadian, the name may be familiar to you; in addition to being a well-respected clinical psychologist and tenured professor at the University of Toronto, Peterson is something of a media sensation at the moment, following his public critique of the federal government’s Bill C-16 (which proposed to add “gender identity or expression” as a prohibited ground of discrimination under Canadian human rights legislation). He has been characterized by many in the media as an alt-right supporter, which would have probably been sufficient to deter me from picking up his book, had that been my first introduction to him. However, I heard about the book from my BFF – who is about as far from alt-right as you can get, and is also not a self-help book type of person – and she told me that she was looking forward to reading 12 Rules. Out of curiosity, I picked up the book on Amazon.
Whoo, boy.
I have a lot of thoughts about it. Probably too many to fit into a post like this. My TL;DR take? 12 Rules is definitely worth a read because, even if you vehemently disagree with Peterson on some or all of his theses, there are a lot of interesting ideas in there that are worth debating.
As a “self help book” – which, in all fairness, 12 Rules probably isn’t, not really – it has a strong flavour of “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”; Rule 6 is “Set Your House in Order Before You Criticize the World”. Peterson’s approach to this will irk a lot of people, and not without reason. On one hand, I think it has a lot of merit; I strongly believe in taking personal responsibility for one’s actions and their consequences, and I agree with Peterson that we cannot change people – the way to change the world is by living/acting the values that we believe are right. On the other hand, I also think that some of Peterson’s thoughts on this (and mine as well, no doubt) are products of the perspective of someone who probably never experienced significant systemic disadvantages. This might be a dealbreaker for some, and I wanted to acknowledge that.
However, if you are willing to give Peterson a chance, he does make some points which are worth thinking about. Parenthetically, I want to add that there are points I agree with, points I disagree with, and points that I need to ponder further before making up my mind. What I liked about the book was that it challenged me to think critically with every chapter – something I haven’t done in my personal reading, on a consistent basis, since my 20s. (I call my books “comfort reading” for a reason.) Some of the things I found particularly interesting? Peterson’s discussion of dominance hierarchies (Rule 1); his views on chaos & order being the duality that underlies nature and, in turn, shapes human existence (recurring theme throughout the book); and his discussion of Rule 7, “Pursue What Is Meaningful (Not What Is Expedient) and Rule 8, “Tell The Truth – Or, At Least, Don’t Lie”. It’s apparent that Peterson was influenced by philosophies that I also, at one time or another, have studied – including Christian existentialism, Taoism, and Jungian psychology; no doubt, this made me more receptive to his arguments. It was interesting to me to see where our analysis or conclusions (based on those influences) converged and where they diverged.
In the interest of keeping this post at a manageable length, I will end here, but if you have read 12 Rules, I would love to hear your thoughts.
I would have loved to read more of your thoughts on this topic!
Intriguing… I’ve come across his name, and my perception – similar to yours – is that he’s popular with the alt-right/ MRA set, which – also like you – would normally make me very weary. Haven’t read the book myself (and I’d definitely want to do so before I make a more complete judgement) – I might give it a go if I see it in my local library. In the meantime, I did read this analysis (a set of 3 blog posts) by a blogger I respect and found it very interesting – you might find it even more so, since you’ve actually read the book. The blog post I link through links to 4 blog posts written earlier this year, for easier reference. Of course, you may have seen them already, but if you haven’t, you might find them worth your while?
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/more-on-jordan-peterson.html
I think the blogger brings up tons of good points. I tried to be balanced in my post (which isn’t really a review in a traditional sense) because I enjoyed the internal debat that the book stimulated for me, but I think my misgivings probably still came through. Having sat with the book for a while longer now, they haven’t lessened. I like to give JBP the benefit of the doubt on his target audience and intents but having heard (from various sources now) that his primary audience is men – and he seems perfectly content with that – well, it gives me pause. Also, having given it more thought (to avoid a knee jerk reaction, which I def had, lol!), I still disagree with his chapter on patriarchy.
Anyway, to bring my rambling to an end – I found it worthwhile to read the book to revisit my own philosophy on the topic of life and its meaning, and to analyze it with an critical eye.
Oh, hey, talk about timing – this just appeared in my rss reader. It’s quite long, especially by internet standards – and that’s without the hundreds of comments below the post. Mmm, sorry, that may be more Jordan Peterson than you bargained for 🙂
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/26/book-review-twelve-rules-for-life/
I did no more than skim through it, but it’s a very different take from echidne-of-the-snakes, but just as as thoughful.
I can see why there would be such divergent opinions on JBP – as I said in my post, some of his arguments really resonated with me, others I violently disagreed with. That’s really rare, for me. And it’s weird. I am still really struggling to categorize the book in my own mind. I will be interested to read this take more closely. Thanks for the link!
I haven’t read it, and I’m not sure if I will–reading the title of Rule 6 set my teeth at edge a bit–when are you enough in order to be able to criticize wrongs in the world? How does that jibe with being a citizen in a democratic society? And I have generally similar views to you on personal responsibility–I accept that there’s little I can do to change other people, and sometimes you have to accept that, plus the plank in your own eye, etc. But, I think it’s hard to look at the world currently or historically and not see alot of injustice and wrongdoing that would make any even marginally compassionate person angry or upset. As a Christian who has read Tao and Jung, though, I’m a least a little intrigued. I think it’s good to have some of those debate-style reading experiences, but I also sometimes find them maddening and prefer the more enjoyable and comforting reads.
Amen to your last sentence! I tend to take that view 99% of the time , especially lately, so I completely understand. I did enjoy the internal debate that the book stimulated, and in that regard, JPB is far more sophisticated than your average MRA-er or whatever. So the book did challenge me to think through some of my opinions once more – which is a good exercise from time to time (in my case, probably overdue by a good decade or so).
But, yeah, I get why people wouldn’t necessarily feel the same in this climate. I hesitated in writing the post for that reason, and I remain deeply ambivalent about the book.