Peterson's 12 Rules for Life v2.0-- actual book discussion

[The Grand Nudger]

Save yourself the time.

[robvalue]

After reading 12 Rules for Life I can tell people REALLY love nitpicking Peterson's words as they see fit.

The biggest atrocity Peterson is guilty of is, well, saying things that are not all that profound or interesting. But bigoted? Racist? Right-wing extremist? What world are people living in?

Mostly, 12 Rules consists of solid advice. Basically, get your shit together and live a good life. Once again, maybe not the most profound message we've ever heard, but when do self-help books ever really teach us anything we don't already logically know?

If Peterson is guilty of being some charlatan that is ripping everyone off and is just in it for the money, then so is every other self-help author that's ever existed.

I choose not to see the world in such a cynical way.

I think people who write self-help books are generally individuals who think they have information that can be useful to others. I've definitely gotten some use out of 12 Rules and would recommend it to a friend to read. Some people just really need to lighten up.

I'd be interested to know what specifically you have got out of the book, that has made it useful to you.

[EgoDeath]

After reading 12 Rules for Life I can tell people REALLY love nitpicking Peterson's words as they see fit.

The biggest atrocity Peterson is guilty of is, well, saying things that are not all that profound or interesting. But bigoted? Racist? Right-wing extremist? What world are people living in?

Mostly, 12 Rules consists of solid advice. Basically, get your shit together and live a good life. Once again, maybe not the most profound message we've ever heard, but when do self-help books ever really teach us anything we don't already logically know?

If Peterson is guilty of being some charlatan that is ripping everyone off and is just in it for the money, then so is every other self-help author that's ever existed.

I choose not to see the world in such a cynical way.

I think people who write self-help books are generally individuals who think they have information that can be useful to others. I've definitely gotten some use out of 12 Rules and would recommend it to a friend to read. Some people just really need to lighten up.

I'd be interested to know what specifically you have got out of the book, that has made it useful to you.

Sure.

Rule 2 talks about treating yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. This chapter was interesting because I started to look at how I tend to minimize some of my own problems and mistakes and how I'll sort of let myself "get away with thing" that I'd definitely immediately call out in other people. Sometimes it's easy for us to ignore our own shortcomings and instead look at criticizing other people.

Which bring me to rule 5 (I think, I don't have the book in front of me), which says something like "Set your house in order before criticizing others." This is EXTREMELY important for me to keep in mind. I can often be critical of other people in my life and this chapter was interesting to read because I sort of thought, well, maybe that person or this person IS x, y and z, but what does that matter? I need to fix problems a, b, and c about myself anyway.

Although, with self-help books I think people often get the amount of help they're seeking. This is not to say EVERY self help book says something valuable, because they certainly do not. Some self help books are trash. But if you go into it hoping to learn something, you probably will. There may be dozens of other books that say the exact same 12 things Peterson's book says, but I read it and did find a few things, at least, to be interesting or thought-provoking.

I will admit I'm not a fan of the religious flavor that he puts on some of the ideas, mostly because it's just unnecessary.

[robvalue]

Thank you, I'm glad to hear you have got something positive out of it.

[Rev. Rye]

I will admit I'm not a fan of the religious flavor that he puts on some of the ideas, mostly because it's just unnecessary.

Most of those ideas are pretty decent on their own (at the very least, a cat you find on the street might be feral), but, like Hugo and Jake show, he has the tendency to undermine his own points:





It's not just the religious sheen he puts on his ideas that are unnecessary and alienating, it's throughout the whole book.

Really, they'd be what footballers call "own goals" if not for the fact that what many of us see as bugs, much of his audience appears to see as features.

[bennyboy]

I have to say. . . it was nice of these guys to take a break from playing D&D to ramble on about Peterson!

They talk about how he wants guns, how he's against health care, and so on. Any guesses why? Is it because they don't actually know that he's Canadian?

And in randomly selecting a section of the video, they were talking about "butt AIDS" and helping each other "procure a butt," and how alcoholic their mothers are or whatever. I'm pretty sure I don't need to listen to 90 minutes of that. Is there a more academic critique video we can go through?

[Rev. Rye]

Well, here’s a former academic talking about the pros and cons (mostly the cons) of Jordan’s worldview:





She goes more into the basics of how his political foundation is built on the sand than the 12 rules, so it’s not terribly comprehensive (this is a bit less than a half hour, a bit over half the length of the Hugo and Jake video I posted above, which focused on just one book chapter), but, she clearly knows her stuff, and, the 12 rules, as I said earlier, are actually fairly decent in and of themselves. It’s the way he goes about them that’s questionable.

And yes, the woman in the video is transgender; she’s in the early stages of her transition, and for that, she’s doing pretty good job of passing, and an even better job of giving a measured argument critiquing his claims.

Also, when I played the “click on a random part of the Bible Reloaded video” game, it was Jake speculating that Jordan Peterson is legitimately on the autism spectrum.

[bennyboy]

Also, when I played the “click on a random part of the Bible Reloaded video” game, it was Jake speculating that Jordan Peterson is legitimately on the autism spectrum.

Yeah, that's probably not an ad-hom or anything. Btw I liked that trans-person's video a lot better-- she's quite witty and entertaining. MUCH better than Beavis and Butthead, there.

"Why don't we analyze the concept of post-modern neo-marxism." Here's a person who's speaking my language! The part starting at 12:22 had me really laughing out loud. Foppington ftw!

--edit--
"One hand for the V, one hand for the D. . ." then launches straight into Marxism and Postmodernism."

[EgoDeath]

I will admit I'm not a fan of the religious flavor that he puts on some of the ideas, mostly because it's just unnecessary.

Most of those ideas are pretty decent on their own (at the very least, a cat you find on the street might be feral), but, like Hugo and Jake show, he has the tendency to undermine his own points:





It's not just the religious sheen he puts on his ideas that are unnecessary and alienating, it's throughout the whole book.

Really, they'd be what footballers call "own goals" if not for the fact that what many of us see as bugs, much of his audience appears to see as features.

I'm always suspicious when someone's criticisms of a person come from someone else's criticisms of said person.

Also, no offense, I am not about to watch a 55 minute video in order to maybe interpret exactly what it is that you're getting at. If you have specific points you'd like to discuss, cool. I'm not really interested in hearing some YouTuber's opinion piece on Peterson.

I definitely don't agree with everything Peterson says. A lot of what he says is common sense. At worst he's guilty of being uninteresting.

[bennyboy]

I recommend that Contrapoints' video though. It's really witty. Fun stuff!