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

[robvalue]

Sure, my projection idea is just a hypothesis. I'm not claiming to have evidence for that. But from the book as a whole, that is what I get from him.

About the spanking, I think it's debatable whether it's wrong. That's not the issue here. He is advocating going further than spanking. That is what worries me. What could he mean? He doesn't say. But I find it hard to imagine any situation where "more than spanking" is a suitable punishment, even if we allowed spanking for the sake of argument.

First of all, as a psychologist, I would assume he would know that the field is very heavily against spanking.  He does qualify it, though-- extreme case, etc. etc.

I sense he's more of a philosophical psychologist (he talks about Jung all the time, or Nietzsche) than a child psychologist.  I'm pro-spanking to a degree, but only if I'm the one doing it, because I'm so wise and all that.  But those OTHER guys-- well, the literature is pretty clear.

I don't think he's necessarily advocating going further than spanking, at least based on the quoted material you gave.  I'd interpret that as-- sometime's, nothing you can do is going to bring a kid in line.  I wouldn't be surprised, though, if he talked about the benefits of really roughing a kid up. . . like, if they were really asking for it.

The only way I can see to interpret this in a way other than advocating escalated physical punishment is if he's saying sometimes spanking just doesn't work. In such a case, he seems to be out of options entirely, since he's already said this thing they've done is so bad that it requires physical punishment yet it's not going to work. So if there's a more effective non-physical punishment, why weren't we doing that in the first place?

I think, from the structure of the paragraph, he is escalating from physical punishment 1, to 2, to 3, to 4. I'd love to hear his clarification here, because I think he's written himself into a corner.

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Chaos, by contrast, is where—or when—something unexpected happens. Chaos emerges, in trivial form, when you tell a joke at a party with people you think you know and a silent and embarrassing chill falls over the gathering. Chaos is what emerges more catastrophically when you suddenly find yourself without employment, or are betrayed by a lover. As the antithesis of symbolically masculine order, it’s presented imaginatively as feminine. It’s the new and unpredictable suddenly emerging in the midst of the commonplace familiar. It’s Creation and Destruction, the source of new things and the destination of the dead (as nature, as opposed to culture, is simultaneously birth and demise).

Is it only me or is this Deepak Chopra-grade BS?

Chaos is not "unexpected. Thats BS equivocation. Later he tells us that chaos = unpredictable? Now, which is it? This guy is so full of it (and full or deepities).
Arbitrarily assigning *chaos* to being feminine? Why? Because its BS. I am not impressed, not at all.


He is nothing but Deepak Chopra V2.0.

Yes, he is absolutely full of it. He talks an awful lot of bullcrap.

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PS: Well, I said "spanking" is debatable, but it seems the overwhelming evidence is that it's a harmful and ineffective practice. That doesn't surprise me.