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

[bennyboy]

If you can afford a computer and an internet connection, there's a starving kid out there who's missing a meal.  I'll bet your yearly snack budget could feed little Akbar for about 10 years, no?

Sure. I've donated money for kids in need. I also give coins to homeless people when I have some with me.

That's nice. Do you consider yourself morally compelled to do so, or do you just do it because you're such a swell guy?

It does bother me, but I'm not asking you to feel the same way I do. If you can't be concerned, then you can't. That's not the point, though.

Well wait a minute. If we're so deeply concerned about inequality, then there's an easy solution-- pure communism. Either that, or we simply have rules intended generally to promote equality-- applications to school based only on test scores, for example-- and let those who perform better take their positions at the top.

Which of those ways do you prefer? I mean, it's pretty simple-- if some are going to have more, some are going to have less. Looking, on average, around the world, do you think your donations are such that they've brought little Akbar into economic parity with you? If not, then why aren't you sending thousands of dollars? Why aren't you selling your luxuries (like a computer) to share money with his super-poor family?

Could it be, perhaps, that saying how important the disenfranchised are is more important than actually making the personal sacrifice that all us rich Westerners would have to make in order to bring true equality among all the people in the world?

Again, you're not required to care about anything you don't care about. All I'm saying really is that you're simply misguided when it comes to this topic, and that you're being misled by the likes of Peterson. Perhaps it's got something to do with what Khem calls "white man anxiety", I don't know. But you ain't a sociologist (or a social psychologist) and neither is Peterson, for that matter.

Have you read the book?

Yeah, these landlords sure do not have a problem at all with letting a person of any ethnicity into their property, eh? It's not like a landlord has never requested from their agents not to consider Indian or Asian or black people. It's all fiction, after all.

Well, you have my attention. Have a sufficient number of white property owners requested that, even in the face of Indian or Asian black people who have a lot of money, dress nicely, and are well-educated? Are you saying that these people would rather have some white bogan than say Barack Obama?