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

[The Grand Nudger]

Or maybe it's stereotyping.  Boys love their gerbils. It takes alot of learned culture to set the tropes in our minds.

Clinical psychologists worth their salt know this, but Peterson stopped being one of those and became a political provocateur long ago. Triggering is the goal, not a side effect - took him very nearly 30 years to perfect his routine. It's how he turns coin.

-That much, at least, I do respect, lol.

[robvalue]

@benny: Thanks, I'm glad you like my videos I appreciate the offer too, I'll keep it in mind.

[Edited out the other drivel I said]

[EgoDeath]

Yea people tend to take Peterson's ideas a step further than he's actually taking himself.

Male energy is order feminine energy is chaos

People, in a very self-serving way then jump ten steps ahead with ideas like, "See he's saying men are good and women are bad! Misogynist!" Not at all what he's saying. I feel like this guy could say the sky is blue and people would say, No it's a light shade of indigo! We can almost ALWAYS find something wrong in what someone says if we look hard enough.

I'm disappointed to hear a lot of you haven't read the book.

edit:

Ironically enough, these assumptions often say much more about the speaker than they do about the person being critiqued. If I say, "I don't enjoy black comedies" and you immediately say, "Racist!" It can sometimes be the case that YOU are actually the racist in assuming what it was that I was talking about. Maybe I was talk about a black comedy in the sense of genres of comedy. Or maybe I just don't happen to enjoy any comedies that feature mainly african-american cast members. Sometimes people's assumptions can be very telling.

[robvalue]

He's literally saying women are chaos and men are order, though. He takes it further than some vague symbolism, to some inherent property of actual people. He doesn't say it right away, of course. He sets it up as harmless abstract, and then slinks into the literal as the chapter progresses.

[bennyboy]

Clinical psychologists worth their salt know this, but Peterson stopped being one of those and became a political provocateur long ago.  Triggering is the goal, not a side effect - took him very nearly 30 years to perfect his routine.  It's how he turns coin.

Hmmm. . . what part of the book are you commenting on right now?  Cuz if you haven't read the book. . . I'd ask you to refrain from discussing the book-- we already reading have one shit-slinging thread, and I think that should be used as a kind of peanut gallery for this thread.

I'm not even saying (right now) that you're wrong. . . but that's not what we're doing right now.

---

He's literally saying women are chaos and men are order, though. He takes it further than some vague symbolism, to some inherent property of actual people. He doesn't say it right away, of course. He sets it up as harmless abstract, and then slinks into the literal as the chapter progresses.

Yeah I've already said that-- he conflates the symbolic Dionysian feminine with males' actual experience of females.  In my opinion, it's probably wrong to do this, but I haven't read that part of the book yet.

So. . . any comment on lobsters?  Cuz I thought it was a funny and quite brilliant analogy-- dominant lobsters going around bullying each other "Who's your daddy?" is a pretty funny anthropomorphism IMO.

[robvalue]

Clinical psychologists worth their salt know this, but Peterson stopped being one of those and became a political provocateur long ago.  Triggering is the goal, not a side effect - took him very nearly 30 years to perfect his routine.  It's how he turns coin.

Hmmm. . . what part of the book are you commenting on right now?  Cuz if you haven't read the book. . . I'd ask you to refrain from discussing the book-- we all reading have one shit-slinging thread.

I'm not even saying (right now) that you're wrong. . . but that's not what we're doing right now.

---

He's literally saying women are chaos and men are order, though. He takes it further than some vague symbolism, to some inherent property of actual people. He doesn't say it right away, of course. He sets it up as harmless abstract, and then slinks into the literal as the chapter progresses.

Yeah I've already said that-- he conflates the symbolic Dionysian feminine with males' actual experience of females.  In my opinion, it's probably wrong to do this, but I haven't read the book yet.

So. . . any comment on lobsters?  Cuz I thought it was a funny and quite brilliant analogy-- dominant lobsters going around bullying each other "Who's your daddy?" is a pretty funny anthropomorphism IMO.

Yeah, I was replying to PRJ who doesn't seem to agree

Lobsters... I don't know what I can possibly say about it. You see things in the text that I don't, I'm afraid! He's trying to draw real, useful analogies from lobsters, which all fail in my opinion.

[EgoDeath]

He's literally saying women are chaos and men are order, though. He takes it further than some vague symbolism, to some inherent property of actual people. He doesn't say it right away, of course. He sets it up as harmless abstract, and then slinks into the literal as the chapter progresses.

I'm more concerned with your interpretation of this statement as somehow being an insult on women.

Regardless, you seem to have your mind made up about him. Have you even read the book?

[bennyboy]

Yeah, I was replying to PRJ who doesn't seem to agree

Lobsters... I don't know what I can possibly say about it. You see things in the text that I don't, I'm afraid! He's trying to draw real, useful analogies from lobsters, which all fail in my opinion.

He's saying that intrinsic to evolution centered around resources, there will be competition. And in order to reduce actual casualties, every animal must develop (read: HAS developed) some competitive mechanism, mediated by instinct and hormones, which will cause losers to step off, and winners to boldly step up to take their prize. And most importantly, they will do so without weakening each other to such a degree that a casual bystander can crush them both and take all the best lobster digs and lobster bitches, even though he might be less fit than the two fighters had been.

This matters, because if you mistakenly overlook that very obvious and natural evolutionary mechanism, you are unlikely to do the things which will give you actual power over your own life-- like expressing self-conviction and belief. You're more likely, say, to complain about Western patriarchal oppression, than actually to get out and make the most of your life.

As for women and chaos-- it turns out that the ability of females to select males is the chaos, not just "bitches be bitches." This is because it is something that to a large degree is beyond a male's control-- whatever efforts he makes, if he is found wanting in some way, he will find himself outside the evolutionary loop, and this. . . well, this doesn't feel very good, does it? This is likely to make a man a permanent loser in his own eyes, and that of others, and cause him depression and anxiety.

Women, for the most part, don't have this problem-- an inability to get a mate. There are very few women indeed who couldn't find someone willing to have sex with them, whatever their confidence level, their income, or anything else. I mean. . . I'd almost say it's 0%.

[Sal]

I own a copy of the book and I have read it once, probably will read it again sometime.

I have to admit, I was a bit enamored with JBP when I bought the book thanks to his handling of SJW types, but reading the book itself made me like him less and less the more I read it. The final nail in the coffin also happened to be his prologue chapter Coda (page 355-) where he talks about writing with a pen of light or some shit. Throughout that last chapter I was like, what the hell are you smoking, man? And where he outlined that he did some question-answering routine with no research and it's the fucking basis for the damn book? He just put some questions down on a proverbial napkin and flied with it. Here's a not-so-grandeur advice: maybe spend some time researching each question thoroughly before making it the foundation behind a whole book!

[robvalue]

I appreciate the discussion so far, but I'm not sure how fruitful my input is going to be, based on how things have gone. There seems to be such radically different interpretations and evaluations going on that I may as well be talking about a different book from its supporters. I'm not saying it isn't me who is at fault here; but whatever the cause, I think I'll have to leave things for now and perhaps I'll return if I think of anything useful to say. Thank you all!