12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I will admit this right off the bat. I knew nothing of Jordan Peterson, or any of his ideology before reading this book. I must have existed in a vacuum, as I merely picked this book up as it was given as an "Amazon Recommends."\n\nCurious about the title, I purchased on impulse.\n\nI am very glad I did.\n\nI am not Jordan Peterson\'s "supposed" target audience. (I used supposed because I don\'t think he actually claims to have one).\n\nI am a liberal, Asian, left leaning moderate with a background in philosophy, theology and film studies. I support the women\'s right movement, equal pay, and I find the Republican party of today rather distasteful for the anti-science movement they espouse.\n\nThat being said, this book spoke to me. It is not an easy read. I had to re-read chapters slowly to fully condense my thoughts. I agree with the critical review that stated you have to be intellectually equipped to really get the most out of this. I had to utilize my background in philosophy and religion to go beyond the surface of what the author was trying to say. This is not a book you can listen to at 2x speed on Audible and hope to retain anything, imo. You need to digest this.\n\nThat being said...\n\nPeterson\'s deft weaving of theology, mythology, and just overall cogent arguments and viewpoints made me really respect and open up my mind to things I never fully thought about. I find it laughable that a Harvard professor/psychologist has been embraced by the "alt-right" when even a moderately close reading of this text repudiates all that they stand for.\n\nPeterson is direct. He has opinions. I don\'t always agree with them. But he is genuinely expressing himself, and the belief that we should all try to be better. We should all try to be more compassionate, and most of all, we all should try to understand our humanity a little more each and every there.\n\nThere\'s no division in this book; there\'s just deep anguish at the current state of humanity and its capacity for evil. There\'s some exasperation at the way things are currently constructed in society that is in many ways lost. And most of all, there\'s compassion and a belief that if we all got together in a room and truly talked, the world would be a better place.\n\nI would shy away from the noise around Peterson in the headlines, on Youtube, and in how the idealogues use him (or even his own personal media narrative) to justify their twisted beliefs. Don\'t let the fact that the "Alt-Right" has co-opted this man to make him a mascot.\n\nJust read the book independently and make your own judgments. You\'ll be glad you did.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I first heard about Peterson when he was debating on bill C-16. Not long after, I discovered he had a YouTube channel full of lectures and talks. At that point of my life I was truely bitter. A 23 year old man, contemplating life. At the time, I was in a relationship for 4 years. I seemed happy, but was in deep frustration and depression. My grandmother (which raised me since I was born) was diagnosed with cancer, the worst kind of it. An incurable one. I had a decent paying job (well above the average), but still something was missing. I had become nihilistic. I accepted the absence of a higher meaning, and truely believed at that point that life had little meaning. I was petrified of the thought of having a child. All of the aforementioned degraded my relashipnship with my parents and little sister to minimalistic contact.\nI decided, quite impulsively, to buy this book.\nI just finished reading it (actually, a few minutes ago). This book has an unmeasurable significance to me. It rekindled my interest in living, made me aware of my own faults and virtues. My nihilism has come to a halt, and I could proudly say that I’m on my way to finding my purpose in life, whatever it might be.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I took about a month to finish Jordan Peterson\'s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, in part because I wanted to slow down and try some of the advice in my life.\n\n12 Rules for Life is an interesting book. Equal parts philosophy, psychology, and self-help book, it covers a broad range of topics, with Peterson drawing from life experiences, religion, and history to build a strong case for his points and provide what seems on its surface to be very good advice for people.\n\nThis is where Peterson\'s background as a clinical psychologist comes in handy. 12 Rules for Life is billed as an "antidote to chaos", and that is what its primary focus is. It\'s not great at helping you be more successful if you\'re disciplined and self-reliant already. As someone who always struggled with grasping the world, however, I found it very helpful.\n\nSince I started reading this book, I lost 12 pounds, went from writing five hundred words a day to three thousand words a day, started waking up earlier in the morning consistently, and have been much happier.\n\nSome of that is attributable to the fact that I was already willing to make changes, and many of the things I was doing were obviously bad ideas.\n\nBut there is something to be said for the lessons Peterson teaches. They are complicated, sometimes a little indirect, and mired in allegory. This makes them more valuable, if anything. Peterson doesn\'t use a magic formula, he uses principles of right action. This book provides general ideas and positions that can serve as a great tool to understanding how people think and why things go wrong.\n\nNot everyone will agree with it. There is a chapter in the book where Peterson reflects on the fact that he has opportunities with clients where he could tell them one thing or another and their minds would make it to be total truth either way.\n\nPerhaps that is what Peterson has done here: perhaps most systems like this are sufficient to improve lives if brought diligently into practice.\n\nOr perhaps there is something to Peterson\'s words. His indictment of meaninglessness and his calls to purpose echo soundly throughout the book. There have been those who say that Peterson\'s calls for people to get themselves organized and his oft-mystical language is a cover for something sinister.\n\nBut I don\'t think they\'ve ever really listened to him.\n\nApproaching Peterson a skeptic, I was not sure that reading a book would have the power to change anything in my life. The first few chapters were met with nods, hesitancy, and the concession of points that sounded good. I wasn\'t hostile to him, and I found many of his points quite clever.\n\nBut when Peterson delved deeper into the archetypes and depth psychology I became suspicious. I had a moderate distrust of the Jungian method; I use it to teach literature, but I did not believe in using archetypes to assess personality.\n\nPeterson\'s point is that we are all part of something great and interconnected. Because it is so massive, we need to be working to make sense of it. It won\'t happen automatically, and if we go for an easy explanation we may find ourselves walking dark, treacherous paths of misanthropy and rejection.\n\nWe are complicated pieces in an even more complicated puzzle. Peterson\'s approach is one of self improvement. When we take steps to sort ourselves out, we also need to enter a symbiotic process of bringing order to our world.\n\nThe purpose of this is not to achieve some sort of superiority. It is to achieve survival. The world will change, and we will be forced to adapt.\n\nPeterson states that "life is tragic." His point is that people need to be ready to deal with adversity. Anyone can handle good times, because that\'s what we are able to rest and relax during. The true test of a person comes when they lose a loved one or a job or their health. They need to make a decision: what will they do in response.\n\nPeterson uses haunting examples to illustrate what happens when this goes wrong. Using everything from Dostoevsky to the Soviet Union (and countless other insights from modern and historical figures), he creates case studies of what happens when things go wrong and people turn to dysfunction rather than improving their situation.\n\nHis 12 Rules serve as a guide on how to go from that point of failure to a point of redemption, offering a series of suggestions and guidelines to take a life that is becoming corrupted by hatred of the world and everything in it and turn it into a vessel for growth and self-improvement.\n\nIs it a perfect guide to living life? No.\n\nIs it helpful? Does it give insight to great truths? Yes.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I found his position on women to be very disappointing. Btw I’m a guy. It was very bad. I don’t want to support an author like that. I wish I could get my money back honestly and that’s a first.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I tried.\nThis book had so many excellent reviews.\nI just don’t understand.\nI was following nicely about lobsters and posture. It made sense.\nI ignored the tone, which was borderline yelling.\nI ignored the sweeping generalizations.\nI ignored the biblical passages that started to overtake every paragraph in a quasi word-salad way. I’ve studied the Bible since I could read. I know when something is off.\nI can only compare this book to a very long sermon, where I’m trying to follow along, and derive some wisdom. As the hours wear on, everyone is shaking their heads in agreement and I just want to go home.\nAll I could hear were illogical statements that left zero room for elasticity and nuance. I am a human being. We all are. The author seems to set that aside and preach on...and on...and on.\nI felt alienated, confused and finally could take no more. I got up and left the church that this book pretends not to be.\nI could not have disliked this self-help book more.\nNever again.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I don\'t usually write reviews, but the thing is I like Jordan Peterson but this book is so far from the standard he sets in his dialogue that I have to express disappointment. I felt like most paragraphs were rambles that made me think "What the hell does this have to do with the actual rule?" So much of this book felt painful to read because of how dull and pointless it was.\n\nPlease don\'t read this book. It will ruin your perception of Dr. Peterson.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I\'ve lived my first 18 years as an upper-middle-class millennial in an Asian Communist country. This is probably the only book that would make me lift my fingers away from the chaos of life to type an earnest review about it. Oh, how easy it is for peaceful humans with good intention to blindly follow destructive ideologies and behaviors. We all want to change the world for the better, yet most of us fail to improve our own mind, body, and relationships. As a black sheep from such Asian Communist herd, I myself have witnessed enough of people\'s naivety either in my home country or Western countries, and Dr. Peterson\'s book truly resonates with me.\n\nOne common thing among The 12 Rules for Life, in essence, is "Honesty".\n\nRule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back (make your body/mind honest, straight and strong).\n\nRule 2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping (be honest with yourself about your shortcomings and fix them)\n\nRule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you (seek and keep honest, good friends).\n\nRule 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today (focus only on your honest achievements).\n\nRule 5: Don\'t let children do things that make you dislike them (be honest with your kids about life, and prepare them for it).\n\nRule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world (be honest with the world about your shortcomings before bashing its imperfection).\n\nRule 7: Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient (live life being honest with your feelings).\n\nRule 8: Tell the truth—or, at least, don\'t lie (say only honest statements).\n\nRule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don\'t (converse with an honest intention to learn).\n\nRule 10: Be Precise in Your Speech (make honestly condensed messages)\n\nRule 11: Don’t bother children when they are skateboarding (let less experienced people make honest efforts in risk-taking).\n\nRule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street (respect other beings - human included - that made honest efforts, despite how low their status is).\n\nAsians living outside the US tend to do the opposite of Dr. Peterson’s rules. Especially under the Communist Party’s tyrannical grasp of free speech. Sure, we Asians can be quite intelligent and cooperative; but because of the traditional value system that favor group over individuals, Asians can be more predisposed to let the mob mentality win over the personal sense of justice and freedom. We don’t even speak up because our government would make life harder for everyone we know and love. But because of that, we’ve ensured a dishonest, dog-eat-dog society that is far darker and corrupted under the surface than most Western country.\n\nWe Asians often tell “white lies” to earn others’ favor. But when it becomes a habit and necessity for climbing the social ladder, every lie is white. Usually, bribery goes like this: “No, I don’t accept bribes.” - “Please, sir. It’s not bribery, just a gift from our heart.” - “I will reluctantly accept it, but no promise to give you favors.” - “That is totally fine, sir. We only worry about your health and family. To us, you are like family as well.” - “Yes, and family should help each other. That is the basic principle of a good society. Don’t you agree?” - “Yes, sir! We’ll be counting on you...”\n\nWhat I have seen after living in Europe and America, is that the radical left of the Western political spectrum is (ironically) transforming into a totalitarian force in the name of “Anti-Everything-Evil.” They want the government to control the free conversation and wealth distribution, in the name of anti-racism, anti-sexism (prejudice against other genders), anti-misogyny (prejudice against women) or anti-bigotry (prejudice against different opinion, which is hilarious). But let me tell you: when it comes to limiting freedom of speech and distributing wealth from the “rich” to the “poor,” Communist Asians did a very similar thing, in the name of anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, etc. Nothing good came out of it.\n\nWhat happened, and may happen if Western people don’t follow Dr. Peterson’s rules of honesty, is more chaos. Those who are incompetent and dishonest will become richer, those who are talented will only manage to live their lives relatively comfortable (unless they are willing to become corrupted), and the honest poor will become poorer. The Feminists who fight for free birth control pills are ignoring the fact that China fails to protect woman and child trafficking into sex-slavery. The Liberals do not see that high taxes drove companies big or small to China, destroying the livelihood of millions of their own honest and competent countrymen. Even the Libertarians who preach "free market" idea miss the notion of "fair play" when it comes to economic relationship with China. To me, such people are not so noble, anti-evil nor anti-establishment; they are just too selfish, naive or too simple-minded to criticize the world.\n\nFor the final note, as a long-time Star Wars fan, I\'d rather spend my time rereading this book than rewatching the new Star Wars movie. Dr. Peterson is the new hope, the returning Jedi sage that would bring balance to our little planet right here in this galaxy. But only if we choose to follow his 12 rules for life (plus subscribe to his YouTube channel and click the bell button).'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': "Jordan Peterson is a beacon of light in this chaotic world, a psychologist whose writing combines science and common sense. One of his talents is his ability to articulate complex ideas to a wide audience. Regardless of whether you have a background in psychology or not, you will understand this book. It covers his twelve rules for life, which are intended not only as a guide for life of the individual, but as a remedy for society’s present ills. Peterson believes that the cure for society starts with curing the individual, the smallest unit of society. Peterson’s well-known advice to clean your room is a reflection of the truth that if you can’t even manage the most basic and mundane responsibilities of life, then you have no business dictating to others how to fix society.\n\nOne of the main themes of this book is: Personal change is possible. There's no doubt you can be slightly better today than you were yesterday. Because of Pareto's Principle (small changes can have disproportionately large results), this movement towards the good increases massively, and this upward trajectory can take your life out of hell more rapidly than you could believe. Life is tragic and full of suffering and malevolence. But there's something you can start putting right, and we can't imagine what good things are in store for us if we just fix the things that are within our power to do so.\n\nThe 12 Rules for Life:\n\nIn Peterson’s own words, it’s 12 rules to stop you from being pathetic, written from the perspective of someone who himself tried to stop being pathetic and is still working on it. Peterson is open about his struggles and shortcomings, unlike many authors who only reveal a carefully curated façade.\n\nRule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back. People have bad posture, and the meaning behind it can be demonstrated by animal behaviors. Peterson uses the example of the lobster. When a lobster loses a fight, and they fight all the time, it scrunches up a little. Lobsters run on serotonin and when he loses, levels go down, and when he wins, levels go up and he stretches out and is confident. Who cares? We evolutionarily diverged from lobsters 350 million years ago, but it’s still the same circuit. It’s a deep instinct to size others up when looking at them to see where they fit in the social hierarchy. If your serotonin levels fall, you get depressed and crunch forward and you’re inviting more oppression from predator personalities and can get stuck in a loop. Fixing our posture is part of the psycho-physiological loop that can help you get started back up again.\n\nRule 2: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. People often have self-contempt whether they realize it or not. Imagine someone you love and treat well. You need to treat yourself with the same respect. Take care of yourself, your room, your things, and have respect for yourself as if you’re a person with potential and is important to the people around you. If you make a pattern of bad mistakes, your life gets worse, not just for you, but for the people around you. All your actions echo in ways that cannot be imagined. Think of Stalin’s mother and the mistakes she made in life, and how the ripple effects went on to affect the millions of people around him.\n\nRule 3: Choose your friends carefully. It is appropriate for you to evaluate your social surroundings and eliminate those who are hurting you. You have no ethical obligation to associate with people who are making your life worse. In fact, you are obligated to disassociate with people who are trying to destroy the structure of being, your being, society’s being. It’s not cruel, it’s sending a message that some behaviors are not to be tolerated.\n\nRule 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. You need to improve, and you may even be in real bad shape, but many unfairly compare themselves to some more seemingly successful person. Up till around age 17, random comparisons to other people can make sense, but afterwards, especially age 30+, our lives become so idiosyncratic that comparisons with others become meaningless and unhelpful. You only see a slice of their life, a public facet, and are blind to the problems they conceal.\n\nRule 5: Don't let children do things that make you dislike them. You aren't as nice as you think, and you will unconsciously take revenge on them. You are massively more powerful than your children, and have the ability and subconscious proclivity for tyranny deeply rooted within you.If you don't think this is true, you don't know yourself well enough. His advice on disciplinary procedure: (1) limit the rules. (2) use minimum necessary force and (3) parents should come in pairs.It's difficult and exhausting to raise children, and it's easy to make mistakes. A bad day at work, fatigue, hunger, stress, etc, can make you unreasonable.\n\nRule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. Life is tragic and there's malevolence. There's plenty to complain about, but if you dwell on it, you will become bitter and tread down a path that will take you to twisted places. The diaries of the Columbine killers are a chilling look into minds that dwelled on the unholy trinity of deceit, arrogance, and resentment) . So instead of cursing the tragedy that is life, transform into something meaningful. Start by stop doing something, anything, that you know to be wrong. Everyday you have choices in front of you. Stop doing and saying things that make you weak and ashamed. Do only those things that you would proudly talk about in public.\n\nRule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient). Meaning is how you protect yourself against the suffering that life entails. This means that despite the fact that we’re all emotionally wounded by life, we’ve found something that makes it all worthwhile. Meaning, Peterson says, is like an instinct, or a form of vision. It lets you know when you’re in the right place, and he says that the right place is midway between chaos and order. If you stay firmly ensconced within order, things you understand, then you can’t grow. If you stay within chaos, then you’re lost. Expediency is what you do to get yourself out of trouble here and now, but it comes at the cost of sacrificing the future for the present. So instead of doing what gets you off the hook today, aim high. Look around you and see what you can make better. Make it better. As you gain knowledge, consciously remain humble and avoid arrogance that can stealthily creep on you. Peterson also says to be aware of our shortcomings, whatever they may be; our secret resentments, hatred, cowardice, and other failings. Be slow to accuse others because we too conceal malevolent impulses, and certainly before we attempt to fix the world.\n\nRule 8: Tell the truth—or, at least, don't lie. Telling the truth can be hard in the sense that it’s often difficult to know the truth. However, we can know when we’re lying. Telling lies makes you weak. You can feel it, and others can sense it too. Meaning, according to Peterson, is associated with truth, and lying is the antithesis of meaning. Lying disassociates you with meaning, and thus reality itself. You might get away with lying for a short while, but only a short time. In Peterson’s words “It was the great and the small lies of the Nazi and Communist states that produced the deaths of millions of people.”\n\nRule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't. A good conversation consists of you coming out wiser than you went into it. An example is when you get into an argument with your significant other, you want to win, especially if you get angry. If you’re more verbally fluent than the other person then you can win. One problem is that the other person might see something better than you, but they can’t quite articulate it as well. Always listen because there’s a possibility they’re going to tell you something that will prevent you from running headfirst into a brick wall. This is why Peterson says to listen to your enemies. They will lie about you, but they will also say true things about yourself that your friends won’t. Separate the wheat from the chaff and make your life better.\n\nRule 10: Be Precise in Your Speech: There is some integral connection between communication and reality (or structures of belief as he likes to say). Language takes chaos and makes it into a ‘thing.’ As an example, imagine going through a rough patch in your life where you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong. This mysterious thing that’s bothering you—is it real? Yes, if it’s manifesting itself as physical discomfort. Then you talk about it and give it a name, and then this fuzzy, abstract thing turns into a specific thing. Once named, you can now do something about it. The unnameable is far more terrifying than the nameable. As an example, the movie the Blair Witch project didn’t actually name or describe the evil. Nothing happens in the movie, it’s all about the unnameable. If you can’t name something, it means it’s so terrifying to you that you can’t even think about it, and that makes you weaker. This is why Peterson is such a free speech advocate. He wants to bring things out of the realm of the unspeakable. Words have a creative power and you don’t want to create more mark and darkness by imprecise speech.\n\nRule 11: Don’t bother children when they are skateboarding. This is mainly about masculinity. Peterson remembers seeing children doing all kinds of crazy stunts on skateboards and handrails, and believes this is an essential ingredient to develop masculinity, to try to develop competence and face danger. Jordan Peterson considers the act of sliding down a handrail to be brave and perhaps stupid as well, but overall positive. A lot of rebellious behavior in school is often called ‘toxic masculinity,’ but Peterson would say to let them be. An example would be a figure skater that makes a 9.9 on her performance, essentially perfect. Then the next skater that follows her seems to have no hope. But she pushes herself closer to chaos, beyond her competence, and when successful, inspires awe. Judges award her 10’s. She’s gone beyond perfection into the unknown and ennobled herself as well as humanity as well.\n\nRule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. This chapter is mainly autobiographical and he writes about tragedy and pain. When tragic things are in front of you and you’re somewhat powerless, you must keep your eyes open for little opportunities that highlight the redemptive elements of life that make it all worthwhile. The title of this chapter comes from his experience of observing a local stray cat, and watching it adapt to the rough circumstances around it. Another thing you must do when life is going to pieces is to shorten your temporal horizon. Instead of thinking in months, you maybe think in hours or minutes instead. You try to just have the best next minute or hour that you can. You shrink the time frame until you can handle it, this is how you adjust to the catastrophe. You try to stay on your feet and think. Although this chapters deals about harsh things, it’s an overall positive one. Always look for what’s meaningful and soul-sustaining even when you’re where you’d rather not be."}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Peterson is a polarizing figure. Some people get offended by him talking about religion. Some say this book is a bit long. But he’s attempting to tie science, religion, psychology and anthropology together and doing that in a linear format such as a book is hard.\n\nThe book isn’t really that long considering all that it covers: It’s 350 pages. Most self help books are around 220 pages, so it’s 30% longer than some pop-culture BS like “You are a badass”.\n\nThe chapters are a lot like his lectures you can view online for free: he sometimes goes on extremely long tangents, but ultimately finds a way to tie it all together at the end. If you like his lectures, you’ll like this book.\n\nI’m glad that Peterson exists and decided to put himself out there as a voice for all the people who don’t agree with the direction things are going in the mainstream right now.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2018', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-1 review-rating', 'review_body': "I've listened to Jordan Peterson speak on a few occasions and he sounded like somebody I could learn a few things from. This book starts rather well - the chapter on lobsters and serotonin biochemistry is pretty spot on from what I know about evolutionary biology. However, the book continues with the next several chapters heavily relying on biblical stories. It's not my thing at all being an atheist. JP is a guy who thinks and has publicly stated on multiple occasions that morality can only be constructed upon biblical stories (as opposed to, say, science), which I strongly disagree with. Nonetheless I was hoping this book would give me some interesting new ideas, and it failed to deliver.\n\nSecondly, he is not a very gifted writer in my subjective opinion. You may disagree ,but I found his writing incredibly dry and actually boring."}]