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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
A lot of words. Not my cup of tea, but there were some good nuggets in there.
This doesn't even deserve my 2-star rating that I reserve exclusively for DNFs
OMG, this guy blabs and blabs and blabs.... a severe case of "get to the point already!" I had to look to see if this was self-published because I couldn't believe any editor had touched this manuscript.
The only 'incredible' thing about this book is that he can talk about each rule for 30-60 minutes and say NOTHING. So much rambling... For example with rule #1 (see below) he rambled on about lobsters for 25 minutes. LOBSTERS. Quoting my husband (who also hated it) "it's a whole lot of misogynistic s#it" and "he's reinforcing the patriarchy" -- indeed, this book (and Peterson, who I googled) is a long sad siren song of cry baby men acting like toddlers because the world is changing and they aren't getting all the toys anymore.
Here are the 12 rules. While they are good "rules for life" it's the same thing you've heard all your life from your grandparents, your HS coach, your favorite professor at college, and whatever meme all your friends post on social media.
Re: the audiobook specifically... I generally prefer when an author reads their own work (if it's non-fiction) but this guy, while his voice was fine, he couldn't deliver his own jokes which made it weird and awkward.
#5 really, really bothered me... controlling much? can this dude really be advocating we suppress the interest and spirit of our children? Should we be trying to force them into what we want/like rather than accept who they are? While I agreeing parenting means looking out for the safety of your child (i.e. maybe not let them play in traffic no matter how much they want to or not letting them take crayons to the walls) but if *I* become resentful, that's MY issue. My child/friend/partner/dog/bucket of ice cream is not responsible for fixing my resentments. I also don't have to like everything about others or expect them to like everything about me. Many adults are in therapy because their parents practiced #5. For those following #5 I offer you this prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me
(I think what Peterson showed his hand with #5... the message he tries to send is "don't let your children be your king/ruler" but the actuality is that he and his 'followers' are the children in the story, carrying on because they've been groomed to think they're entitled and deserve things just for being white men)
1. stand up straight with your shoulders back
2. treat yourself like someone you're responsible for helping (i.e. take your prescriptions)
3. make friends with people who want the best for you
4. compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today (ignore internal critic)
5. do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
6. set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world (glass houses / throw stones)
7. pursue what is meaningful not what is expedient
8. tell the truth or don't lie
9. assume the person you're listening to might know something you don't
10. be precise in your speech (hijacked from the [b:The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom|6596|The Four Agreements A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom|Miguel Ruiz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348204644l/6596._SY75_.jpg|376130]
11. do not bother children when they are skateboarding
12. pet the cat when they're on the street
OMG, this guy blabs and blabs and blabs.... a severe case of "get to the point already!" I had to look to see if this was self-published because I couldn't believe any editor had touched this manuscript.
The only 'incredible' thing about this book is that he can talk about each rule for 30-60 minutes and say NOTHING. So much rambling... For example with rule #1 (see below) he rambled on about lobsters for 25 minutes. LOBSTERS. Quoting my husband (who also hated it) "it's a whole lot of misogynistic s#it" and "he's reinforcing the patriarchy" -- indeed, this book (and Peterson, who I googled) is a long sad siren song of cry baby men acting like toddlers because the world is changing and they aren't getting all the toys anymore.
Here are the 12 rules. While they are good "rules for life" it's the same thing you've heard all your life from your grandparents, your HS coach, your favorite professor at college, and whatever meme all your friends post on social media.
Re: the audiobook specifically... I generally prefer when an author reads their own work (if it's non-fiction) but this guy, while his voice was fine, he couldn't deliver his own jokes which made it weird and awkward.
#5 really, really bothered me... controlling much? can this dude really be advocating we suppress the interest and spirit of our children? Should we be trying to force them into what we want/like rather than accept who they are? While I agreeing parenting means looking out for the safety of your child (i.e. maybe not let them play in traffic no matter how much they want to or not letting them take crayons to the walls) but if *I* become resentful, that's MY issue. My child/friend/partner/dog/bucket of ice cream is not responsible for fixing my resentments. I also don't have to like everything about others or expect them to like everything about me. Many adults are in therapy because their parents practiced #5. For those following #5 I offer you this prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me
(I think what Peterson showed his hand with #5... the message he tries to send is "don't let your children be your king/ruler" but the actuality is that he and his 'followers' are the children in the story, carrying on because they've been groomed to think they're entitled and deserve things just for being white men)
1. stand up straight with your shoulders back
2. treat yourself like someone you're responsible for helping (i.e. take your prescriptions)
3. make friends with people who want the best for you
4. compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who someone else is today (ignore internal critic)
5. do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
6. set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world (glass houses / throw stones)
7. pursue what is meaningful not what is expedient
8. tell the truth or don't lie
9. assume the person you're listening to might know something you don't
10. be precise in your speech (hijacked from the [b:The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom|6596|The Four Agreements A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom|Miguel Ruiz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348204644l/6596._SY75_.jpg|376130]
11. do not bother children when they are skateboarding
12. pet the cat when they're on the street
Audio, read by the author, whose voice is not one I'm not really happy to listen to for hours, even at 1.4x speed.
2.5 stars, rounded up to 3
This dude is VERBOSE. I like some of what he has to say, though sometimes I was annoyed at how sexist he is in how its said... and there are a lot of Biblical references (which is not my thing).
Interesting enough to finish.
My favorite quote from this is, "assume ignorance before malevolence." I'll take that one with me.
2.5 stars, rounded up to 3
This dude is VERBOSE. I like some of what he has to say, though sometimes I was annoyed at how sexist he is in how its said... and there are a lot of Biblical references (which is not my thing).
Interesting enough to finish.
My favorite quote from this is, "assume ignorance before malevolence." I'll take that one with me.
So disappointed. I really enjoy his lectures and debates, but in those debates he speaks carefully. He doesn't make sweeping generalizations about the underlying reasons for current cultural phenomena. In this book, he just makes statements about women, about men, and about how men and women interact without any mention of the greater context. It's insulting, to both genders.
He also doesn't seem to have had an editor. He goes off on tangents, unrelated metaphors, and then I can't even remember what he was talking about. This is unreadable.
He also doesn't seem to have had an editor. He goes off on tangents, unrelated metaphors, and then I can't even remember what he was talking about. This is unreadable.
Having read all the way up to the final "rule" I put up with way more of this book that I should have, than anyone should have to really.
With no respect for the reader's time the author engages in lengthy rambles and rants that don't always connect meaningfully to the actual rule of the chapter, weird ass analogies and condemnations of basic human decency and respect that I just can't get behind.
I saw someone comment once that if you strip the book of its verbosity and redundancy you'd be left with 12 simple ideas that don't merit such long and "out there" explanations and I feel like that might very well be true.
And maybe that's what you'd be better off doing, the 12 rules themselves are rather self evident, except for maybe the 11th one which Peterson conveniently uses to get across his most controversial beliefs, so you'd save yourself a lot of time if you read up on 12 rules individually, which are very basic and can probably be found anywhere that offers advice, and come to terms with what they mean for yourself with none of Peterson's weirder biases attached.
Book sucks.
With no respect for the reader's time the author engages in lengthy rambles and rants that don't always connect meaningfully to the actual rule of the chapter, weird ass analogies and condemnations of basic human decency and respect that I just can't get behind.
I saw someone comment once that if you strip the book of its verbosity and redundancy you'd be left with 12 simple ideas that don't merit such long and "out there" explanations and I feel like that might very well be true.
And maybe that's what you'd be better off doing, the 12 rules themselves are rather self evident, except for maybe the 11th one which Peterson conveniently uses to get across his most controversial beliefs, so you'd save yourself a lot of time if you read up on 12 rules individually, which are very basic and can probably be found anywhere that offers advice, and come to terms with what they mean for yourself with none of Peterson's weirder biases attached.
Book sucks.
slow-paced
informative
slow-paced
Putrid awful read. It quickly decends from his personal story into Bible stories. Really poor read and I wish I could get my time back.
Great book! Insightful. Satisfied my psych nerd tendencies. Didn’t love the long winded argument for spanking, and sometimes I disliked how he interacted with and described people, but I suppose that was his point to a degree and I am a pushover.
I came into this book with a bias against self-help hucksters, reducing life into bite-sized morsels, and notions of objective Rules that must be Followed. I knew it would be a tough climb to bring me on board, but I figured it was worth hearing out.
It was not.
The foreword addresses my immediate, knee-jerk gripe with a book called 12 Rules of anything. It says, to paraphrase, “Hey, I know you have an immediate, knee-jerk gripe with rules! And, in fact, I am going to call you a man of character for having that reaction! This should help soften the lead-in. You’re cool for being skeptical of rules! Still, you gotta admit that if you were to succumb to a bunch of vices, you would be a slave to those vices, and thus no longer free. And if you are no longer free, then that means you are following rules, wouldn’t you say? Isn’t that semantically, uh, the same? So you should follow rules! Which ones, you might ask? Well, um... these twelve!”
So... arbitrary set of twelve rules? Let's go.
I don’t mind some rules, to be honest. Guidelines are what I prefer, but a good, hard rule might be okay now and then. My immediate, knee-jerk gripe actually comes in the question of these rules. How can you convince me that these twelve rules are better than any of the other sets of twelve? Much like the argument of religion, I can be convinced that, perhaps, religion is worth my time; it’s trying to prove one religion over the other that is the real feat.
The foreword makes a little attempt to onboard me with the idea of having rules, and I guess that’s kind of what I would hope for in a book about rules. But it’s a little reversed, in a way. First, I agree to having rules, and then I hear what they are? No, this won’t work. I guess I’ll have to read all of the rules before I can really make the call.
RULE 1: Consider the Lobster
We’re a lot like lobsters (except in the ways we aren’t). We’re also like birds, and birds are like lobsters (except in the ways they aren’t). I suppose we’re talking about Natural Law, which is what dictates the way humans act (except when they don’t act that way) and why humans are the same as animals (except when they’re not). But let’s not focus on the differences between being The Son of God, a creature defined almost exclusively by being Not an Animal, and instead we should consider ourselves lobster. (Don't worry; even though he spends a lot of words making it clear that humans are like birds and lobsters, he'll end the book by telling us how very different cats and dogs are.)
This is a hilarious start. This is Peterson inventing his own sort of Aesop-ian fable by having mock Pokemon battles among lobsters and birds. It’s not accurate enough to be a zoology lesson, but, also, it’s not anecdotal because it’s fully constructed. I think some consider this section one of his strongest, but that baffles me. The chapter spends so much time deviating into misused science and bland, misinformed interpretations of Natural Law that I fail to see how this teaches me to stand up straight. Like, if I needed to get laid real bad and the only ladies around me were lobsters, I might now be equipped for such a task. Otherwise, what was he going on about?
The 2nd Rule also goes into Natural Law. It's in this chapter that I realize fully that this is not a self-help book so much as it is the rantings of a Bible thumper. From here on out, there is so much pulling from the Christian Bible to be used as "ancient wisdom" that it's like I'm in church.
It's in section 2.2 that got caught my brain twisting, though. In this relatively short section, Peterson explains that pre-scientific thought is just as true as scientific thought. There is value in it since, clearly, it existed long before scientific thought.
Here, he is valuing "subjective truth" to devalue science and scientific thought. His ideology is very much ingrained in biblical values, which are pre-science, and so he is attempting to equalize these ideas by making it seem that a) science is subjective, b) pre-scientific thought is valuable, and thus c) pre-scientific subjectivity is more objective than scientific subjectivity. This is a really interesting moment because later in the book he rails against postmodernism, which, despite being a fairly large and complex topic, is very much the philosophy that questions grand narratives in much the same way!
How does he do this? How does he use postmodernist ways of undermining science while also hating postmodernism? Easily. He invents his own, new definition of postmodernism.
For this trick, he attaches the key term to "leftists." Then he grafts it onto Marxism and communism. This is a clever little trick we call "limiting vocabulary" or, for the 1984 nerds, "Newspeak." By condensing very complex ideas into one term, and then calling that term "bad," you can kill two terms with one stone. He's leveraging the fact that his perceived audience will a) dislike Marxism and b) not know what postmodernism is (and truly, who does?). Once done, he can grapple control of how and when he decides his subjective ideologies are objective truths.
Reducing everything to consumable binaries is the name of the game. I mean, he's already trying to reduce everything to 12 Rules. Within those rules, he's also very comfortable packaging things into categories of Chaos and Order, Light and Dark, Right and Wrong.
This is the comfort of contradiction that most conservatives live in. When he uses Adam and Eve to try and support his idea that you should definitely stand straight or else you won't be able to sleep with lobsters, he's not being a subjective ideologue! That's crazy! Remember, subjective ideologues are postmodernists, which are Marxists! And he's NOT a Marxist, so how could he be a postmodernist and thus a subjective ideologue! Ha-HA! See!? No, his view of the world through the lens of lobster serotonin and Hebrew myths is objective truth.
Peterson is willing to cherry-pick science, anecdotes, fables, Disney movies (yeah, really), literary fiction, and even philosophies he will later go on to say are bad in order to sell you his wares. But, I was already biased into thinking this before I started reading, like I said. The real question has always been: what are his wares? What is he selling?
More than once during the reading of this I had to stop. I would go online, find a video of Jordan Peterson talking, and scrub through it. I needed to find the definitions of the Rules. Whichever Rule I was reading, I needed him to tell me what it was. To make it clear.
This book is so convoluted, so meandering, so rant-y, that half the time I have no idea how his foray into the Bible—or his uppity childhood anecdotes, or his daughter's bones—relate to his rules at all. It's agenda all the way down. It may be, conceptually, one of the worst books I've ever read. It's like Grandpa Simpson going into a story about the Vietnam War when all you wanted to know was where he put the remote control.
I can say, now, having read it and looked up what the rules are that yes, I understand his rules. I even think a lot of them are, on their surface, good (albeit obvious or over-worked). But the rules themselves almost feel like they are between the lines. This book has a more vicious, more self-important agenda. For all of its railing against ideologies, this might be the most ideological book I've read in decades. And the worst part is that it's not even fun!
It was not.
The foreword addresses my immediate, knee-jerk gripe with a book called 12 Rules of anything. It says, to paraphrase, “Hey, I know you have an immediate, knee-jerk gripe with rules! And, in fact, I am going to call you a man of character for having that reaction! This should help soften the lead-in. You’re cool for being skeptical of rules! Still, you gotta admit that if you were to succumb to a bunch of vices, you would be a slave to those vices, and thus no longer free. And if you are no longer free, then that means you are following rules, wouldn’t you say? Isn’t that semantically, uh, the same? So you should follow rules! Which ones, you might ask? Well, um... these twelve!”
So... arbitrary set of twelve rules? Let's go.
I don’t mind some rules, to be honest. Guidelines are what I prefer, but a good, hard rule might be okay now and then. My immediate, knee-jerk gripe actually comes in the question of these rules. How can you convince me that these twelve rules are better than any of the other sets of twelve? Much like the argument of religion, I can be convinced that, perhaps, religion is worth my time; it’s trying to prove one religion over the other that is the real feat.
The foreword makes a little attempt to onboard me with the idea of having rules, and I guess that’s kind of what I would hope for in a book about rules. But it’s a little reversed, in a way. First, I agree to having rules, and then I hear what they are? No, this won’t work. I guess I’ll have to read all of the rules before I can really make the call.
RULE 1: Consider the Lobster
We’re a lot like lobsters (except in the ways we aren’t). We’re also like birds, and birds are like lobsters (except in the ways they aren’t). I suppose we’re talking about Natural Law, which is what dictates the way humans act (except when they don’t act that way) and why humans are the same as animals (except when they’re not). But let’s not focus on the differences between being The Son of God, a creature defined almost exclusively by being Not an Animal, and instead we should consider ourselves lobster. (Don't worry; even though he spends a lot of words making it clear that humans are like birds and lobsters, he'll end the book by telling us how very different cats and dogs are.)
This is a hilarious start. This is Peterson inventing his own sort of Aesop-ian fable by having mock Pokemon battles among lobsters and birds. It’s not accurate enough to be a zoology lesson, but, also, it’s not anecdotal because it’s fully constructed. I think some consider this section one of his strongest, but that baffles me. The chapter spends so much time deviating into misused science and bland, misinformed interpretations of Natural Law that I fail to see how this teaches me to stand up straight. Like, if I needed to get laid real bad and the only ladies around me were lobsters, I might now be equipped for such a task. Otherwise, what was he going on about?
The 2nd Rule also goes into Natural Law. It's in this chapter that I realize fully that this is not a self-help book so much as it is the rantings of a Bible thumper. From here on out, there is so much pulling from the Christian Bible to be used as "ancient wisdom" that it's like I'm in church.
It's in section 2.2 that got caught my brain twisting, though. In this relatively short section, Peterson explains that pre-scientific thought is just as true as scientific thought. There is value in it since, clearly, it existed long before scientific thought.
Take pain, for example—subjective pain. That’s something so real no argument can stand against it. (...) Pain matters, more than matter matters.
Here, he is valuing "subjective truth" to devalue science and scientific thought. His ideology is very much ingrained in biblical values, which are pre-science, and so he is attempting to equalize these ideas by making it seem that a) science is subjective, b) pre-scientific thought is valuable, and thus c) pre-scientific subjectivity is more objective than scientific subjectivity. This is a really interesting moment because later in the book he rails against postmodernism, which, despite being a fairly large and complex topic, is very much the philosophy that questions grand narratives in much the same way!
How does he do this? How does he use postmodernist ways of undermining science while also hating postmodernism? Easily. He invents his own, new definition of postmodernism.
For this trick, he attaches the key term to "leftists." Then he grafts it onto Marxism and communism. This is a clever little trick we call "limiting vocabulary" or, for the 1984 nerds, "Newspeak." By condensing very complex ideas into one term, and then calling that term "bad," you can kill two terms with one stone. He's leveraging the fact that his perceived audience will a) dislike Marxism and b) not know what postmodernism is (and truly, who does?). Once done, he can grapple control of how and when he decides his subjective ideologies are objective truths.
Reducing everything to consumable binaries is the name of the game. I mean, he's already trying to reduce everything to 12 Rules. Within those rules, he's also very comfortable packaging things into categories of Chaos and Order, Light and Dark, Right and Wrong.
This is the comfort of contradiction that most conservatives live in. When he uses Adam and Eve to try and support his idea that you should definitely stand straight or else you won't be able to sleep with lobsters, he's not being a subjective ideologue! That's crazy! Remember, subjective ideologues are postmodernists, which are Marxists! And he's NOT a Marxist, so how could he be a postmodernist and thus a subjective ideologue! Ha-HA! See!? No, his view of the world through the lens of lobster serotonin and Hebrew myths is objective truth.
Peterson is willing to cherry-pick science, anecdotes, fables, Disney movies (yeah, really), literary fiction, and even philosophies he will later go on to say are bad in order to sell you his wares. But, I was already biased into thinking this before I started reading, like I said. The real question has always been: what are his wares? What is he selling?
More than once during the reading of this I had to stop. I would go online, find a video of Jordan Peterson talking, and scrub through it. I needed to find the definitions of the Rules. Whichever Rule I was reading, I needed him to tell me what it was. To make it clear.
This book is so convoluted, so meandering, so rant-y, that half the time I have no idea how his foray into the Bible—or his uppity childhood anecdotes, or his daughter's bones—relate to his rules at all. It's agenda all the way down. It may be, conceptually, one of the worst books I've ever read. It's like Grandpa Simpson going into a story about the Vietnam War when all you wanted to know was where he put the remote control.
I can say, now, having read it and looked up what the rules are that yes, I understand his rules. I even think a lot of them are, on their surface, good (albeit obvious or over-worked). But the rules themselves almost feel like they are between the lines. This book has a more vicious, more self-important agenda. For all of its railing against ideologies, this might be the most ideological book I've read in decades. And the worst part is that it's not even fun!