A review by susannadkm
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

reflective slow-paced

1.5

1.5 stars rounded up. I read this book because my friend said he'd be interested to hear my thoughts.

Peterson's principles aren't revolutionary, but he endlessly philosophizes with such self-importance as if he's enlightened and even establishing a new religion. In fact, this book is almost as long as the New Testament! It would have been better as a long-form essay; every chapter was WAY too long.

My biggest issue was that he seems to idolize bits and pieces of the Bible while espousing a "me-first" mindset and rejecting Jesus. My friend and I agreed this would be dangerous for immature Christians to read.

The best takeaway I got was to be precise about what you want to change when you are confronting a problem in a relationship. ("You have to consciously define the topic of a conversation, particularly when it is difficult—or it becomes about everything, and everything is too much. This is so frequently why couples cease communicating. Every argument degenerates into every problem that ever emerged in the past, every problem that exists now, and every terrible thing that is likely to happen in the future. No one can have a discussion about 'everything.' Instead, you can say, 'This exact, precise thing—that is what is making me unhappy.'")

That's not bad advice. But it's also not good enough to make up for all the generalizations about what women want from men (women want men who take unnecessary risks and want men to toughen up?). It's not enough to make up for emphasizing how chaos "is symbolically associated with the feminine," and then subtitling his book "an antidote to chaos." So this is an antidote to femininity? ("Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection.... It is Woman as Nature who looks at half of all men and says, “No!” For the men, that’s a direct encounter with chaos, and it occurs with devastating force every time they are turned down for a date.")

And then there's the bizarre paragraphs analyzing fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty. (He concludes that women "may not" need men. "In any case, it is certain that a woman needs consciousness to be rescued, and, as noted above, consciousness is symbolically masculine.") Weird.

On the other hand, Chapter 5 on raising children was genuinely interesting. (Peterson's suggested rules for kids: "Do not bite, kick or hit, except in self-defence. Do not torture and bully other children, so you don’t end up in jail. Eat in a civilized and thankful manner, so that people are happy to have you at their house, and pleased to feed you. Learn to share, so other kids will play with you. Pay attention when spoken to by adults, so they don’t hate you and might therefore deign to teach you something. Go to sleep properly, and peaceably, so that your parents can have a private life and not resent your existence. Take care of your belongings, because you need to learn how and because you’re lucky to have them. Be good company when something fun is happening, so that you’re invited for the fun. Act so that other people are happy you’re around, so that people will want you around. A child who knows these rules will be welcome everywhere.")

I listened to the audiobook, read by the author. Since I didn't like him or the book, I found his narration grating and listened at 1.5x to finish faster. (Not to mention his accent, saying "Gawd" and "jawb." So irritating.)

All that to say, I did not like this book, but it wasn't as bad as I expected.