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marginaliant 's review for:
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
by Jordan B. Peterson
Alright. Cards on the table: I already didn't like Jordan Peterson after watching several of his lectures at the request of my brothers so I'm not a neutral party. That being said, I have some actual complaints.
So the thing is that what Jordan Peterson lays down as his essential rules for life (in particular, don't let people talk down to you, don't talk down to yourself, get your shit together before you get mad at the world, appreciate the small things, etc.) are not new advice. Of course, I don't think that discounts the book entirely. Sometimes advice isn't new because the old advice is fine, even good! I also think sometimes people need good advice to be repeated often. Further, I think some good advice must just be repeatedly presented in different ways so that, eventually, one of those ways gets through their doughy brain and they actually internalize it.
I just don't like how Peterson presents those ideas. I resent that the length of the chapters obscures their meaning (on audiobook, each is about 90 minutes long and consists of 10 minutes of presenting the idea and 80 minutes of meandering stories that sort of relate if you squint and turn your head to the side. The book desperately needs an editor with a pair of gardening shears.) I resent that half the book is based on The Bible (if you didn't grow up hearing the stories, aren't invested in its messages, and on the whole are not impressed that rules for how you should live your life that were put down 2000 years ago should be followed, you might agree with me.) I resent that the heterosexual nuclear family is presented as the ideal of civilization and that no other way of living is thought to be appropriate.
The thing that frustrates me most is that people who I have seen who love Peterson, and Peterson himself on occasion, seem to think that his bible-thumping family-matters philosophy of life is new and exciting. It's not! It's old! It's the status quo, and we can do better.
So the thing is that what Jordan Peterson lays down as his essential rules for life (in particular, don't let people talk down to you, don't talk down to yourself, get your shit together before you get mad at the world, appreciate the small things, etc.) are not new advice. Of course, I don't think that discounts the book entirely. Sometimes advice isn't new because the old advice is fine, even good! I also think sometimes people need good advice to be repeated often. Further, I think some good advice must just be repeatedly presented in different ways so that, eventually, one of those ways gets through their doughy brain and they actually internalize it.
I just don't like how Peterson presents those ideas. I resent that the length of the chapters obscures their meaning (on audiobook, each is about 90 minutes long and consists of 10 minutes of presenting the idea and 80 minutes of meandering stories that sort of relate if you squint and turn your head to the side. The book desperately needs an editor with a pair of gardening shears.) I resent that half the book is based on The Bible (if you didn't grow up hearing the stories, aren't invested in its messages, and on the whole are not impressed that rules for how you should live your life that were put down 2000 years ago should be followed, you might agree with me.) I resent that the heterosexual nuclear family is presented as the ideal of civilization and that no other way of living is thought to be appropriate.
The thing that frustrates me most is that people who I have seen who love Peterson, and Peterson himself on occasion, seem to think that his bible-thumping family-matters philosophy of life is new and exciting. It's not! It's old! It's the status quo, and we can do better.