12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos - Jordon Peterson
Discussion
Peterson reads chapter 6 'Set your house in order before you criticise the world'.
Message to the school shooters: past, present and future - YouTube
Message to the school shooters: past, present and future - YouTube
Well I finally finished it. It's not the book I'd have expected given his clear insightful manner in person (via YouTube, either in front of his class or debating one to one).
An awful lot of ground was gone over and rehashed again and again, there was a surprising amount of religious imagery given his 'common sense' approach and it wasn't clear whether he was just using it as an example or whether he actually believed it. Also some of his examples felt a little theoretical even though they were apparently factual.
Did I learn anything? Well, bits of it were interesting and I think I did, but nothing remotely life changing. I got more out of Dale Cargenie's 'How To Win Friends And Influence People' 30 years ago - but then maybe I simply had more to learn back then.
Overall, worth a read I think, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.
An awful lot of ground was gone over and rehashed again and again, there was a surprising amount of religious imagery given his 'common sense' approach and it wasn't clear whether he was just using it as an example or whether he actually believed it. Also some of his examples felt a little theoretical even though they were apparently factual.
Did I learn anything? Well, bits of it were interesting and I think I did, but nothing remotely life changing. I got more out of Dale Cargenie's 'How To Win Friends And Influence People' 30 years ago - but then maybe I simply had more to learn back then.
Overall, worth a read I think, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.
Ari said:
Well I finally finished it. It's not the book I'd have expected given his clear insightful manner in person (via YouTube, either in front of his class or debating one to one).
Can't argue with that. He's a better speaker than writer, at least by way of consumption by the average person (including myself in that), though he had some good moments in the book too.Ari said:
An awful lot of ground was gone over and rehashed again and again, there was a surprising amount of religious imagery given his 'common sense' approach and it wasn't clear whether he was just using it as an example or whether he actually believed it. Also some of his examples felt a little theoretical even though they were apparently factual.
Hard work to go through, repeated examples and the like, but perhaps seen as a necessity in proving his case as many people are so quick to dismiss anything he says.For anyone who has watched a lot of his youtube stuff, a lot of it will seem repetitive, but there were some new insights occasionally, and a good deal of supporting evidence and sources otherwise often unavailable.
Ari said:
Did I learn anything? Well, bits of it were interesting and I think I did, but nothing remotely life changing. I got more out of Dale Cargenie's 'How To Win Friends And Influence People' 30 years ago - but then maybe I simply had more to learn back then.
Overall, worth a read I think, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.
Peterson has said that many 'older' people, by which I am assuming he means people nearer his/my generation, say they haven't so much learned something new, as having found the means to better articulate the ideas they have long held and taken for granted.Overall, worth a read I think, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it.
For a younger generation there may well be much more to learn from it, or at least encourage them to question and think.
Ari said:
Chapter 7: Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient
Oh my god. The world is terrible, life is suffering, everyone is evil, you must give up on pleasures, defer gratification and dedicate your life to The Good Cause. Mix in a million biblical references and stir. After reading what appeared to be the same thing over and over and over I ended up skipping about 2,000 pages, stopping occasionally just to check whether the narrative had changed. Otherwise I'd have had to write off the rest of this decade and most of the next in pursuit of the end of the chapter.
He might be very very clever, but he's not very very concise.
Bits of the book seem excellent (if a little obvious - discipline your child, parent it instead of befriending it and you'll have a nicer better adjusted child. No s
t Sherlock! Yes, clearly some people really would benefit from this advice, but none that will actually read this book). But a lot of it is really hard going.
So far I'd hesitate to recommend it. Still, only half way through, maybe it'll get better.
Shame because in front of the camera or the class he comes across so well. It's almost like he had too much time and over-wrote it.
Really struggling here also.Oh my god. The world is terrible, life is suffering, everyone is evil, you must give up on pleasures, defer gratification and dedicate your life to The Good Cause. Mix in a million biblical references and stir. After reading what appeared to be the same thing over and over and over I ended up skipping about 2,000 pages, stopping occasionally just to check whether the narrative had changed. Otherwise I'd have had to write off the rest of this decade and most of the next in pursuit of the end of the chapter.
He might be very very clever, but he's not very very concise.
Bits of the book seem excellent (if a little obvious - discipline your child, parent it instead of befriending it and you'll have a nicer better adjusted child. No s
t Sherlock! Yes, clearly some people really would benefit from this advice, but none that will actually read this book). But a lot of it is really hard going. So far I'd hesitate to recommend it. Still, only half way through, maybe it'll get better.
Shame because in front of the camera or the class he comes across so well. It's almost like he had too much time and over-wrote it.
Like many great minds, they are better when interacting with another person through interviews, etc.
Goaty Bill 2 said:
Peterson has said that many 'older' people, by which I am assuming he means people nearer his/my generation, say they haven't so much learned something new, as having found the means to better articulate the ideas they have long held and taken for granted.
For a younger generation there may well be much more to learn from it, or at least encourage them to question and think.
That's pretty much where I am with it - I agree it could have been a little more snappy but it sort of ordered my thoughts and there were a few light bulb moments when he puts his finger on something that was already there but otherwise eluded articulation. Nonetheless I found it thought provoking and yes, it gave many other avenues to explore as well, I think Lila was the last book I read that did this. For a younger generation there may well be much more to learn from it, or at least encourage them to question and think.
Being 'older people' myself and having two sons, 18 and 15, it's been an apt, useful and positive read - it's nice to see grumpy pragmatism lofted up on pillars of intellect
I'm unimpressed with him and I can't see why so many people seem to think that hes so great.
I'm not alone...
https://wonkette.com/633856/wonksplainer-who-is-jo...
I'm not alone...
https://wonkette.com/633856/wonksplainer-who-is-jo...
TooLateForAName said:
I'm unimpressed with him and I can't see why so many people seem to think that hes so great.
I'm not alone...
https://wonkette.com/633856/wonksplainer-who-is-jo...
Because some of us are allowed our own tastes and opinions, perhaps?I'm not alone...
https://wonkette.com/633856/wonksplainer-who-is-jo...
My admiration for him stems not from his writing, nor necessarily his lectures and speeches, but his willingness to confront the Academy's own intellectual and ideological orthodoxies. Unless you are an academic, it's difficult to imagine the risks that course of action implies.
PS that article you linked was abysmal. It did not engage with a single one of his intellectual positions in any meaningful sense. If the sum total of the author's critique of Peterson's take on postmodernism was simply to say 'that's not postmodernism' without offering a credible alternative, then there's no value whatsoever to their ramblings. Just the defensive warblings of someone whose cherished orthodoxies and worldview are being wonderfully dismantled by Peterson, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray, Brett and Eric Weinstein, Heather Heyer, Jonathan Heidt, Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Somers, Roger Scruton et al
Joey Ramone said:
PS that article you linked was abysmal. It did not engage with a single one of his intellectual positions in any meaningful sense. If the sum total of the author's critique of Peterson's take on postmodernism was simply to say 'that's not postmodernism' without offering a credible alternative, then there's no value whatsoever to their ramblings. Just the defensive warblings of someone whose cherished orthodoxies and worldview are being wonderfully dismantled by Peterson, Sam Harris, Douglas Murray, Brett and Eric Weinstein, Heather Heyer, Jonathan Heidt, Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Somers, Roger Scruton et al
If we are going to have a pop at postmodernism in a book thread, we mustn't exclude Steven Hicks and his excellent works Explaining Postmodernism (also Nietzsche and the Nazis).As Peterson and Hicks are pretty much in alignment in their understanding of postmodernism, and Hicks is a recognised expert on the subject, then it would suggest that Peterson probably knows a good deal more about the subject than the author of the article.
I have to agree with your take on that article. The author claims to have taken two whole days to understand Jordan Peterson. Really?
That would be nearly as foolish as reading half of Crime and Punishment and suggesting that one 'understood' Dostoevsky.
It was nothing more than a tirade meant to be read and appreciated by people coming to the article with that particular bias already ingrained, never mind the inaccuracies.
Joey Ramone said:
Pretty much every critical blog/comment/Op Ed on Peterson is a poorly articulated, misrepresentative, half arsed hatchet job. Which is a crying shame because he would be the first to argue that a skilful deconstruction of his arguments would force him to improve them.
If only that were true...He comes out with all sorts of total b
ks that is slapped down by actual experts. See for example PZ on his lobster stuff.And from that article, which covers quite a bit of his b
ks you choose to pick up and quibble over 'postmodernism'.What was the first rule again?
linky said said:
The First Rule Of Jordan Peterson Club Is No One Is Allowed To Criticize Jordan Peterson
TooLateForAName said:
Joey Ramone said:
Pretty much every critical blog/comment/Op Ed on Peterson is a poorly articulated, misrepresentative, half arsed hatchet job. Which is a crying shame because he would be the first to argue that a skilful deconstruction of his arguments would force him to improve them.
If only that were true...He comes out with all sorts of total b
ks that is slapped down by actual experts. See for example PZ on his lobster stuff.And from that article, which covers quite a bit of his b
ks you choose to pick up and quibble over 'postmodernism'.What was the first rule again?
linky said said:
The First Rule Of Jordan Peterson Club Is No One Is Allowed To Criticize Jordan Peterson
The problem comes when that criticism is piss poor. PZ Myers was trounced on Reddit for his weak attack on Peterson's use of Lobsters as an analogy for human hierarchies.
https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/7...
What people forget is that despite penning a user friendly self help manual in the form of his latest book, Peterson the academic has a genuinely formidable H index score of about 50, a figure that he accumulated well before he gained his present notoriety. He is a top class clinical psychologist
I don't agree with everything he says, but his detractors are generally weak intellects by comparison.
A well written article I thought - http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/...
Shock horror, a fellow Canadian academic doesn't like Jordan Peterson. He can get in line behind the other eleventy billion paranoid leftist social justice warriors that populate Canadian universities and who also despise him. Some, notoriously, even appear to think he's a sort of Hitler figure. Go watch the Wilfred Laurier University farrago - it's all over YouTube - when a teaching assistant at that institution was threatened by University Staff (Professor Nathan Rambukkana being the most prominent of them) for showing a 5 minute clip of an interview that Peterson was part of to her students. Unfortunately for Rambukkana his poor victim secretly recorded the subsequent 1 hour inquisition that reduced her to tears, and he was forced into a grovelling and very public retreat.
As I stated above, I pay little heed to Peterson's pronouncements on a variety of issues. I simply don't have the time. I certainly have no intention of reading his latest book as I'm in no need of it. What I consider invaluable about him, however, and as someone who works within the university system, is his willingness to say the things that the rest of us are simply too terrified say for fear of being denied promotion or even potentially losing our jobs. As someone who was FORCED to undergo three hours of mandatory Unconscious Bias training with the threat of unspecified punishment hanging over me if I didn't, his absolute refusal to do the same, and his superb deconstruction of the entire premise behind the whole UB push by the universities, was inspiring.
And the terrifying thing about the whole Peterson furore? As previous article said, 'Anyone who listens to Peterson’s actual words without the intent of discovering in them the horrors they already believe that they will find there—i.e., without letting confirmation bias guide them by the nose—will discover that, in fact, his thinking on most discrete problems nearly always bends toward moderation'
As I stated above, I pay little heed to Peterson's pronouncements on a variety of issues. I simply don't have the time. I certainly have no intention of reading his latest book as I'm in no need of it. What I consider invaluable about him, however, and as someone who works within the university system, is his willingness to say the things that the rest of us are simply too terrified say for fear of being denied promotion or even potentially losing our jobs. As someone who was FORCED to undergo three hours of mandatory Unconscious Bias training with the threat of unspecified punishment hanging over me if I didn't, his absolute refusal to do the same, and his superb deconstruction of the entire premise behind the whole UB push by the universities, was inspiring.
And the terrifying thing about the whole Peterson furore? As previous article said, 'Anyone who listens to Peterson’s actual words without the intent of discovering in them the horrors they already believe that they will find there—i.e., without letting confirmation bias guide them by the nose—will discover that, in fact, his thinking on most discrete problems nearly always bends toward moderation'
FredClogs said:
Just listened to Peterson on Russel Brands under the skin podcast...
I wouldn't recommend it to a mate but as its you lot... Knock yourselves out.
Well, as we're commenting on the videos...I wouldn't recommend it to a mate but as its you lot... Knock yourselves out.
Jordan Peterson - Full Address and Q&A - Oxford Union - YouTube
I thought he was in good form on this one.
He also recently appeared on Hardtalk with Stephen Sackur.
Nothing feisty or new, just an opportunity for Peterson to express his views when politely challenged on his ideas and the reasoning behind them.
FredClogs said:
Just listened to Peterson on Russel Brands under the skin podcast...
I wouldn't recommend it to a mate but as its you lot... Knock yourselves out.
I would offer joe rogan (3hr) or Dave rubin (1hr) podcasts as a better introduction to Peterson than whatever bandwagon brands trying to chase this week.I wouldn't recommend it to a mate but as its you lot... Knock yourselves out.
Gassing Station | Books and Literature | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff