12 Rules for Life

Peterson is like an Old Testament fire & brimstone preacher, masquerading as a modern psychologist. So only a few thousand years out of date with his worldview. Having said that he occasionally does have a useful thought. I liked the chapter heading of “treat yourself as someone you are responsible for helping”. Great idea. But he gets lost in the poetry of his preaching and like most of the bible ends up with some great rules to live by but fuck all insight on how to put them into action. This book is a recontemporised set of commandments with accompanying sermon but notwithstanding he is so old skool he forgets that the devil is in the details.

Walking around B&N I noticed this book and thought I'd check it out from the library and give it a read. The “12 Rules” have a much different tone than books I usually read which got me interested. Things like “Don't bother kids when they're skateboarding” and “pet a cat when you encounter one”. What I didn't realize was just how religious it was! In every chapter somehow the story is turned back to The Bible. It was during this book that I realized that using Libby I could skip chapters. That worked great for this book where skipping would just fast forward to the next rule.

J'étais tombé par hasard sur ce livre lors d'une visite dans une librairie anglaise et la couverture m'avait intriguée. La lecture fut laborieuse, principalement car le style de Peterson est extrêmement dense et qu'il faut lui laisser pas mal de temps pour voir exactement où il veut en venir. Le livre est rempli de rappels à la bible, tout en ne se transformant pas non plus en plaidoyer chrétien, au contraire il m'a donné à redécouvrir certains textes sous un autre angle et à mieux les comprendre.

Ces 12 règles sont effectivement importantes, et très bien pensées. Très loin d'être un livre de “self-help”, ce livre est une profonde réflexion philosophique sur notre place et notre impact dans le monde mais aussi sur la portée de nos actes. Si le personnage de Peterson a pu paraitre très sulfureux à travers plusieurs articles (principalement parce qu'il s'attaque aux chaires post-moderniste qu'il désapprouve totalement), j'ai pu découvrir un personnage posé, calme et profondément humain à travers ces nombreuses pages et j'en retire énormément. Un bon voyage, mais un voyage exigeant.

“You need to determine how to act toward yourself so that you are most likely to become and to stay a good person.”

More like 3.5 stars.
I used to find Jordan Peterson's arguments coherent before I read this book. Having read it, I realize he isn't beyond criticism either. Many new ideas, some worth pondering, others probably not.

Some things in this book resonated with me and others just seemed to biblical for my taste. Nevertheless it's great writing. His life's story near the end raises my respect for the writer a lot. If you are a father you will appreciate it.

I fully expected to give this book five stars. I saw rave reviews for this author's other work. I read the twelve rules and they sounded sufficiently serendipitous. What went wrong?

I think I'm not the best audience for this book. Peterson works with people who are deeply troubled in his job as a psychoanalyst, and perhaps these people need some strong rules to avert chaos. I'm not deeply troubled, and I like a little gentle chaos in my life. I'm pretty sure than others who find life confusing and intensely difficult would love to pull these ideas into their mindsets and allow their boats to stop tipping over.

God, I wanted to like this book!

But it's just ramblings about a topic using smart sounding facts and ideas which doesn't make real sense. I thought that it was just my impression form his lectures, the book, with structure where it's better seen what point he is trying to make, will be better. Wrong! “There is A and it's connected with B that's why C” is the style of logic there. Oh, and drop the ANY science or psychology doctor ideas regarding this book. It's self help. And even some self help books by not-a-professor-who-once-was-in-the-Harward people contain more science, more precise science and more up to date science! Might make some interesting ideas along the way but mostly just huge disappointment. Maybe will try to finish later, but probably not, not worth it. I regret that I bought the book.

/audiobook. His voice is annoying but style engaging and passionate. Might explain his popularity.