Book Review: 12 Rules for Life: Is it sexist?

     Part two of the second part. Now I want to take on a criticism of 12 Rules for Life, namely that it is sexist. This one was difficult to write, by which I mean I did three complete rewrites and countless revisions of this post. It's a difficult topic, but I hope I have presented it in simple and straightforward terms. 

Is 12 Rules for Life Sexist? 

     A common criticism of 12 Rules for Life is that it is sexist. In fact, this is a general criticism of Peterson's entire worldview. The subtitle of 12 Rules for Life is An Antidote to Chaos. In Peterson's view, as discussed in his book and elsewhere by him, order is masculine and chaos is feminine. 

The state of Order is typically portrayed, symbolically--imaginatively--as masculine. It's the Wise King and the Tyrant, forever bound together, as society is simultaneously structure and oppression. Chaos, by contrast, is . . . the antithesis of symbolically masculine order, [and] it's presented imaginatively as feminine. . . . It's Creation and Destruction, the source of new things and the destination of the dead. [1]

     To many, this particular move reeks of misogyny. Since his book is "an antidote to chaos" he is (it is argued) by extension saying the problem with the world is femininity, and more masculinity is the solution. Peterson has defended himself with, as far as I can tell, the following four points. 1) Both order and chaos are bad in their extremes. Order is not synonymous with good, and chaos is not synonymous with bad. 2) The world (or more precisely the West) is currently suffering from excessive chaos. If the world were suffering from excessive order, he would have written the book to reflect that. 3) Masculine and feminine do not mean men and women. They are psychic categories for understanding the world based upon our gendered experiences of the sexes, not the sexes themselves. 4) The traditional depictions of these psychic categories are the masculine, the feminine, and the child. We are not free to change the record on this. [2]

     I think attacking Peterson on his metaphysical (or rather, meta-psychological) conceptualization of the world is 100% fair, and if that conceptualization of the world is found wanting in its treatment of the genders, then it is fair enough to call it sexist. However, to critique Peterson's theory on the level of "that's sexist" is to stop at the surface level. There are deep problems with Peterson's worldview, and demonstrating those problems cannot be reduced to modern cultural sensibilities, even if those sensibilities are well founded.

     For the moment, let us observe that the imagination of the West is not limited by what Peterson considers to be the traditional representation of order and chaos. There are plenty of counterexamples within our traditions that prove so. Consider this small sampling:

• In his Divine Comedy, Dante is led through the infernal chaos of hell by a man, Virgil, but when he finds himself in the celestial orders of heaven, he is led by a woman, Beatrice.
• In the Cosmographia by Bernardus Silvestris, both order (Noys) and chaos (Silva) are feminine.
• In Greek mythology, the goddesses Eris and Harmonia represent chaos and order (harmony) respectfully. 
• In Roman mythology Concordia and Discordia, both goddesses, represent order and chaos.
• Law and order is captured by the feminine symbolism of Lady Justice, who traces her roots back to the Greek goddesses Themis and Dike. Themis represents the divine order, and her daughters are collectively the Horai: Dike (Justice), Eumonia (Good order), and Eirene (Peace). 
• The feminine depiction of Wisdom in the Bible (in the canonical book of Proverbs and deuterocononical books of Wisdom and Sirach) does not seem to fall in neatly with Peterson's order/chaos theory.

     How Peterson would respond to these counterexamples is something I don't want to speculate on. One could perhaps explain them away. But counterexamples to the side, have we noticed just how antithetical Peterson's view is towards the Christian and Western tradition which has, I would argue, sought to destroy this symbolism? 

     Peterson's source material draws heavily off of Jungian psychology, and in particular it draws from Erich Neumann's book The Great Mother: An Analysis of an Archetype. [3] This book is controversial in many ways, not the least of which is its lack of scientific methodology. In researching this book, I read multiple scholarly book reviews from around the time it was published, and the lack of methodology is the primary observation in all of these.[4]

     What separates the archaeological/anthropological understanding of archetypal myths from the psychoanalytic understanding of these myths is that the former treats myths and goddess worship as a cultural phenomenon that died out. The Great Mother myths are a belief of the past. On the other hand, the psychoanalytic tradition of Jung, Neumann, and Peterson, holds that this gendered (Sky-Father, Earth-Mother,etc.) understanding of the entire universe is built into our collective unconscious. We must view the world as masculine and feminine, not because it is a cultural phenomenon, but because it is founded in the collective unconscious of all people. [5] Thus, Peterson calls masculine order and feminine chaos "the constituent elements of the world as drama." [6]

     But is this symbolism really as inevitable as the Jungian tradition says? I say no. If it is true that chaos has been interpreted in the West as female, and order as male, it is just as true that the West has come to completely reject this symbolism, even if it did not reject other gender norms and customs.

     On a philosophical level, the Greeks began to question their myths. Instead of gendered spirits inhabiting the universe, Pre-Socratic philosophers, like Xenophanes, questioned their myths. [7] Others, like Zeno of Elea (remember Zeno's arrow?), shifted Greek thinking from pondering myths to pondering paradoxes. These are not the same thing. A myth presents the world as a theatrical drama. A paradox keeps the tensions of myth but removes the drama and focuses on pure concepts. Paradoxes have the same force on the human imagination as myth, by that force turns abstract. The masculine and feminine dramatis personae recede into abstraction. The world comes to be understood as concepts.

     Thucydides invented history, offering a way of understanding the world based upon concrete event rather than mythical events. Euclid created geometry, offering a way forward to understand the universe in conceptual, non-mythical, terms. To be granted, none of these developments did away with myth, but slowly they began to offer alternatives to myth. 

     Then Socrates and Plato introduced a whole schema for understanding the world as pure ideas, one which deliberately tries to transcend myth, even if producing its own myths. Among the various ideas laid out by Plato, which I won't delve into, we might consider three. 1) We should reject myths or the mythological understanding of the world. [8] 2) We should reject gender distinctions. [9] 3) We must come to understand the world in terms of the one truth, the true form, not as a drama between opposing forces. [10]

     Finally, when Christianity was coming into its own, building up from the Hebrew traditions, the Christian imagination set out to understand creation ex nihilo. Gone were the myths of father-sky and mother-earth. The "nothing" prior to creation had to really be understood as nothing, not a feminine chaos which God impregnated; God didn't create "in the belly of the celestial woman" as Neumann says [11]. God doesn't encounter genders. He creates genders. God did not create masculine order in a feminine chaos. He spoke order, both male and female, into creation. And so, when Christian theologians talked about the nothing, the void before creation, as Augustine did, it was purely as abstraction, mired in paradoxes like Zeno's to be sure, but not a cosmic feminine force. [12] It was not the personified void or abyss (Chaos is Greek meaning "gap") found in Hesiod's Theogony. [13]

     Having studied a fair amount of Christian existentialism myself, I am tempted to want to start theorizing on this further. However, for the sake of not losing focus, and not getting too bogged down in my own (probably also errant) philosophizing, I will only reemphasize this point. God created the masculine and feminine as part of his order. The Christian tradition squarely rejects dualism, whether in the form of Manicheanism, or in the form of a cosmic drama between the masculine and feminine. 

     Thus, the West, in both philosophy and religion, set out on a tradition of rejecting this very schema that Peterson says is "traditional." What he really means by tradition is primitive paganism. We should not confuse the gender roles present in primitive paganism with the gender roles present in Christianity. Pagan gender roles suppose the masculine order and feminine chaos. Christian roles suppose the order of the masculine and feminine by God, and the subsequent disorder of both by sin. 

     Here, of all places, is a surprising convergence of Biblical Christianity and modern feminism in combating this gendered worldview. In her book The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir relates that the deification of femininity in the Great Mother figure creates an idol of woman. Reflecting almost biblical language in condemning idolatry, she writes, "All the idols made by men are in fact subordinate to him." [14] The Great Mother idol is not a profound discovery of the symbolic feminine, but a testament to women being turned to stone, of becoming like the idol itself. In such an idolatrous world, de Beauvoir writes, "[Woman] remained doomed to immanence, incarnating only the static aspect of society, closed in upon itself." [15]

     A Christian understanding of masculinity and femininity needs to be just as careful not to create idols of the masculine and feminine. These are not the constituent elements of the universe as drama, as Peterson claims. As St. Paul says, our struggle is not one of flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. [16] The Christian worldview does not contain a masculine order and a feminine chaos, but a Godly order and demonic chaos. To elevate the masculine and feminine to these roles is to create idols.

     Coincidentally, this is also the danger Christians can fall into when they adhere so strictly to the "biblical" gender and familial roles that they justify spousal or child abuse in the name of enforcing biblical standards. When you take these roles, such as the subordination of woman to man, and turn them into an idol, you risk real damage. As C.S. Lewis notes, "A woman who accepted as literally her own this extreme self-surrender would be an idolatress offering to a man what belongs only to God. And a man would have to be . . . indeed a blasphemer, if he arrogated to himself, as the mere person he is, [this] sort of sovereignty." [17]

     Humans are created in the image of God. They are not gods themselves. Worshiping an image is idolatry. To understand the world as being a drama between masculine and feminine, order and chaos, is to mistake the image of God for God. Christianity, at its core, cannot accept this.

     So, to those who wish to attack Peterson for his characterization of these cosmic forces, I say go for it! To those who see an ingrained sexism, I say make your critique! Just be sure to dig deep. Lay the ax to the root. Don't offer up mere sentiments. 

     Finally, there will be those who are fine admitting that I am right and that Peterson is wrong on this point. But, it will be argued, this detail has absolutely no effect on his advice. It is just a theory he uses to understand the world. Even if it is wrong, it's not going to perpetuate sexism? His advise doesn't depend on it or create sexist practice. 

     Fortunately, after the second chapter,* most of this talk of masculine order and feminine chaos goes by the wayside. However, I do see problems with his theory that will have real affects on people. Here's the most clear-cut instance in the book where his theory has concrete implications: 

Chaos, the eternal feminine, is also the crushing force of sexual selection. Women are choosy maters. Most men do not meet female human standards. It is for this reason that women on dating sites rate 85% percent of men as below average attractiveness. It is for this reason that we all have twice as many female ancestors as male. It is Woman as Nature who looks at half of all men and says, "NO!" [18] (I have removed parenthetics from this quote.)

     There are three problems with this passage. The first problem here is theoretical. Peterson jumps from the "eternal feminine" to "women" to "female human" to "Woman as Nature" (whatever that is) all in less than a single paragraph. Yet, supposedly he is careful to distinguish between the masculine/feminine dichotomy and the male/female dichotomy. Peterson does not, in fact, keep these ideas separate and distinct.

     The second problem here is anthropological. Is female choosiness really a good explanation for the gap in male vs female lineages? A far better explanation is that we have more female ancestors than male ancestors because the men murdered each other and raped the women. There's a reason 1 out of every 200 men are descended from Genghis Khan, [19] and it wasn't because the ladies were fawning all over him! It was because the other men were dead (you know, from being killed by Genghis Khan), and the women were forced into marriage (or at least forced into bed). I mean, for crying out loud, Kind David in the Bible didn't have a boatload of wives because of female choosiness! He had a boatload of wives because he literally sent their husbands to the front line of the battle to kill them. [20] Female choosiness my eye!

     The third problem is ethical. When you misplace your criticism, you misplace you opportunities for addressing the real problems. Instead of stopping to look at potential problems with online dating sites (the errors and assumptions of the social media platforms that need to be addressed), Peterson puts the focus on women. Is it really women's nature which makes men feel rejected, or is it the dating websites which have been built on false promises and superficiality? And at a data point when Peterson should be examining the violence of men, he places all the onus on the choosiness of women. Another missed opportunity!

     It is no secret that Peterson rejects the notions of toxic masculinity or rape culture. And I'm not asking anyone to accept those concepts. But when your ideology (idolatry) forces you to interpret data in a way that lays the onus on women (even when you insist it's about the "feminine," not women) you close off fields of inquiry that may lead to self-improvement for men; you invalidate the experiences of women whose "No" goes unheeded and for whom men represent chaos; and you validate men who blame women for their problems, when you could be helping them clean their own room. 

     To be absolutely fair to Peterson, I do not think most of his advice is like this. I think most of his advice is fairly good and free from these sexist tinges. However, whenever I see these spots in his work, I roll my eyes and shake my head. I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed. 

________________________________________________________________________

Citations and Footnotes:

[1] 12 Rules for Life, pg. xxviii 

[2]See Peterson reacting to this criticism here and here. 

[3]Peterson recommends reading this book in footnote 37 in 12 Rules for Life.

[4]Reference the following reviews:

• Review by: B. A. L. Cranstone, Man, Vol. 58 (Feb., 1958), pp. 31-32
• Review by: John F. Haskins, The American Scholar, Vol. 25, No. 2 (SPRING, 1956), pp. 248-249
• Review by: Jacques Schnier, College Art Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Autumn, 1956), pp. 78-80
• Review by: Tarmo Pasto, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Sep., 1958), pp. 128-129
• Review by: Robert M. Grant, The Journal of Religion, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Oct., 1956), p. 257
• Review by: Franz Hančar, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vol. 54 (1957), pp. 288-289

[5]Take, for instance, this quote from The Great Mother: 

Statements on the opposite sex become much less questionable when, as in the structural analysis of the Archetypal Feminine, the material on which they are based stems in large part from the collective unconscious. The objectivity of this profound stratum, its imperviousness to human influence, are so great as to leave relatively little room for distortion through the inadequacy of the observer. And this means that even if our interpretation is open to all the objections that can be raised against a subjective view, the abundance of the material presented guarantees at least a relative objectivity. (The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, Erich Neumann, Princeton University Press, pg. 25)

Notice that in this quotation, Neumann states that he has direct access to this Archetypal Feminine through the collective unconscious, which is supposedly objective. As a result, he excuses his own lack of methodology. After all, why do you need method when you have this direct access? This, of course, is circular logic. He is proving that the archetypes exist by his direct knowledge of the archetypes. Then he classifies these archetypes as objectively real and impervious, i.e. we cannot get rid of them. 

[6] 12 Rules for Life, pg. xxvii

[7] Xenophanes questioned the anthropomorphization of the gods. He wittily commented that if horses and oxen had hands to make statues of the gods, their statues would look like horses and oxen. (Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy, 3rd ed. Hackett Publishing Company Inc. 2005, pg.22)

[8] See Plato's Republic, book 3: "And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of morals among the youth." (392a) As correlated with this, Socrates was put to death for heresy and corrupting the youth. In the Republic, the character of Socrates is arguing that orthodoxy is what is corrupting the youth. 

[9] See Plato's Republic book 5, starting at 451c, The character of Socrates argues that men and women have the same nature and therefore should be given the same tasks. 

[10] In Plato's Symposium, he rejects the gender based theory of love, as offered by the comic Aristophanes, and accepts the theory, offered by Socrates, of the transcendent form of love, which Socrates had learned from Diotima.

[11] The Great Mother, pg. 40

[12] See, for example, Augustine's Confessions, book XI, chap. 5:

All these praise Thee, the Creator of all. But how dost Thou make them? How, O God, didst Thou make heaven and earth? Verily, neither in the heaven, nor in the earth, didst Thou make heaven and earth; nor in the air, or waters, seeing these also belong to the heaven and the earth; nor in the whole world didst Thou make the whole world; because there was no place where to make it, before it was made, that it might be. Nor didst Thou hold any thing in Thy hand, whereof to make heaven and earth. For whence shouldest Thou have this, which Thou hadst not made, thereof to make any thing? For what is, but because Thou art? Therefore Thou spokest, and they were made, and in Thy Word Thou madest them.

 

[13] In the Theogony, Chaos (gap) gives birth to the first five gods, Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, and Nyx. The fact that Chaos means gap lends itself to a feminine personification, for reasons that require little imagination. 

[14] The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, Vintage Books Edition, 1989, pg. 73

[15] ibid.

[16] Ephesians 6:12

[17] The Four Loves, in The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis, Inspirational Press, 1987, pg. 268. I have admittedly taken this quote out of context, as Lewis was specifically talking about erotic love and the playfulness of myth surrounding erotic love. However, I believe the meaning remains substantially the same. 

[18] 12 Rules for Life, pg. 41

[19]https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan

[20] Read 2 Samuel 11

* Correction: I originally wrote first chapter.

Book Review: 12 Rules for Life: Is it the answer to relativism and ideology?

     OK, so I have to split the second part into several parts as it is just too long. I am going to still keep my general outline by now discussing some of the praises and criticisms this book has received and discussed whether I think those assessments are accurate. Let's begin with a praise.

Is this book the answer to Relativism and Ideology?

     I want to discuss the praise for this book found in the forward by Norman Doidge. I think that Doidge correctly understands this book is not simply a set of rules. (See part I of my review.) He understands it as a response to the modern day evils of relativism and ideology. What is lacking from modern society, says Doidge, is not simply the rules themselves but the proper analysis that will lead society to finding meaning and purpose in life. Doidge locates this book within the long line of great philosophical works that struggle to find meaning and purpose in uncertain times. He states that Peterson "is doing what reasonable people have always done: he makes no claim that human wisdom begins with himself, but, rather, turns first to his own [rules], . . . the foremost [of which] is that you must take responsibility for yourself." (pg. xxiii)

     I think Doidge's forward is spot on with the scope of the book and with Peterson's approach. Peterson takes his own rules seriously, and I got the impression while going through the book that he has sincerely used these rules to help find meaning in his own life. The sincerity of this book, and the seriousness with which Peterson takes his own rules, truly comes through, especially in audiobook form. This book is full of anecdotes drawn directly from his own life. These anecdotes come across as honest, good faith attempts to document Peterson's own journey. There are tiny bits of hubris in the book, but in all these anecdotes are fitting and sensible. In many ways, what we see is not so much a set of rules, but a memoir of one man who is trying to apply these rules in his own life. 

     Peterson has always struck me as honest, although I sometimes question his positions. (OK, I question his positions a lot.) This book captures his sincerity. The audiobook captures it best. Even some highly critical reviews of this book have noted how honest and forthcoming it is. (Here's one such review by Philosophy Tube.) Doidge is not off base at all to compliment Peterson on this point. And Doidge is right in capturing the scope of the project. The scope goes beyond the rules themselves and delves into the philosophy beneath them, the search for meaning through following the rules by which meaning must be searched out. This is not to say that I feel this task was adequately executed throughout the book, but it was clearly the aim, and for the most part that is what happened.

     So how does Peterson fair in combating relativism and ideology? This is a mixed bag, in part because there are elements in Peterson's own theories that have hints and tinges of ideology and relativism. It's no secret that Peterson is a pragmatist and has claimed to be a pragmatist on many occasions. But one of the distinct features of pragmatism (a feature it is often criticized for) is its subversion of the notion of truth. William James, the quintessential American pragmatist, wrote an entire book in an attempt to redefine how philosophers viewed truth (appropriately entitled The Meaning of Truth). Part of this subversion of truth is extremely similar to relativism. James, for instance, wanted to claim that different religious traditions may be true for different individuals. It comes as no surprise then, for philosophers such as myself, to hear Peterson himself using relativist language. For example:

Truth will not come in the guise of opinions shared by others, as the truth is neither a collection of slogans nor an ideology. It will instead be personal. Your truth is something only you can tell, based as it is on the unique circumstances of your life. Apprehend your personal truth. Communicate it carefully in an articulate manner, to yourself and others. (pg. 230)

      To those who are expecting a spectacular takedown of relativism, this quote may be quite jarring. It is anti-ideological, but it seems to embrace personal relativism. I have my truth, and you have yours. Truth is not envisioned as communal or an outside object that must be assented to. This is the type of language that people who rail against relativism typically criticize. Again, this comes as no surprise to those who have studied pragmatism. But this raises a question: is it really possible to combat both relativism and ideology? 

     I would argue that Peterson's entire project, insofar as it is philosophical, is an attempt to work his way out of the relativism his anti-ideological stance forces him into. Concerned so greatly to avoid the tragedies of collectivism, he is forced into a state of almost extreme individualism, one where truth resides not outwardly in the world but inside the individual's psyche. This is what I find genuinely fascinating about Peterson's philosophy. (See my postscript.) Peterson does have a real philosophical problem on his hands. How do you build a coherent society based on mutual values in the face of truth being grounded not outwardly in the world but deep in the human individual? 

     For Peterson, this is what these rules are about. He thinks and theorizes on Jungian terms that relativism will defeat itself the moment you try to do anything right for yourself. You can't be a believer in chaos if you genuinely care about yourself. By finding your individual meaning within the world, you contribute to the meaning of the whole world. This meaning needs to come from you, but it really adds to the meaning of the whole universe. You need to confront your own chaos. You need to live your meaning. As you do so, the world itself, on an objective level, will move away from relativism. (I recommend watching this short video where Jordan Peterson explains his reaction against relativism.) 

     Many of the rules Peterson offers are there to assist people in creating their own meanings. Even when you think his rules are not about creating your own meaning, he turns them into rules about creating your own meaning. But the question remains, is his philosophy too extreme in its individualism in order to overcome the relativism he rejects? Consider rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't. Initially, you might have thought, as I did, that this chapter was about learning from other people, about building common meaning between one another, about finding the communal aspect of truth. That is a good assumption based on the rule itself. Unfortunately, that is not what this rule is about. Rather, this rule is about letting other people learn from themselves. Let me explain. 

     Much of this chapter is devoted to a story of one of Peterson's clients, a professional women who "thinks" she was raped five times. Peterson discusses how he practiced active listening with this client. Most importantly, he did not tell her whether he thought what she experienced was rape or not. He facilitated her thinking on the matter. Note that the rule says nothing about learning from the other person, it just says assume they know something you don't. In this case, Peterson assumed this client knew something about her own experience that he did not. Peterson was following his rule by letting her talk to herself on the matter. He let her create her own meaning. I have to admit, it took me quite a long time to understand why this story was in this chapter, until I realized that the rule was not about learning from other people. In this very poignant story, the rule was about assuming his client knew something about herself and could tell herself this truth. 

     As the story of Peterson's client demonstrates, this rule, which at face value people interpret as being about learning from other people, turns out to be a rule about letting other people learn about themselves. The communal aspect of truth is not the purpose of this rule. For Peterson, this rule is actually a reinforcement of individualism and the need of letting people discover their own truths. Far from a takedown of individualism and relativism, it enforces a kind of isolation of the psyche. Let other people discover their own truths. Don't tell them what the truth is, because you, as an outside observer, don't have access to the truth. How can you? You need to assume they know something (namely their own truth) which you don't. 

     Now, I'm not saying that Peterson was being a bad therapist with this woman. In fact, he presents very good reasons for why he, and therapists in general, don't tell their clients what to think. People really do have to work things out for themselves. What I am saying is, I fail to see how this overcomes the relativism he rejects. I fail to see how living the rule, as interpreted by Peterson, brings us into communal truth. In fact, this rule reinforces the notion of personal truth over common truth.

     When you read this book, you have to look for these kinds of enigmas. Peterson is not clear, and he often interprets the rules differently than they are used in everyday parlance. My suggestion is, if you cannot understand why any particular story is associated with a particular rule, try to reinterpret the rule in a way where individuals create meaning in their own lives. This is a helpful tip for reading. It may not work in all situations, but I can at least say I found it to work well for chapters 9 and 10, which I went back and reread.

     So, does Peterson's book deserve the praise Doidge gives it? I'll say yes, insofar as Doidge correctly identifies Peterson's project. Peterson is working with a real philosophical problem, and he is trying to confront relativism and ideology with rules for living. I suggest reading the book from this perspective. Is it the be-all and end-all of the discussion? Absolutely not, but Doidge doesn't make that claim. (I sometimes question whether Peterson would.)

     Do I believe Peterson succeeds? I am skeptical. 

     Post Script: a note on Jung

     This problem of personal truth is also why Peterson embraces Jung. Jung advanced the idea of the "collective unconscious." This collective unconscious is supposedly the same for all people. Peterson's overall philosophical project is to say that truth is deep in the human psyche, and therefore you can only find truth within you, not outside you. But since we have a collective unconscious, as you delve deeper into your individual psyche, you are also delving deeper into the the collective unconscious, which is universal. As such, by embracing your individualism, you are actually embracing the universal and communal psyche. The way to the collective is through the individual.

     This is Peterson's philosophical/psychological project. This is truly a fascinating project, and it is the reason I take Peterson as a serious intellectual. However, note that if Peterson's Jungianism fails to meet the occasion, he is left with a deep and fractured individualism, which I would argue can be dangerous in its own terms. It is this individualism that Peterson is often challenged on. However, what many of his critics fail to realize is that if they want to destroy Peterson's theory, they really need to attack his Jungianism, not his individualism. This makes many of his critics ineffective because they do not know how to go about attacking Jungianism. 

Book Review: 12 Rules for Life, part I

     I wrote a long introduction to Jordan Peterson and this book, but I scrapped it. Too long, too boring, too niche. What follows will be part one of a three part review of Peterson's book, 12 Rules for Life. In part I, I will discuss a bird's-eye view of the text, it's general flow, overall success, things I would have liked to see changed. In part II, I want to discuss some of the praises and criticisms this book has received and whether those praises or criticisms are warranted. In part III, I will be offering quick insights about the rules and discussing whether I agree with the individual rules or not as they are expounded in the book. Part III may need to be subdivided depending on the depth I find I need to get into.

Editorial Note: I have since had to split the review into more sections due to length, but the general outline remains the same.

PART I: 12 Rules for Life, a birds-eye view.  

     Take note that the rule most associated with Jordan Peterson,--Clean you damn room!--is not actually in this book. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment of all and I wanted to get it out of the way.

     Peterson's book is separated into distinct chapters, each dedicated to a specific rule. For the uninitiated, the rules are as follows.

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders back.

2. Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

3. Make friends with people who want the best for you.

4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.

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.

7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).

8. Tell the truth--or, at least, don't lie.

9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't.

10. Be precise in your speech.

11. Do not bother children when they are skateboarding.

12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

     In the beginning of the book, Peterson states that originally he had a list of 40 rules for life that he had posted on the online board Quora. He had to narrow down the topics, and eventually he chose 12 to write full length essays for. You can still find his original post on Quora here. (You may have to scroll down a little.) His original list includes items such as: "Do not do things you hate", "Imagine who you could be, and then aim single-mindedly at that", "Ask someone to do you a small favour, so that he or she can ask you to do one in the future", and "Write a letter to the government if you see something that needs fixing -- and propose a solution." 

     Looking over the original list, immediately the book feels incomplete. There is so much more that was left out of the book, and the book may have been very different had he chosen differently. There is something about this list of 40 admonitions that is lost in the book. A rule is usually its strongest when it is stated as a rule. Over my kitchen sink, I placed a sign that says, "No coffee after 4:00 P.M." This is a good rule. It serves a very distinct purpose. It helps remind me to cut off my coffee consumption so that I can sleep better at night. You know what I did not do? I did not write a 2,000 word essay expounding upon this rule. That essay, no matter how well-written and scholarly, would not serve the actual function of the rule. The rule is best stated as a rule and left there. 

     When people see the list of rules Peterson uses in his book, the general reaction is, "Those sound like really good rules. Why would anybody disagree with this book?" But to say that misses the entire point of both the criticism and the book itself. The Rules themselves are good. (Actually, I do flat out disagree with two of the rules, but that's for a later discussion.) But when you expand upon a rule for thousands of words, the character of the rule can become distorted or lost.

     Take the first rule: Stand up straight with your shoulders back. This is a great rule. It is a rule I remind myself of frequently. When I'm feeling sad and depressed, I remind myself to stand up straight with my shoulders back. This is often called a power-pose, and standing in this pose can help improve one's mood. When I'm slouching over my computer, my mind goes to "Sit up straight. Shoulders back." Again, this is a good rule. But do you want to know what I do not need in these moments? A chapter in a book that takes an hour to read where I can learn about lobsters on antidepressants. 

     Now look, I understand that rules should be explained. It's good to know why you should do one thing and not do the other thing. But there comes a point when you exceed the limits of the rule itself and venture into territory outside the scope of explanation. Peterson constantly exceeds these limits. As a result, the book is meandering, full of tangents, and difficult to follow.

     Listening to the audiobook as I did (I bought a physical copy too for reference), I cannot tell you how many times I had to stop the book to look up what the rule was I was supposedly learning about. This is particularly true if I had to stop in the middle of a chapter and then later pick back up where I left off. I'd turn the audiobook back on and Peterson would be talking about about the difference between the Old Testament God and the New Testament God. Wait, what rule am I learning about? I stop and look. Rule 4: "Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today." Well, OK, maybe he'll bring it full circle? A few days later I turn on the audiobook and hear Peterson talking about the crisis a wife goes through when she discovers her husband is having an affair. Wait! What rule is this? Rule 10: "Be precise in your speech." What does this have to do with the rule? I guess he'll eventually bring this full circle. 

      I was in a constant state of hope that Peterson would eventually bring his point full circle. There was no way of picking up in the middle of a chapter without feeling completely lost as to what rule I was supposedly learning about. I was constantly looking forward to the end of the chapter, just so I could see whether he made a point related to the rule. Peterson is in no way direct with this thought process, even if one of his rules is to be direct in your speech.

     Now, to be fair, there are some chapters I felt Peterson did a really good job bringing full circle. Rule seven, for instance, (do what is meaningful, not expedient) does a really good job at this, despite its very long excursion into philosophy, religion, Western civilization, psychology, Nazism, etc., by the end you get a clear picture of what Peterson means by "meaning." Meaning is something you build towards by taking personal responsibility in the purposeful steps you take to alleviate pain inflicted by tyranny. Even if one is a little skeptical of his philosophical interpretation, he does a good job at arriving at a conclusion that directly addresses the rule.

      Other chapters are not so fortunate. I may discuss a few of these in more detail in part III of my review. For now, as an example, rule twelve was particularly unsatisfying. He spends the chapter talking about how rough of a life his daughter has had, how DC comics overpowered Superman, and how Dostoevsky was right when he called the universe unreasonable. And the conclusion of all this is? . . . You should pet a cat when you see one on the street, because life is suffering and you need those little moments of reprieve. But the impression I take away from this chapter is not that life is suffering but that Jordan Peterson's life is suffering. Petting a stray cat helps him. It's unclear why it would help anybody else. 

     You cannot judge this book based upon the rules it uses as chapter headers, which is precisely what many are inclined to do. That original list of 40 rules has been completely lost. The rules no longer have a "rulelike" character. No matter how much you may agree or disagree with a rule that says you should not drink coffee after 4:00 PM, you don't need 2,000 words for me to explain it to you, even if I could write you an amazing essay on the topic (and I could). If I were to write such and essay, no matter how amazing it is, the original rule could very easily get lost in exposition.

     In part II, I will lay out and discuss some of the praises and criticisms directed at this book. As I discussed here, much of this praise or criticism is completely separate from the rules themselves. Long form exposition upon a rule is distinct from an actual rule, and reactions to long form exposition upon a rule are distinct from reactions to that rule. Bear this in mind as we go forward into part II. 

     As for my overall impressions, the book is mixed. There are parts of it that read very well as a physical book, but there are other parts that read very poorly and are best listened to in audiobook form where you can hear Peterson's conversational style come through. (The audiobook is read by Peterson himself.) Reading about lobsters in chapter one is a little off-putting. Listening to Jordan Peterson talk about lobsters, on the other hand, is actually kind of nice. There's a little spark of excitement in his voice about lobsters that oddly enough makes it worthwhile. He is genuinely captivated by the topic. Throughout the audiobook you can hear Peterson's emotional responses to the text, and this gives the audiobook a depth that you will miss in the written material. Passages of the book that I had heard criticized sudden made lots of sense when he read them. The tone really created the meaning, and I think it is this tone that many people who criticize the book miss. 

     Unfortunately, listening to the audiobook exacerbated the problem I described earlier. It was much easier to get lost. I was unable to remember what rule I was even on sometimes. I've had to use the physical book for reference for this reason. I feel that the medium this book is consumed in will influence your opinion. The tone of the audiobook is almost essential to avoid misreadings, but the text is necessary to maintain continuity of thought. The logical connections between topics comes through a lot better in the text.

     All in all, I walked away from this book liking it more than disliking it, and it made me view Peterson in a more favorable light than previously. (I have very mixed feelings about Peterson in general.) I will get into some of the specifics in parts II and III. Ultimately, my feelings remain mixed. This will become most clear in part III when I discuss the individual rules and expositions I agree with and disagree with. 

Home Schooling in the Era of Covid-19: Part 2--Experiences do not automatically make memories.

      I do not perform on my guitar very often, but when I do, I have to practice and memorize my pieces. This is hard work, but also lots of fun. The key to memorization is to exercise your recall. You will not memorize a piece of music if you keep looking at the music book. You have to intentionally look away from the music, try to play it without looking at the music, play till you make a mistake, try to see if you can correct the mistake without looking, and then, only after you have tried to correct the mistake without looking, you can finally take a look back at your sheet music and see if you corrected it correctly. Then just play that one little part that you messed up a few times to reinforce the correct way, then repeat the process. The key is, exercise memory recall.

     You see, memorization is not about absorbing material into your brain; it is about pulling material out of your brain. Memories are not created by your experiences. They are created by your trying to remember your experiences. An experience is something that merely happens to you. A memory is something that you make. Experiences are passive (as far as your brain goes). Memories are active. When do I know I have a guitar piece memorized? You might think it is when I have played through the entire piece from memory that I have it memorized. But this is not so. I know I have the piece memorized when I can recall exactly how I played through the piece from memory. Does that make sense? You see, sometimes playing it through by memory is a fluke, a product of "muscle memory" like when you find yourself driving a car only to realize that you have no memory of driving the last 30 miles. If you played through a piece "by memory" but do not remember how you did it, you do not have the piece memorized. You need to both play it from memory and remember how you played it from memory.

     This principle of activating memory is one of the key features of education, and I use it entirely to my advantage and my kids' advantage as well. Two summers ago, I took Byron on a trip to New York City. This was a big trip. I was a nervous wreck for one, because I can't navigate well to begin with, so having to navigate while not losing my then 6 year old child is even more daunting. I wanted Byron to remember this trip, if for no other reason than I might not have the stamina for this again for a long time. But here's the thing, the trip was merely an experience, a thing that happened. By themselves, experiences do not make memories. No, I had to get him to remember this trip.

     So ever since that trip, I have made it a point to occasionally ask Byron about it. "Byron, do you remember where we went to in New York City?" I give him little reminders, little ideas. I gradually nudge his memory because memory is fickle. I quiz him. I correct mistake he makes about the trip details. One of the last times I asked Byron about our New York City trip, he said we went to the museum with an aquarium. This is understandable. The room we were in was very much like an aquarium. He remembered the blue light that enveloped the room. (Or was it more a green light?) It felt like we were in a glass dome under the water surrounded by a magnificent glow. . . . except we didn't go to an aquarium. We went to the planetarium and saw a show about space. So I had to correct him. You see, memories morph and change. They need to be reinforced and corrected. And no, your child will not remember things just because those events were "special" and they would surely never forget. They will, because memory will alter with time. Don't believe me?

     After September 11, 2001, a group of researchers sprang into action to test our memories of highly emotional events. This may seem cold-blooded of researchers to use a national tragedy as a research opportunity, but their findings were extremely insightful. The researchers had 3,000 participants complete a survey within a matter of days after 9/11, when the event was still fresh and people's memories were newly formed. They were asked questions like "How did you first learn about it (what was the source of the information)?" and "Who was the first person with whom you communicated about the attack?" etc. After a year, they had the participants take the same survey, then again at three years, and lastly at ten years. Every time they conducted the survey, they compared the survey results against the original survey results to see how much their memories had changed since the initial survey.

     Most of us who remember 9/11 would swear we remember exactly where we were, who we were with, how we felt, whom we talked to, etc. (I was in a Spanish class at Oneonta Community Christian School. I remember the principal gathering everybody into the cafeteria and saying a prayer. At the time nobody knew it was a terrorist attack. Honestly, I don't remember how I felt at the time at that precise moment.) What the researchers discovered was that within the first year after the event, these types of memories (which are called flashbulb memories, by the way) had altered significantly, even though people remained extremely confident in their memory. The answers on the survey after one year where only 63% consistent with how people had initially responded. After three years, that number dropped a little lower to only 57%. After ten years, the consistency actually rose slightly, but insignificantly. 

     What does all this mean? It means precisely what I said above. Do not assume that an experience creates a memory (at least, don't assume it creates an accurate memory). Having the experience of playing through a guitar piece without looking at the music does not automatically translate into having it memorized. Having a great trip to New York City does not automatically mean Byron will remember the details very well. Having a vivid and confident memory of 9/11 does not necessarily translated into having accurate memories of 9/11.

     As you experience this lock-down with your children, do not assume that their memories of this time will make themselves. Do not assume things like:"This is so far out of the ordinary! All this time off from school! Our kids will have memories of this time!" Nope. Bad assumption. Experiences do not create memories. Memories have to be curated, like artwork in a museum. The experience needs to be prepped, polished, put into the proper light. And then you have to do the additional work of getting your child to remember. 

How do you curate memory? More on that in my next segment on homeschooling during COVID-19.