Jodan B. Peterson's most recent book has garnered a fair amount of controversy. I found some good, some bad, and some ugly parts. There is a fair amount in here I don't understand from a psychoanalytical perspective. Even when I agree on the rule, I don't always agree with how he arrived at it. There seems to be a fair amount of hand-waving and he does not support many of his claims with any science. (Or at least I'm not convinced by the support he does pull in). That said, I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Key Takeaways
Memorable Quotes
Rating: 7/10
For its shortcomings, there's a lot of good wisdom in this book, and I learned a fair amount of psychology and history. The tone, however, strikes me as preachy – an "I know more than you, and I want you to know it" tone. As I mentioned before, certain points struck me as unsubstantiated as well. That said, I still think it's worth a read. Encountering viewpoints contrary to our own is a good exercise. It helps us avoid confirmation bias and paint a clearer picture of what's out in the world.
Key Takeaways
- Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back
- Rule 2: Treat yourself like someone you're responsible for helping
- Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you
- Rule 4: Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not who somebody else is today
- Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world
- Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
- Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie
- Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
Memorable Quotes
- To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality (it means acting to please God, in the ancient language).
- So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them—at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.
- We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued. You may therefore have to conduct yourself habitually in a manner that allows you some respect for your own Being—and fair enough. But every person is deeply flawed. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. If that stark fact meant, however, that we had no responsibility to care, for ourselves as much as others, everyone would be brutally punished all the time. That would not be good. That would make the shortcomings of the world, which can make everyone who thinks honestly question the very propriety of the world, worse in every way. That simply cannot be the proper path forward.
- Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being. As the great nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche so brilliantly noted, “He whose life has a why can bear almost any how."
- You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.
- So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.
Rating: 7/10
For its shortcomings, there's a lot of good wisdom in this book, and I learned a fair amount of psychology and history. The tone, however, strikes me as preachy – an "I know more than you, and I want you to know it" tone. As I mentioned before, certain points struck me as unsubstantiated as well. That said, I still think it's worth a read. Encountering viewpoints contrary to our own is a good exercise. It helps us avoid confirmation bias and paint a clearer picture of what's out in the world.
