Jordan B. Peterson’s book ‘12 Rules for Life / an antidote to chaos’ is a letdown.
“Criticism made obsolete by lack of content to criticize.”
“Criticism made obsolete by lack of content to criticize.”
A modest review.
There’s been quite a bit of hoo-ha as of late surrounding dr. Jordan B. Peterson, a Canadian professor of psychology and a clinical psychologist. I’ve bought the above mentioned book riding the wave of hype and I feel cheated. If people are gonna hurl ‘Nihilist! Nihilist!’ for speaking my mind in a negative yet justified manner about their saint, all the better. Makes it easier to ignore their comments: the subtitle of this post is meant for them.
Let’s get the following out of the way. I criticize Jordan Peterson not because I disagree so much with the things he says – I criticize his book in particular... for the sake of my own amusement, and because, in my opinion, I found it a waste of money that offered me nothing more than a rerun of Petersons YouTube video’s transcribed to paper – but shortened, less insightful, at times even erroneous. If you want to get to know the man, watch his video’s and then you can decide in honesty whether you disagree with him or not. On the basis of this book, and solely on the basis of this book, I cannot say Peterson would make a positive first impression on me.
For this post I’ve plundered source material from all thinkable places. Forums I lurk, books, magazine articles, chit chat with friends, even in-game comments. It was a disconnected mess when I started and it took some time and effort to tie it all together. English is not my first language: pointing out grammatical errors isn’t something that keeps me awake at night. My credentials are probably as irrelevant as yours when it comes to reviewing non-fiction books. Honesty prevails. The only tools at my disposal are: 1.) Reading comprehension skills; 2.) A healthy dose of common sense; 3.) A sharp eye and finally 4.) Some knowledge of the books dr. Peterson often refers to. There’s no chronology or a set methodology by which I critique; the only rule of thumb I’ve held on to is: if I don’t know anything about it I won’t say anything about it; stated differently, I suspend judgement on anything I know nothing about or too little to add something meaningful – but don’t take silence for ignorance. Most of the time I couldn’t be bothered going through an entire argument to snuff out errors. Nor do I believe my own review is free of faults; things tend to fall through the cracks without notice. If someone thinks I’m too harsh on Peterson, well, a man of his reputation should be able to handle the criticism of an anonymous internet critter. I’ve grabbed what I noticed on first reading, which is anything but a thorough reading, and the result is the glorious chaos that really starts below...
Let’s begin with something easy enough: the nonchalance with which Peterson reads and regards Friedrich Nietzsche, and especially the Nietzsche of the post-Zarathustra period: 1883/4-1889. The way he (willfully?) omits Nietzsche’s political thought. Which is indeed quite ‘totalitarian’ by today’s standards; an anachronism to be sure, but ‘totalitarian’ does cover the present-day content of Nietzsche’s message in current terms fair enough. Though there are many bad studies out there which discolor and disfigure Nietzsche in light of Nazi horror, many do contain a grain of truth. It is clear that Nietzsche’s ‘proto-existentialism’ and his political project are two sides of the same coin: life affirmation. Separating them would fall back to interpretation, not a truthful picture of his philosophical undertaking. Spoken in strictly nietzschean terms, if you say yes to life you imply you will also say yes to the radical political vision it entails. For a man thoroughly committed to freedom, Petersons apathy towards ‘Nietzsche’s Nietzsche’ – how the man saw himself and the future – is difficult to square with his own objectives. Nietzsche’s thinking does form a quite coherent whole, even if it lacks a systematic framework, and cherry picking the things you appreciate and ignoring more uncomfortable aspects is intellectually dishonest in my view – only if you fail to mention them.
The length of Twelve Rules for Life is a bit of a puzzle. At 368 pages (excluding the two preambles, acknowledgment, endnotes and index) it’s quite a hefty tome considering we’re only discussing twelve rules: ~30 pages per rule. I am not going to engage in a debate whether everything in any book must be equally necessary – every reader’s different and what is obvious to you is something I might be oblivious of. Striking a perfect balance between ‘(self)educated’ and ‘academic’ is a difficult – not to say – impossible task. Peterson’s style is in my opinion too simplistic for the sort of message he seeks to convey. I don’t suspect he looks down on an average reader but I find it hard to believe language such as “Up yours Daddy-O – that was his philosophy” on p. 125 couldn’t have been avoided. Granted, this makes for lighter reading, but carries the risk of muddling the mixture, when an author decides to add popular slang that makes you ask: what sort of book is this? Something that really gives me the jitters are what you might call corny gags – and that includes the illustrations. The illustrations center on two kids who do stuff – and for a man adamant in calling people by one of two genders one of the kids is at times freakishly non-binary genderfluid, or the artist doesn’t really understand anatomy or facial expression or whatever. I won’t put down a book because of illustrations – there’s nothing childish about adding images to a book. Even poor illustrations can be an addition, as long as they serve a purpose. In this book the illustrations add nothing. On p. 66 we see a drawing of the boy-child who looks at a gargantuan statue. Rule 3 goes as follows: “Make friends with people who want the best for you”. I’m sure wannabe Hercules would make a great pal in times of need but what does it add?
Speaking of useless additions, see page xxix – Peterson’s ‘Overture’, we are treated to a smiley at the end of a paragraph: :), and another on p. 31. I do not know why an editor would let such popular symbolism slip. Same goes for the cringiest of puns, on p 1.: “Lobsters have more in common with you than you might think (particularly when you are feeling crabby – ha ha).” Light comedic relief or a serious discussion? Getting the humor/seriousness balance right is even harder than hitting the proper intellectual chord, and in this regard Peterson would’ve done better to just drop it altogether. If you pretend this book is an antidote to chaos, humor is difficult to place – or even out of place. To take it up a notch, if you believe the future of Western Civilization writ large hangs in the balance – and this book might help people find their way back into it, corny jokes aren’t appropriate. An emperor who dresses like a beggar doesn’t inspire awe. Die Botschaft hör ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube.
On p. xxxi of the Overture we are treated to a curious assumption: “We are not happy, technically speaking, unless we see ourselves progressing – and the very idea of progression implies value.” Let’s pull this apart. Though the first part of the sentence rings true, its such a commonplace it means little if anything. Neither do I understand what can be ‘technical’ about it. On a different level its plain wrong. If you are settled down in a nice suburban McMansion, you have a loving family, drive a secondhand Toyota Camry, you work an inconsequential job that gives you the money you need to spend two weeks a year in all-inclusive holiday resorts, turkey on the table on Christmas Eve – this situation is the epitome of happiness for many. It has a great potential for future stability. People generally don’t like to have their boats rocked – which is, not surprisingly – why most people gradually turn ‘conservative’ as they age; they leave their ‘radical politics’ (if they had any) by the wayside; their student days become something of reminiscence as they settle down with a wife and kids. The reason why is straightforward: bad decisions affect the family unit and the chance of life-changing mistakes lies manifest in radicalism of every sort. I think Peterson conflates ‘progress’ with ‘change’. People value ‘change’ albeit on an abstract scale that does not involve deeply held narratives to be overturned; people welcome ‘progress’ if that means getting a promotion, moving up the social ladder, etc. To put this into a different perspective, Nietzsche aimed not at change but at a major progression of humanity: umwerthung aller werthe, to right all historic wrongs.
The second part of the assumption makes me shudder. Does ‘progression’ (whatever that’s supposed to signify) really imply ‘value’ (idem)? I am sure people will call the invention of the internal combustion engine great progress, but has our environment and our climate ‘progressed’? People will counter this by saying medicine has made great progress, and that is obvious. Here’s the inevitable but: we invented antibiotics to which bacteria are growing resistant, not to mention how much we inject in our livestock just so it won’t fall apart from the conditions they are subjected to. Fact remains, every great ‘progression’ carries a negative aspect. If Peterson were honest he would’ve mentioned the dual edged sword ‘progression’ is... but he didn’t. I know such digressions lie outside the scope of his story, but that’s a poor excuse: he threw it out there so it’s my belief he should take responsibility for backing it up. And he doesn’t.
Though it’s in bad taste to project my opinions onto his motives, I will do so anyways because I can. I guess is its because of his commitment to classical liberalism mixed with a bit of the ol’ late enlightenment that makes him such a firm believer in ‘progression’ an sich. A philosophical position that runs counter to Petersons ideas was given by a highly influential thinker Peterson only mentions in passing – Jean-Jacques Rousseau; pp. 119-20. The barb about how Rousseau left his four of five children at the doorstep of a foundling home is especially classy; this insult is only 240+ years old. Rousseau’s child related snafus aren’t important when discussing his – speculative – anthropology and (political) philosophy; it does matter if you discuss Rousseau’s pedagogy, but Peterson’s not doing that. It’s an ad hom and nothing more. On p. 120, we read ‘noble savage’ in the context of Rousseau. Although the phrase is often associated with him, Rousseau never mentioned it. Instead, Rousseau spoke of a ‘natural man’ to denote man in its primeval state. A factual error. Petersons description of the ‘noble savage’ vis-a-vis Rousseau is flat out wrong – because he confuses noble savage and natural man, two distinct concepts? Quote: “The noble savage Rousseau described, however, was an ideal – an abstraction, archetypical and religious – and not the flesh-and-blood reality he supposed.’’ Wrong on all counts. It was not an ideal, it was certainly not religious, and was only somewhat abstract. Rousseau presented it as a thought experiment: humanity in a state that no longer exists – or perhaps never did exist. (Rousseau held indigenous tribes as ‘savage’, not ‘natural’.) To explicate this point more precisely, see J.-J. Rousseau’s 2nd Discourse, Introduction, ¶7; “Let us begin then by laying facts aside, as they do not affect the question. The investigations we may enter into, in treating this subject, must not be considered as historical truths, but only as mere conditional and hypothetical reasonings, rather calculated to explain the nature of things, than to ascertain their actual origin (...).”
Rousseau created ‘natural man’ to support his thesis that man had become wicked because of civilization; in its ‘natural’ state man is intrinsically good. The most important implication of this assumption is an insight that squares perfectly well with 20th century history: what we hold dear and therefore appreciate the most carries the grain of its own destruction within, because we are insufficiently capable of having a clear grasp of the consequences of what we conceive to be ‘beneficial’. What we cherish will ‘destroy’ us, because we refuse and/or cannot to step ‘outside’ ourselves, and this is a (in part) consequence of the egoism, the self-centered wicked attitude civilization has bestowed upon us. Added to this, I do not understand what a phrase typical of Carl Jung (‘archetypical’) is doing anywhere near Rousseau. This is followed by something incredible: “The mythologically Divine Child permanently inhabits our imagination” in regards to the noble savage, also on p. 120. Not only doesn’t it add anything to Rousseau’s particular 18th century context, it is as anachronistic as it is meaningless.
If Peterson wasn’t occupied with repeating centuries-old insults, he would’ve noticed Rousseau thought that enlightenment progression wasn’t a torch to illuminate a dark pseudo-medieval world but rather striking flints in a gunpowder room. Since Peterson is a history buff, I am confident he can find plenty of examples where Rousseau’s ideas on progress-gone-awry have some truth to them... I’m a generous guy, so here’s some low hanging fruit. With a little mental creativity Nazi Germany can be described as a welfare state gone insanely wrong. The Nazis were such lovers of humanity they sacrificed their own humanity to rid the world of anti-humanism, so that humankind may truly awaken and live in Utopian peace forevermore... Sounds like that one thing Bertolt Brecht once wrote: “To make the world a nicer place, we couldn’t be nice ourselves” (I forgot where I read that.) Wonderful progress indeed, as long as you paint ‘progress’ in such broad petersonian strokes, I will cheerfully admit progress implies a priori value. Just don’t bother calculating the costs. Peterson may be offering a piecemeal appreciation of progress, one might say to counter my point. I invite that critic to look at the circumstance: Peterson throws it out there as blunt as can be. Progress implies value – strictly conditional. If people think I am overreacting to a simple datum, I object: such simplifications are so bad, they’re ‘not even wrong’ and must be called out at every occasion.
Let’s have a look at two of Petersons heroes, Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevski. While it is well known that these two (and Kierkegaard to a certain extent) share similar ideas, I wouldn’t say their intentions are similar. Nietzsche was a self-proclaimed anti-christ; he wanted to upset world ethics as practiced since the time of Socrates and morality since slave morality became the norm. Because, according to Nietzsche, that’s when everything went to hell. (Remember, according to Nietzsche Christianity was ‘platonism for the people’.) Kierkegaard held a high opinion of Socrates and, simplifying things a bit, was somewhat of an “anarchist” Christian (perhaps a bit like Tolstoy?) who rejected the Danish state church, including his last rites, and so to say held the Christian God to be a personal ‘item of lifelong interest’. Dostoyevski was also a Christian but of the Russian orthodox variety. He was also a pan-slavist (Nietzsche was an anti-nationalist), Dostoyevski wasn’t particularly fond of Jews (Nietzsche called himself an anti-anti-semite) and I haven’t even started on the many differences in terms of context, intention, etc. that pervades their literary productions. All this is readily known yet we are treated to the following strangeness on p. 192: “For Nietzsche and Dostoeskvy alike, freedom – even the ability to act – requires constraint.” Nietzsche rejected human freedom of will and the existence of a set-in-stone ‘I’. Dostoyevski would have none of that because of his Christianity; immortality of the soul and all that. If Dostoyevski said so, it was part of a plot, a literary device or some stylistically justified inclusion – his personality plus religious convictions didn’t allow him to entertain such thoughts seriously. So, while the statement is true at face value (and a truism at that), the reasons why Nietzsche and Dostoyevski held these opinions can only be found on a deeper level – the level that matters. There the differences become apparent to such a degree, I feel justified to say, that it is hard to maintain that Dostoyevski and Nietzsche voiced similar ideas except on the surface i.e. textual level. Their conclusions to similar problems (‘will to power’, ‘resentment’, etc.) are miles apart just like their motivations. Whenever similar topics are discussed by different authors from different backgrounds in similar era’s, one must never forget to look beyond the veil by asking: who says it? Why does someone say it? What are his/her motives? etc. etc. If Peterson asked himself these questions – and I hope he did – why didn’t he mention so in the book? We’re beginning to see a pattern developing...
Logical inconsistencies grind my gears. On p. 237 we read the following: – in that very paragraph there are 14 sentences, of which 10 start with the word ‘You’ – “You don’t form a comprehensive, objective record. You can’t. You’re not object, either. You’re alive. You’re subjective. You have vested interests (...)” which, given the context, is meant in an edifying manner. Compare this to p. 311: – here Peterson is attacking Jacques Derrida’s philosophy which (supposedly? I’m not that familiar with Derrida) denies the existence of ‘facts outside the text’ and that everything is simply put a power relation – “There are no facts” only this time subjectivity is a bad thing. Quite a subjective statement. And you know who also said: “Nein, gerade Tatsachen gibt es nicht, nur Interpretationen. Wir können kein Faktum ,an sich’feststellen: vielleicht ist es ein Unsinn, so etwas zu wollen. ,Es ist alles subjektiv’ sagt ihr: aber schon das ist Auslegung, das ,Subjekt’ ist nichts Gegebenes, sondern etwas Hinzu-Erdichtetes, Dahinter-Gestecktes.” If you don’t know any German, here’s something to help you out. ‘Tatsachen’ are ‘facts’; ‘gibt est nicht’ means ‘do not exist’ and ‘nur Interpretationen’ means ‘only interpretations’. Hint: one of Petersons heroes wrote it. Another piece to the emerging bigger picture..?
But someone might attack my critique by saying that we’re dealing with a contextual difference... Close, but no cigar. Peterson mentions it as part of a historical perspective vis-a-vis individuality and Derrida’s statement covers the ‘meta’ sphere, so to say, – and that includes every ‘you’ as the result of a historical process. At least in part Derrida appears correct from Petersons point of view yet Derrida heavily censured for saying so. If Petersons edifying remark about ‘you’ is true then how can Derrida’s statement which covers the same subject – any ‘you’ out there – albeit from a greater distance, be not-true?
I could go on for a lot longer and maybe that’s something for a second installment. For the time being I think the preceding comments suffice to say that Peterson treats facts as flexible units of account to suit his narrative and discards counterpoints whenever the goings get tough. But that is, perhaps, too harsh on him: the book reads as if it was written in great haste and a publisher who wanted to strike the iron while it’s hot. Maybe Peterson didn’t have time to check up his sources thoroughly due to time constraints – an acceptable explanation; let’s see if it holds water. A crucial lead is offered on the info page: all copyrights are dated 2018. The book was officially released on January 16, 2018: that is our terminus ante quem. Perhaps we can deduce a reasonable terminus post quem from the text. Lets try. On p. xxvi of the Overture Peterson writes: “A few months earlier, in March 2012, I had received an email from a literary agent.” This was in response to a radio interview done on CBC radio, which was about a post he made on Quora “in 2012”. We’re in limbo for a bit, and then on p. xvvii we read: “In 2013, observing the rise of YouTube (...)” and the very next sentence reads: “They [the youtube lectures] attracted an increasingly large audience – more than a million views by April 2016.” And we’re in date limbo again – until page p. xxxiv: “I’ve been editing that remainder, (...) for the past three years.” Three years? Or six? The process of publishing a book (excluding the time it took to write it) can take from anywhere between 3 months for a short book up to over a year for larger publications. At 444 pages total (including both preambles, running text, index, notes, acknowledgment etc.) this is by no means a short book; it’s a work of non-fiction and that requires quite a bit of extra work: fact checking, sourcing quotes, etc. Consider also marketing, editing, lay-out, correction of proofs, illustrations, etc. etc., so I think that 6 months of post-writing work for Petersons book is a very conservative estimate. In the early summer of 2017 Peterson may have finished the bare bones manuscript and then it went to the publisher Random House Canada for everything needed to be done to turn the manuscript into a book. If we accept “three years”, Peterson must’ve started writing somewhere in the middle of 2014. As he mentions, he started making first use of YouTube in 2013: his channel lists March 30 as the first upload. Given that he’s a busy man with all sorts of commitments outside of writing, even so, if we take three years (instead of six), that’s not what I’d call short notice; six makes the question even more pressing. My issue is: three years plus at the very least six months of post-writing work, gives us a book that contains enough factually incorrect statements that should raise an eyebrow here and there, but so far the lines are etched in marble: leftwing despises it as the work of an alt-right clown, the right adores it as a voice of reason in a desert of postmodern trauma. What his detractors say, I'll let that speak for itself. The silence of his supporters hoewever, I find concerning. Maybe Peterssons supporters either don’t see the glaring mistakes... or perhaps they do, but came to believe that it matters little on the grand scale of things. Factuality always matters. And just for the hell of it, have some more examples why facts matter.
On p. 102 we read: “Religion is instead about proper behavior. It’s about what Plato called “the Good”.” This isn’t wrong on the count of cutting corners; this is flat out factually incorrect. Read Plato’s Republic, see passage 507d ff.
On p. 226: “Live in truth, or live in deceit, face the consequences, and draw your conclusions. This is the “act of faith” whose necessity was insisted upon by the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard.” The great sexually frustrated Dane called it a ‘leap of faith’; if you want details on the leap into the absurd, read Fear and Trembling, especially the chapters A Panegyric Upon Abraham and Preliminary Expectoration.
Sloppy editing. In the Index (p. 398), we see the name “Hurwitz, Gregg” listed under H on p. xxviii, and his book ‘Orphan X’ on pp. xxiii-xxiv as part of that same entry. No mention of him on p. xxviii; nor is there any mention of his book on the cited pages xxiii-xxiv. Hurwitz is mentioned on p. xxix in combination with his book, and only his name appears on p. xxxvi; on p. 402 of the Index we see “Orphan X (Hurwitz)” mentioned again, this time under O, which also references to pp. xxiii-xxiv – where there is nothing.
On p. 177, context doesn’t matter here. “Life is indeed “nasty, brutish and short” as the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes so memorably remarked. But man’s capacity for evil makes it worse.” Let’s see what Hobbes said that Peterson omits: “Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Clearly, Hobbes is speaking of wartime and evil is already part of the package: in that sense evil cannot be layered on top of Hobbes’ vision, that is, a sort-of ‘natural man’ described in his capacity for unfettered evil because all authority has ceased to function; only a ‘Leviathan’ restrains man in its ‘naturalistic’ urge for evil.
Nitpick. On p. 148 we read: “(...), trades his immortal soul to the devil, Mephistopheles.” A common error but an error nonetheless. Mephistopheles is a classical German(ic) folkdevil, a demon, not Satan personified.
Annoying: the endnotes section also acts as the bibliography.
Commonplaces. On p 1. the reader is treated to a spectacular revelation: “Lobsters live on the ocean floor.” And another on p 3.: “Now, wrens and lobsters are very different.” Never knew that. There’s probably more but I can’t be bothered to search. Something for a rainy Sunday afternoon!
Selective appreciation. On p. 215: “Sigmund Freud, for his part, analogously believed that “repression” contributed in a non-trivial manner to the development of mental illness (…).” Three guesses who helped in part Freuds development of his ideas about ‘repression’... You guessed it: J.-J. Rousseau. Peterson approvingly cites Freud (and does so on plenty of other occasions) but fails to mention the Citoyen de Genève. What did I say about a pattern emerging?..
And there’s likely even more than that. Judgement time; thus the hammer falls. I think this book could’ve have been a lot better if Peterson didn’t fall for quick ‘n witty hyped up intellectualism. A fair point can be made about the things Peterson says about personal responsibility and the like. His twelve rules are interesting on a plain level – and not much deeper than that – and I believe to a certain extent even scientifically justifiable. But all of this falls flat on its face because of all the things mentioned above and then some - things the average reader will likely miss, I must admit - but that doesn't detract from the notion that the reader is (purpusefully?) led astray. Never let facts get in the way of a good story, or so they say. But that deals with fiction and the Twelve Rules pretend to be an accurate portrayal of the real deal; the world we inhabit. There’s a massive disconnect between what passes as historical fact in places and the conclusions derived from it. In some cases, it’s quite harmless, in other cases, well, I can find no other phrase for it than malicious ignorance - whether on purpose or innocently, that’s semantics or bad dialectics, pick your poison. It’s there and it could have been avoided - or not? Would facts obstruct Petersons message? Difficult to say. What is clear, however, is this. Peterson is capable of doing better. One YouTube lecture in particular on Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil shows he can analyze a text to its full extent and deliver fresh insights in the process. On the one hand his book attempts to continue down that road, but on the other hand the book is such light reading the interesting bits are buried under a load of superficiality and poor research – a trait common to every self-help book. Knowing it would sell anyhow, he lowered the bar? Perhaps. It’s true however that blind adoration tends to blind the object of adoration as well: didn’t Nietzsche mention that if you look into the the proverbial abyss, the abyss looks back into you?
No matter how thorough a review is (and I don’t think this review is an addition to a serious criticism of his book) his supporters will believe and will continue to believe. They need to look in the mirror and ask: am I an independent, thinking individual or a numb follower of a university professor I haven’t heard of until a year ago? Though it is hard pressed to accuse Peterson in advance of things that might not even happen, I view blind adoration with great suspicion. A classical liberal like Peterson should do so as well.
Finally, here are two suggestions for images that do cover the content of their respective rules.
10. Be precise in your speech
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
This post is dedicated to my forum friends over at the Greater Dienstad region.
Here's to you Mac, Stevid, Lyras, Yohannes, PA, Greal, Dostanuot Loj, United World Order, Castille de Italia, Palmyrion & all the others!
Here's to you Mac, Stevid, Lyras, Yohannes, PA, Greal, Dostanuot Loj, United World Order, Castille de Italia, Palmyrion & all the others!
