Introduction
Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a clinical psychologist who specializes in the relationship between psychological and religious beliefs and economic activity. Peterson's work has drawn widespread attention, particularly for his critique of political correctness. Trained as a psychologist, Peterson's research focuses on the psychology of religion and ideological beliefs. He has authored several books and papers on this topic. In 2016, Peterson and his colleague were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology for their research on the links between people's views on economic systems and the thickness of their thigh muscles. Influences cited by Peterson include Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, and literary and philosophical figures such as Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn.
Peterson has deeply engaged with questions of psychological health across numerous popular venues and formats, including his involvement in a series of online lectures that have collectively garnered millions of unique views and almost one million subscribers. These videos have been discussed in several media forums. Today, he is engaging a diverse international audience on various platforms, addressing topics such as the assumptions that drive people's actions, the clearest path to fulfillment, and how humans can awaken themselves to their better nature. His project spans several domains of inquiry including psychology, philosophy, mythology, ethics, religion, politics, and individual fulfillment. While Peterson does not identify as a member of the New Right, he is also not above pandering to them. In '12 Rules for Life', Jordan B. Peterson seeks to offer pragmatic yet profound advice on how to live in a way that affirms the inherent meaning of existence. This bestseller offers common-sense advice, which reflects Peterson's interpretation of existentialism and the mythic, religious substructure of human existence.
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Overview of the 12 Rules for Life
Jordan Peterson wrote a book called 12 Rules for Life in which each chapter is a rule that he has written out. The rules, in a sense, are actually principle-based. They deal with ideas of promoting responsibility, aiming at the transcendental goal of making things better, at least not making them worse, and meeting a moral obligation that takes into account an imperative to better yourself and the world simultaneously. One of the biggest implications of the rules is that although they serve as clichés that ring true, the details in his book are written out by interweaving mythology and religion with psychology because of his own concerns about the line between capitalism and communism. In his book, he outlines his intentions in writing it; discussing life’s learned behaviors and inevitable suffering and chaos, he also acknowledges the difficulties around him in order to arouse awareness and give the reader a grip in a fog of potential despair.
Rule one: Stand up straight with your shoulders back. This rule is about evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and mythological references with psychological data. It all links to the antithetical parts of "Order and Chaos." Is it necessary to "speak the truth" and how the mythology around the lobster is to be seen as significant about oneself and the world? Plus, it is pointed out that the coronavirus is just another antithesis that has been ignored for seasons.
Rule two: Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. This rule is about how you think about and treat yourself. It points to the idea that everyone has a multitude of potential goals in life. There are many goals you could actually pursue. Of these goals, what is the value of the decision of the one you’d pursue in terms of your action?
Key Concepts and Themes
One of the key concepts underlying the twelve rules that compose the narrative's backbone is the tension between order and chaos. At the heart of these struggles is the continual push towards the replacement of present conditions for better ones. Suitably, two further concepts structuring the work are individual responsibility – how one faces and reacts to life's sufferings and miseries – and the fundamentally tragic dimension of life – an ongoing struggle which makes, however, these rules 'not arbitrary'. This struggle finds its parallel in the world of myth, folklore, and religion, which significantly shapes philosophy and psychology – the fields with which the work is concerned – apparently displaying their inextricable interrelations.
The narrative part of the book unfolds from the cosmos down to the individual. In the first part of the work, the first two rules are enacted and explained, touching on the themes developed above. Here, the discussion of the tension between order and chaos is presented along with a series of references to literature and historical events that are to elucidate the abstractions presented. Insofar, the twelve rules are not meant as simple – and, hence, exhausted by their characterization as – 'self-help manual'. They discuss in various ways the content matter presented above, namely the individual as and in a world deeply in search of an order and of seeking suffering's meaning. One hidden, yet constant, theme, beyond the more apparent references, is the relationship between individual choices and the broader beliefs and historical structures that can influence them. If, as it is argued, these structures are based on shared human 'implicit ideas and emotions', yet they are 'often debased and appalling', then their influence on individual conduct should not be underestimated. Thus, a simplified reading of the rules of the book as 'standards of behavior' can hinder the depth of the analysis.
Case Studies
To show the practical applicability of the twelve rules, part of this book summarizes them by presenting case studies of individuals who not only managed to survive extremely adverse conditions but also managed to transform their lives positively and make them genuinely worth living. To illustrate many of the book’s main points, these rule-compliant individuals present extensive, practical advice, direct indications of the actions an individual can take not only to reduce the suffering in their life but to help others as well. They thereby provide a roadmap out of a corrupting hell and up a temporarily aborted, steep, difficult climb to a better place.
An individual can test the utility of this book’s advice quite straightforwardly (if with some difficulty): by application. By putting this book’s principles into practice, the truth of what it maintains will become directly and personally manifest (if they work). The successes that may be thus established have the potential to improve a person’s mental health (if they have doubts about their worth or the future); deepen intimate and family relationships (if the extra or primary burden is not yet insupportable); assist those around (if they can be helped), and foster understanding and pro-social attitudes in individual and collective contexts (if shared modes of life and law matter). The case studies are thus presented especially as social, ethical, and practical bridges from a theoretical or philosophical ocean to the application of that wisdom in the means of transforming lived human experience.
Conclusion and Reflections
Opinions of 12 Rules plunge deeply. They undoubtedly challenged me and provided some new insights. However, I also found some of the analogies and connections forced and unconvincing. I suspect that literary and religious scholars would feel similarly on some aspects of the latter. I’m fascinated by the dynamism of the public reactions. The book was on the bestseller list for weeks on end, sold in countries all across the world. The author received both death threats and hagiographical poetry. In London, Ontario, some poor dentist in another part of town had to put up a sign stating that he “Is NOT Dr. Jordan Peterson”. A pastor I know confirmed that the author was drawing many people back to church with his sermons on the Bible. Despite the division of popular and critical views, it is clear that 12 Rules has struck a major societal nerve. Once read, the list is hard to forget. Readers disagree with this rule, incensed by this one, charmed by that one, but the list sticks; whether they love or hate the author most readers keep engaged in the problems the rules address. In sum, the work is a combination of self-help, spirituality, and reaction to academic superficiality.
The author can critique and deploy a lot of self-help ingredients because the interests of the genre are found in his research specializations. But, unlike others in the field, he has important insight into the hard concepts that fill his courses, such as ethical judgments, morality, and evolutionary purpose. His style is shamanesque, but the ideas reveal pertinent expertise in various fields of studies. He, then, despite some mistakes, goes beyond the self-help therapy of listing skills to a vocational future reader. So, he put his version of “medicinal-psycho-self-help theory, personality and social skills based on global issues of evil and suffering” back into society. Comments on culture, gender, inequality, are intriguing thought-starters for undergraduate and adult crosscut readerships. He is like a half-brother to Dostoyevsky’s “Karamazov brothers” — Ivan, Alyosha, and young Nikolai Karamazov in their musings about human nature’s complex mix of angelic and devilish features.
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