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This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it. - It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could h

This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it. - It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been < 1/3 of its length. The writing style was rambling, overly emphatic, and arguments were often not coherent. - It used a gratuitous amount of Bible quotes, which 1. weren't necessary to make his point, 2. were often referenced as if they were data, and how people actually behave, rather than anecdotes/fiction I got suckered into to buying the book because the author is a compelling public speaker. I enjoy his lectures. In retrospect, though, part of what makes him a compelling public speaker are his highly emotional arguments, which don't seem to be founded on great reasoning, and therefore make for a bad book, since we have more time to be critical about arguments when reading.

Balgair 8y ago
Peterson is very good at speaking and lecturing (practice makes perfect!) and I enjoy his work. That said, his tack is largely an updated stoic philosophy. A good idea, don't get me wrong. Still, if you liked his book, I'd go back and read more about stoicism. Here are some suggestion, but if anyone else has others, please chime in: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Au... https://www.amazon.com/Senecas-Letters-Stoic-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486811247/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0486811247&pd_rd_r=MY1XXP4DKN8QNDBGPYMR&pd_rd_w=bcmaG&pd_rd_wg=LyiNS&psc=1&refRID=MY1XXP4DKN8QNDBGPYMR https://www.amazon.com/Senecas-Letters-Stoic-Thrift-Editions... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism
- jonnybgood 8y ago
  > updated stoic philosophy No, it's not. Stoicism has much more depth and the Stoics would not agree with Peterson on many things. Stoicism also doesn't need to be updated.
  - Balgair 8y ago
    I mean, his 12 points are pretty stock Stoicism, with a 21st century spin. By my reading, he's not entirely stoicism, true, but he sits in the adjacent seat. If he is this popular with (as I see it) his re-skinned stoicism, then the conclusion that 'stoicism needed an update' is not unreasonable, as it seems to resonate better with the re-skin than without. Caveats, obviously, apply.
    - phaus 8y ago
      I think its unreasonable. Popularity and quality are often at odds with one another. Adam Sandler has earned people more money from movies than almost anyone. That doesn't mean Anthony Hopkins needed an update.
- f00_ 8y ago
  The way he talks about religion, I think he's way into Jungian archetypes and psychoanalysis and shit. I originally thought his critique of postmodernism/continental philosophy and stuff was interesting, reminiscent of chomsky His thesis on alcoholism is interesting, clearly he's atleast a decent psychologist. Reminds me of my aunt, psychologist at U. of Missouri, really interested in carl jung and religion. IQ testing and personality tests always seemed broken to me. What is IQ measuring? Personality tests seem like arbitary categories. All of this is based on frequentist statistics (factor analysis), wonder if there's a bayesian perspective but I have no idea what i'm talking about honestly, especially compared to Peterson. I can't stand his economic views, they're similar to Joe Rogan's "classical liberal"/market fundamentalist views. I like Kevin Carson's word: vulgar libertarianism: "Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term 'free market' in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get [a] standard boilerplate article… arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because 'that’s not how the free market works'— implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of 'free market principles.'"
  - wry_discontent 8y ago
    Peterson is openly "way into" Jungian archetypes and psychoanalysis and shit.
zuzuleinen 8y ago
Sorry to hear that. While I agree that the book could have been shorter I'm honestly curios about two things: 1. Do you regularly apply some of these rules in your life? 2. What arguments were not logical in your view?
JoshMnem 8y ago
This[1] is worth reading. "Jordan Peterson's popularity is the sign of a deeply impoverished political and intellectual landscape" [1] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-d...
- zuzuleinen 8y ago
  I'm sorry but the first paragraph is very unfair and not true in my opinion. You can figure out for yourself, watch this debate and tell me if Peterson is the type of person described in the article. https://youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8 https://youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8 I promise I'll read your full article beyond the first paragraph :)
  - JoshMnem 8y ago
    I recommend reading the whole article. Things are busy at work today, but I'll check it out when I have some time. If you could point me to a shorter clip within the almost 2 hours video, I will be more likely to look at it.
    - zuzuleinen 8y ago
      You can watch anytime at least the first 20 minutes. I just wanted to give a counter example to the first paragraph of the article which describe him like an opaque person who doesn't listen. I particularly like this debate because it shows he can have a decent conversation with a well known atheist and he actually listens to him. That's why I find the first paragraph really off which makes me having some doubts about the whole article. But I will read it nevertheless.
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        He did not came particularly well off in that debate.
        zuzuleinen 8y ago
dfsegoat 8y ago
I won't lie: My first reaction was to say "This is BS" to a lot of what JP writes and talks about - particularly biblical references as an atheist. But then I realized much of what he is saying is true - and it personally hits my ego in such a way that the reaction is pretty much revulsion/dismissal. Can it be written more concisely? Probably. But he is an academic afterall... FWIW: If you enjoy his lecture style / cadence - try his Audiobook version. I would likely have a tough time with reading his book - but the audiobook format delivers like his youtube lectures, which IMO are very well done.
lambdaphagy 8y ago
The Bible is data. It's a collection of texts with its own [secular] field of study. Peterson's thesis is something like the following: that the early biblical stories constitute a kind of dominant eigenvector of human cognition and experience, what you get when you iteratively retell a story over a hundred generations. To dismiss this as anecdotes or fiction is very much to miss the point of what Peterson is trying to do.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  It's hard for me to see why this logic points to the Bible and not the Odyssey or the Iliad, about which we could say much the same things (especially the Iliad, which shows clear marks of some parts of the story being much older than others). Or frankly any very old text with pre-literary roots. I am certainly pro-Bible, but in the terms you're putting it here it doesn't seem especially compelling.
  - lambdaphagy 8y ago
    It doesn't uniquely pick out the Bible, except to the extent that Western civilization was shaped far more thoroughly by the Bible than by Homer.
sotojuan 8y ago
> It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been < 1/3 of its length. So like every self help book ever?

Balgair 8y ago

Peterson is very good at speaking and lecturing (practice makes perfect!) and I enjoy his work. That said, his tack is largely an updated stoic philosophy. A good idea, don't get me wrong. Still, if you liked his book, I'd go back and read more about stoicism. Here are some suggestion, but if anyone else has others, please chime in: https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/048629823X https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Thrift-Editions-Marcus-Au... https://www.amazon.com/Senecas-Letters-Stoic-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486811247/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0486811247&pd_rd_r=MY1XXP4DKN8QNDBGPYMR&pd_rd_w=bcmaG&pd_rd_wg=LyiNS&psc=1&refRID=MY1XXP4DKN8QNDBGPYMR https://www.amazon.com/Senecas-Letters-Stoic-Thrift-Editions... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism

jonnybgood 8y ago
> updated stoic philosophy No, it's not. Stoicism has much more depth and the Stoics would not agree with Peterson on many things. Stoicism also doesn't need to be updated.
- Balgair 8y ago
  I mean, his 12 points are pretty stock Stoicism, with a 21st century spin. By my reading, he's not entirely stoicism, true, but he sits in the adjacent seat. If he is this popular with (as I see it) his re-skinned stoicism, then the conclusion that 'stoicism needed an update' is not unreasonable, as it seems to resonate better with the re-skin than without. Caveats, obviously, apply.
  - phaus 8y ago
    I think its unreasonable. Popularity and quality are often at odds with one another. Adam Sandler has earned people more money from movies than almost anyone. That doesn't mean Anthony Hopkins needed an update.
f00_ 8y ago
The way he talks about religion, I think he's way into Jungian archetypes and psychoanalysis and shit. I originally thought his critique of postmodernism/continental philosophy and stuff was interesting, reminiscent of chomsky His thesis on alcoholism is interesting, clearly he's atleast a decent psychologist. Reminds me of my aunt, psychologist at U. of Missouri, really interested in carl jung and religion. IQ testing and personality tests always seemed broken to me. What is IQ measuring? Personality tests seem like arbitary categories. All of this is based on frequentist statistics (factor analysis), wonder if there's a bayesian perspective but I have no idea what i'm talking about honestly, especially compared to Peterson. I can't stand his economic views, they're similar to Joe Rogan's "classical liberal"/market fundamentalist views. I like Kevin Carson's word: vulgar libertarianism: "Vulgar libertarian apologists for capitalism use the term 'free market' in an equivocal sense: they seem to have trouble remembering, from one moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually existing capitalism or free market principles. So we get [a] standard boilerplate article… arguing that the rich can’t get rich at the expense of the poor, because 'that’s not how the free market works'— implicitly assuming that this is a free market. When prodded, they’ll grudgingly admit that the present system is not a free market, and that it includes a lot of state intervention on behalf of the rich. But as soon as they think they can get away with it, they go right back to defending the wealth of existing corporations on the basis of 'free market principles.'"
- wry_discontent 8y ago
  Peterson is openly "way into" Jungian archetypes and psychoanalysis and shit.

zuzuleinen 8y ago

Sorry to hear that. While I agree that the book could have been shorter I'm honestly curios about two things: 1. Do you regularly apply some of these rules in your life? 2. What arguments were not logical in your view?

JoshMnem 8y ago

This[1] is worth reading. "Jordan Peterson's popularity is the sign of a deeply impoverished political and intellectual landscape" [1] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-d...

zuzuleinen 8y ago
I'm sorry but the first paragraph is very unfair and not true in my opinion. You can figure out for yourself, watch this debate and tell me if Peterson is the type of person described in the article. https://youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8 https://youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8 I promise I'll read your full article beyond the first paragraph :)
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  I recommend reading the whole article. Things are busy at work today, but I'll check it out when I have some time. If you could point me to a shorter clip within the almost 2 hours video, I will be more likely to look at it.
  - zuzuleinen 8y ago
    You can watch anytime at least the first 20 minutes. I just wanted to give a counter example to the first paragraph of the article which describe him like an opaque person who doesn't listen. I particularly like this debate because it shows he can have a decent conversation with a well known atheist and he actually listens to him. That's why I find the first paragraph really off which makes me having some doubts about the whole article. But I will read it nevertheless.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      He did not came particularly well off in that debate.
      - zuzuleinen 8y ago

dfsegoat 8y ago

I won't lie: My first reaction was to say "This is BS" to a lot of what JP writes and talks about - particularly biblical references as an atheist. But then I realized much of what he is saying is true - and it personally hits my ego in such a way that the reaction is pretty much revulsion/dismissal. Can it be written more concisely? Probably. But he is an academic afterall... FWIW: If you enjoy his lecture style / cadence - try his Audiobook version. I would likely have a tough time with reading his book - but the audiobook format delivers like his youtube lectures, which IMO are very well done.

lambdaphagy 8y ago

The Bible is data. It's a collection of texts with its own [secular] field of study. Peterson's thesis is something like the following: that the early biblical stories constitute a kind of dominant eigenvector of human cognition and experience, what you get when you iteratively retell a story over a hundred generations. To dismiss this as anecdotes or fiction is very much to miss the point of what Peterson is trying to do.

emodendroket 8y ago
It's hard for me to see why this logic points to the Bible and not the Odyssey or the Iliad, about which we could say much the same things (especially the Iliad, which shows clear marks of some parts of the story being much older than others). Or frankly any very old text with pre-literary roots. I am certainly pro-Bible, but in the terms you're putting it here it doesn't seem especially compelling.
- lambdaphagy 8y ago
  It doesn't uniquely pick out the Bible, except to the extent that Western civilization was shaped far more thoroughly by the Bible than by Homer.

sotojuan 8y ago

> It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been < 1/3 of its length. So like every self help book ever?