Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
Book by Jordan B. Peterson
DETAILS
Publisher : Portfolio (March 2, 2021) Language : English Hardcover : 432 pages ISBN-10 : 0593084640 ISBN-13 : 978-0593084649 Item Weight : 1.4 pounds Dimensions : 6.2 x 1.4 x 9.31 inches Best Sellers Rank: #2,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #5 in Popular Applied Psychology #7 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality #59 in Success Self-Help , The companion volume to 12 Rules for Life offers further guidance on the perilous path of modern life. In 12 Rules for Life , clinical psychologist and celebrated professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto Dr. Jordan B. Peterson helped millions of readers impose order on the chaos of their lives. Now, in this bold sequel, Peterson delivers twelve more lifesaving principles for resisting the exhausting toll that our desire to order the world inevitably takes. In a time when the human will increasingly imposes itself over every sphere of life—from our social structures to our emotional states—Peterson warns that too much security is dangerous. What’s more, he offers strategies for overcoming the cultural, scientific, and psychological forces causing us to tend toward tyranny, and teaches us how to rely instead on our instinct to find meaning and purpose, even—and especially—when we find ourselves powerless. While chaos, in excess, threatens us with instability and anxiety, unchecked order can petrify us into submission. Beyond Order provides a call to balance these two fundamental principles of reality itself, and guides us along the straight and narrow path that divides them. Read more
REVIEW
Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychotherapist who studied at McGill in Montreal and has long taught and practiced in Toronto. He became famous a few years ago with his 12 Rules of Order. Beyond Order embraces the chaos of life, and is portrayed as a balance to its predecessor in a way akin to the principles of Yin and Yang. Peterson became wildly popular (and despised) because of his reiterating points of tough love that nobody seems to say anymore, especially in self-help books. As one journal's review said, he was smart enough to write a self-help book that would be read by men. This isn't just white men either, as the crisis of masculine identity is multiracial. I don't necessarily "get" Peterson the way some of my high school friends did. But a few years ago, I had to go to one more rehab, this time a brief and hardcore one, with heroin and meth addicts used to being in jail. I was the only one who drove there. But before I left, I had to make a car payment, and I said to myself "make the bed for Jordan Peterson". In an era that has overemphasized rights (as Mary Ann Glendon pointed out), he reminds us of responsibilities, and their importance for being a socially desirable person, among other things. In recent years, both he and his wife have been seriously ill, and he praised her for responding with strength that he may not have had. His daughter has also been seriously sick at times. He emphasizes that the world is a tough place, with bears, dragons, the cold north trying to kill its people, and queens like Maleficent and authoritarian kings. Maleficent turns into a dragon and that's normal in the story, but what if Queen Elizabeth did? He shows the importance of stories, such as Beowulf, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. Basically, he is exposing his more academic work Maps of Meaning, which is heavily influenced by Jungian types and the religious myths studied by Mircea Eliade. For me as a Catholic thinker, it reminds me of Louis Bouyer's Invisible Father and the development of myth, ritual and rational theology. Peterson's theological and metaphysical framework appears to be flexible, but he knows the concepts and what they have meant throughout history. He knows the Jewish and Christian stories and beliefs, but also Islam and Eastern spirituality. I laughed when he said "nobody says, Dad, read me the periodic table", they want a story. I actually did have a great affection for the periodic table as a kid. Peterson is eccentric, as a British (I think) journal's review pointed out-he claims to have viewed 1.2 million paintings, a thousand a day for four years. This was in the chapter "make one room in your house beautiful", the sequel to clean your room and make your bed. The first new rule discusses society and institutions. Freud and Jung, although essential, were too individual. We need relationships that draw us out of ourselves into love for the other, which in turn develops the self. We need both change and tradition. Avoid ideology. There's solid advice on romance and marriage. You don't find the right one, you make it. There are billions of people and millions could have been suitable for you, so yeah you probably missed someone better. There's good wisdom on intimacy as it relates to affairs. Think about children when you are fertile, don't begin in your 40s when it's too late. There's also a nice discussion of friendship. High school and college friendships can endure even if you were randomly thrown together as roommates. But by your 40s, your personality has crystallized. Some high school friends I've maintained friendships with and developed; others were great friendships back then but we've become different people. We still can exchange affectionate greetings, but it's not going to be a consistent relationship because we've become different people. Three of the chapters are devoted to solid principles of recovery spirituality. These are writing and taking inventory of past traumas, overcoming resentment, and living in gratitude. This book is an affirmation of existence over nihilism. Nietzsche is treated with respect, a figure of tragedy more than arrogance. But ultimately, as Fulton Sheen put it, life is worth living. This is not by denying the chaos, tragedy and pain of life, but acknowledging it and responding in love, humility, honesty and gratitude. Peterson argues against all ideologies. Environmental ideology, for instance, argues that the world would be better without people. He includes conservatism among ideologies, while acknowledging conservative tendencies. Peterson has been portrayed as an ideologue because of the polarization of Trump supporters vs. the identity politics of race, sex and gender, which get us caught in power analysis, and ultimately trapped in resentful attitudes. Life is painful and difficult, and yet good, no matter where in society the other person is coming from, and what their family and life experiences are. This book shows the nuances of his thought, which are quite different from how he is portrayed by the advocates of identity politics and political correctness.
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