12 Rules for Life - Velha Estante

English language

Published July 30, 2018

ISBN:: 978-0-345-81602-3

(1 review)

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos is a 2018 self-help book by Canadian clinical psychologist and psychology professor Jordan Peterson. It provides life advice through essays in abstract ethical principles, psychology, mythology, religion, and personal anecdotes.The book topped bestseller lists in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and has sold over five million copies worldwide. Peterson went on a world tour to promote the book, receiving much attention following an interview with Channel 4 News. Critics have praised the book's advice and its atypical style, though Peterson's writing style has been criticized by some. The book is written in a more accessible style than his previous academic book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999). A sequel, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, was published in March 2021.

1 edition

UdeRecife reviewed 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson

Review of '12 Rules for Life' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

The way I see these ratings, they can be understood in one of two ways: either you are rating the quality of the book in itself or you are rating how much you’ve enjoyed it. Both being possible, mine here concerns only the second way of rating. That is, I’m not here passing a judgement on this book’s quality, for I’m not knowledgeable enough to dig deeper onto Jordan Peterson’s assumptions in constructing many of his arguments. What I can do, then, is just report how much I have been touched by this book.

Using Goodreads suggestion on what each star means, my appreciation of the book is about right on the 2 stars for ‘it was ok’. Not that I disliked it; but I’m probably not the targeted audience for this book’s content. I have known Jordan Peterson’s thought and work from his classes on YouTube, and although we …

The way I see these ratings, they can be understood in one of two ways: either you are rating the quality of the book in itself or you are rating how much you’ve enjoyed it. Both being possible, mine here concerns only the second way of rating. That is, I’m not here passing a judgement on this book’s quality, for I’m not knowledgeable enough to dig deeper onto Jordan Peterson’s assumptions in constructing many of his arguments. What I can do, then, is just report how much I have been touched by this book.

Using Goodreads suggestion on what each star means, my appreciation of the book is about right on the 2 stars for ‘it was ok’. Not that I disliked it; but I’m probably not the targeted audience for this book’s content. I have known Jordan Peterson’s thought and work from his classes on YouTube, and although we are here faced with an interesting presentation of much of what he has said elsewhere, for anyone like me who has attended his online classes, the core of the book does not come as a surprise nor the presentation makes it more understandable than what he has already said in his talks.

So, by rating the book as [only] ‘ok’, I’m just giving an account of my previous exposure to Jordan Peterson’s material. As already stated, I’m in no position to offer any meaningful critique of the grounds and reasons upon which he mounts his case. And though I didn’t ‘like it’, I still learned from it. That to say that this is still a worthwhile work that tries to offer a well-structured map on how to move away from the chaos of our present times.