I read this too. It was an enjoyable read. You can safely ignore any commentary or review you read about this book since I have not found a single one yet that isn't incredibly biased. About half of reviews I've read seem to be written by people who didn't read the book at all, let alone skimmed it.
I read it to see what all the fuss was about, and I can see why it would get controversial reviews.
I don’t think it comes off as sexist or right-wing in the big picture, in fact it seems like an extremely old fashioned self-help book founded on liberal (as in enlightenment) and Christian (mainly protestant) values. Considering the controversy already surrounding Peterson the author really does himself no favours. Of course it’s entirely possibly that it’s intentional.
Especially the first two chapters would easily be perceived as sexist if you were inclined to feminism. Every positive story Peterson tells in those two chapters is about order (and he uses masculinity to portray it), and every negative story is about chaos (which he uses femininity to portray). It’s so deeply rooted that every positive example story is even about a man while every negative example story is about a woman. Then at the end of chapter two or three he makes turns that upside down by displaying the negative sides of order along with the positive sides of chaos, and makes it clear that too much of either is bad. The path to a “good” life lies within the balance, showing how he’s not actually sexist at all, but I personally suspect most readers who would be offended, have long quit in anger by then.
Throughout the book he remains critical of left-leaning ideologies, and presents rhetorically sound but also provocative argumentation against them. I’m not sure why right-leaning ideologs see him as their hero though, as it seems very evident that he doesn’t like them either, but I think it is easy to see why the provocative tone will turn a lot of left-leaning readers off.
Then there is the branching into areas where the author clearly isn’t an expert. Like how our ability to think forward is attributed to hunter-gathered society, when it’s commonly accepted that it happened with our transitioning into farming, where planning for the next season was vital. A minor error that ultimately has nothing to do with the point the author is trying to make, but it does make you wonder what else he’s wrong about. Which is generally something that doesn’t go over well with reviewers of non-fiction. Because they’ll find and expose those other holes.
I personally think it was an enjoyable book and I think there’s some genuinely good advice in there, and it’s advice you aren’t likely to find anywhere else. I also think the book could have easily been half the length.
The problem with Peterson is that he makes preposterous truth-claims: based on his stylised readings of Western mythology, his understanding of humans as necessarily and essentially hierarchical, and various sub-scientific claims - e.g., about lobsters - that are dressed up as something their not. All in the service of something which is knowingly reactionary, to row back on progressive social moores and the gains of feminism. Obviously he also occasionally says some things which are true and interesting, but he is not a reliable intellectual authority.
He's also just a bit of an oddball. He lives in a house full of socialist realist paintings, his diet is based on absurdist nutritional science - he only eats beef and salt - and some of the things he says are just plain weird.
> but he is not a reliable intellectual authority.
I don't believe he ever claims the opposite. In fact he urges the reader to check his sources. All 220 papers and books he read before producing his work are listed in the endnotes.
> He's also just a bit of an oddball.
The problem with this type of statements are that now I'll say "No, he isn't an oddball" and this will get us nowhere. Can you understand that?
It isn’t that strange. It’s basically keto, which has become almost mainstream.
For the record, I’ve tried the “zero carb” diet (basically meat) and it’s not that hard once you treat food as purely as something functional like a vitamin rather than a source of pleasure.
As far as I know, Peterson's diet is actually his daughter's diet [1]. She claims it cured her from numerous diseases including rheumatoid arthritis and depression [2].
I have no idea how credible that is, but I'm just saying it isn't something he decided on a random basis just to look cool.
keto is about high fat and entering ketosis; if you eat just meat you'll have enough protien that through gluconeogenesis it will be converted into glucose and it will knock you out of ketosis.
The way he rationalises his advice is pretty whacky. But the advice itself is what he found works in his experience as a clinical psychologist, and it seems to ring true with most people who read it. As far as self help books go 12 Rules is not bad at all.
