Overview
Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson offers twelve practical rules for life drawn from psychology, mythology, religion, and personal experience. He argues that meaning is found through responsibility and that confronting the chaos of existence with truth and order is the antidote to suffering.
Peterson is a clinical psychologist and former University of Toronto professor who became a controversial public figure in 2016 over his opposition to a proposed Canadian law on pronouns. 12 Rules for Life, published in 2018, expanded on a Quora answer he had written listing rules for how to live. The book sold more than five million copies and is the source of most of Peterson's mainstream cultural footprint.
Key Ideas
Stand up straight
Like lobsters, humans have dominance hierarchies; adopting confident posture affects both others' perception and your own neurochemistry.
Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for
People often take better care of their pets than themselves — take your own well-being seriously.
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday
Not to who someone else is today.
Tell the truth, or at least don't lie
Deception undermines your character and distorts your perception of reality.
Set your house in order
Before criticizing the world, make sure your own life is in order.
Who should read this
Readers, often young men, who feel adrift and are drawn to seriousness, tradition, and the language of responsibility. Peterson's clinical background shows most clearly in the chapters on how to handle suffering and how to raise children. Those chapters would stand on their own even without the cultural politics surrounding the author.
Who might skip it
Skip if the author's politics bother you enough that you can't read the book generously — it does drift into culture-war territory, and Peterson's prose style is a maximalist mixture of Jung, Bible, and Solzhenitsyn that is either fascinating or exhausting. There is no middle ground.
The verdict
A book whose reputation depends more on the reader's politics than the text. Stripped of the surrounding controversy, it's a mid-quality self-help book with a handful of excellent chapters and a handful of indulgent ones. The chapter 'Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping' is the best thing he has ever written. Read it; skim the rest if you need to.
"To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open."
— Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life
If you liked this
Beyond Order, Peterson's sequel, is softer and more practical. For the source tradition, read Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections.