I'll try to explain why I'm enamored with the guy, though I do try and resist it. I've fallen victim to a few cult followings in my past - Ayn Rand in my teens and then Noam Chomsky in my early twenties. So I know the danger signs of falling into an ideological trapping, and I do see that happening with some of Peterson's fans.<p>But I don't care about the fight against "Postmodern Neo-Marxism" or any of his discussion about free speech. His value for me is due to his religious content. I, like many people my age, grew up in a conservatively religious household and became irreligious as soon as I left home. I thought of it as breaking free from burdensome constraints.<p>But after years of attempting to "simply be a good person", I've found that there is indeed some kind of void that needs to be filled. And yet, I just cannot go back to being (in my case) an evangelical christian. Once you're out, you're out. So where should a modern, rational, scientifically literate person do when they need a deeper source of <i>particularly religious</i> meaning in their life? Peterson is the first person I've come across who has even come close to answering that question adequately. No matter how many faults the man has, he has done me this kindness. All the rest is fluff to me.<p>I do think he's a bit of a prophet, in that he has the ability to inspire conviction without guilt, passion without irresponsibility, and courage without hubris.
This is a nice even-handed review. It has been hard to get a clear picture of what Peterson is about and I've had to sift through an awful lot of partisan spite-pieces on both sides to try to get to the bottom of what's going on with him. The following paragraph jumped out at me here:<p><i>"The politics in this book lean a bit right, but if you think of Peterson as a political commentator you’re missing the point. The science in this book leans a bit Malcolm Gladwell, but if you think of him as a scientist you’re missing the point. Philosopher, missing the point. Public intellectual, missing the point. Mythographer, missing the point. So what’s the point?"</i><p>I think part of the problem with our initial impressions of Peterson is he (or comes across) tries to present himself as these things kind of like he misses the point of himself sometimes .. but maybe that's just from having been taking such an embattled position so long.<p>The article goes on to describe Peterson as "a prophet". As a student of psychology I don't personally think his views are "groundbreaking" but he does take a set of very well worn ideas and attune them to modern times.<p>I read Bertrand Russell's <i>"Conquest of Happiness"</i> [0] a number of years ago and to me it seems to tick a lot of the same boxes, but perhaps in a less timely fashion.<p>It's easy to think Russell managed to get his views out without annoying anybody but he had his fair share of partisan controversy in his time as well. It's only after the dust has settled that we view him as one of the most important western philosophers of the 20th Century.<p>[0] <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222834" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.222834</a>
He at least offers a structural critique, not minor tweaks, to the liberal order. If a young person is feeling alienated and disempowered, he recognizes that the solution isn't to just go to school or whatever watery prescription modern society might suggest. There are many conservative thinkers who, though they're basically irreligious, will tell young men to pull their pants up and take out the trash. Our moral landscape is such a wasteland that guys like this can tut about manners or whatever and he seems like a prophetic genius.<p>He's a thoroughgoing Jungian and a mediocre philosopher. He gets sassy with reporters, which people like, I guess. But he's still going to situate the problems with modern society with a couple of french theorists rather than the forces that actually affect people's daily lives.<p>I'd also argue that his popularity is a sign that people still really, really want religion/religious guidance in some form.
I've listened to a few of his lectures and read a few articles about him and I don't see a difference between what he says and what every other self-help author who wants to sell millions of books is saying.<p>It's mostly vague hand-wavy kind of stuff that sounds profound in the moment but later realize it's either blatantly obvious truth dressed up in fancy words or it's nonsense wearing the same clothes.<p>Had he not gained fame and notoriety through his campaign against that Canadian law and political correctness in general, I don't think anyone would have cared about what he has to say.<p>If anyone familiar with his work could point me towards some of it that would dispute that characterization I would be happy to read or listen to it, provided I don't have to pay for it.
Interestingly this has been flagged, but there's only a couple of replies that I can see that are grey, and only a couple that's critical of the article and subject. But I can't see any flames at all, just the usual HN courtesy.<p>Is the auto flag mechanism to do with up and down votes of comments? Does that make some comments controversial? I like upvoting comments that go against the stream, but would that mean that the whole discussion gets more likely to be auto flagged? Would a user's best bet be to go with the crowd (and to downvote or not vote up such dissenting opinions) ?
One thing I fight with, internally, is his idea that if you "clean up your room", so to speak, your life will start to have meaning. Because of him, and due to doing his Self-Authoring program, I followed the steps, took responsibility for my life and changed a lot of things, but the meaning part has yet to hit me. Perhaps it's there, yet buried, I don't know.
So how come not everyone can be a prophet? The Bible tells us why people who wouldn’t listen to the Pharisees listened to Jesus: “He spoke as one who had confidence”. You become a prophet by saying things that you would have to either be a prophet or the most pompous windbag in the Universe to say, then looking a little too wild-eyed for anyone to be comfortable calling you the most pompous windbag in the universe. You say the old cliches with such power and gravity that it wouldn’t even make sense for someone who wasn’t a prophet to say them that way.<p>“He, uh, told us that we should do good, and not do evil, and now he’s looking at us like we should fall to our knees.”<p>“Weird. Must be a prophet. Better kneel.”
I've watched Jordan Peterson's Personality lectures back when he had only a few hundred subscribers and have been amazed at his immense traction of late. His book is mostly a regurgitation and summary of his lectures with some political and personal anecdotes thrown in; however, I would still recommend it as a introduction to some of Peterson's thought system and mostly agree with the review.
"But I actually acted as a slightly better person during the week or so I read Jordan Peterson’s book. I feel properly ashamed about this."<p>This is what happened to me as well. Strange stuff, I think it is well worth the time.
>Jordan Peterson is a believer in the New Religion, the one where God is the force for good inside each of us, and all religions are equal paths to wisdom, and the Bible stories are just guides on how to live our lives.<p>It's hard to take a reviewer seriously when they make a statement like this, that is blatantly untrue ("all religions are equal paths to wisdom"). Peterson is known to be very critical of Islam, and has gone as far as saying that it's incompatible with western values (paraphrasing).