Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

Content Warning: This summary also discusses some of the author’s controversial views, notably on gender roles, and will describe those positions without endorsing or condemning them. 

Since the publication of 12 Rules For Life in 2018, Jordan Peterson has become a celebrity. In addition to his own direct presence in print, television, and the internet, his work has generated significant commentary and debate. A year before the publication of 12 Rules For Life, Peterson made a name for himself by opposing a piece of Canadian legislation (later passed) which would protect transgender people against official and workplace discrimination. Peterson warned that this legislation would lead someone to be punished, either professionally or legally, for not using a person’s chosen pronouns. The response to Peterson’s argument did not fall predictably along lines of political partisanship. Instead, Peterson’s comments added fuel to the already raging public debate around transgender identity, itself a subset of a larger debate about inclusionary language and free expression. Within this debate, many self-described liberals have framed the rights of transgender people—in particular, the right to have their identities respected and recognized—as antithetical to free speech. In some circles, Peterson’s position on the issue, which later extended into denial of the very possibility of a person being transgender (viewing it as performance of another gender, not a reality), as a full-throated defense of “humanism” against efforts to remake the human person into something unrecognizable. Critics took issue with Peterson’s specific claims regarding consequences for misgendering someone, calling them exaggerated if not flat-out inaccurate, and also warned that rhetoric from Peterson and others could readily translate into persecution and even violence against trans people, who are already subject to acute social marginalization. 

Peterson’s books spend little time on the issue that most directly contributed to his fame, instead looking to traditional values and classical myths as a way of structuring an orderly and satisfying life. Given Peterson’s undeniable popularity among young men, many celebrate him for inspiring and motivating members of a demographic who are often seen as falling behind in education, employment, and other measures of success. Some commentators, such as David Brooks of the New York Times, argue that in promoting the welfare and self-esteem of girls, contemporary culture has left boys and young men behind. These commentators find Peterson to be a welcome corrective. In the view of critics, Peterson is attempting to revive a more patriarchal society, using intellectual language and social media to package his traditionalist views in a more appealing form. In a 2018 interview with the New York Times, Peterson was asked about a recent incident in which a young man named Alek Minassian killed ten people in Toronto—Peterson’s home city—by deliberately driving his van into a crowd. Minassian identified himself as an “incel” (short for involuntarily celibate), a member of an online movement arguing that men have a right to sex and that women should therefore be obligated to give them sex. In the interview, Peterson responded to this incident by arguing for “enforced monogamy” as a societal cure for the problem of men feeling angry at their rejection by women. More recently, Peterson has embraced conservative politics more openly, producing content for Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, although he tends to define “conservative” in terms of its literal meaning—an interest in conserving valuable institutions—rather in terms of alignment with the political right. In a highly polarized political environment, his very penchant for controversy helps to propel his notoriety, as he has remained a consistent source of dispute between opposing views.