Jordan Peterson: 12 Rules For Life, Rule 5, and Rule 6. Pages: 113 - 159 Instigator: John
Instigation Deadline: EOD - 1/6/19
Response Deadline: EOD - 1/8/19
A few mid cyber book club notes...
Well it looks like we have a couple issues.
As many of us know Thomas has had a very busy and eventful
fall and early winter. So, he is not
quite caught up on the book to do his duty as the instigator. So, I am stepping in.
Second, it sounds like there is some confusion on exactly
when we kicked off the discussion on rules 3 and 4. Verna kicked it off on 12/9 and there have
been some very good comments and discussion but I think that some folks might
not have realized that.
If you still want to comment on 4 and 5 I would encourage
you to follow this link to do that.
There are several interesting comments there and I’m sure we would like
to see yours as well.
8 comments:
Rule 5 – Raise your kids well. I generally liked what he had to say here.
The main point I got here was part of the role of the parent is to raise your child to function effectively and successfully in society. This is part of why a parent needs to create rules and structure for the children and to discipline them to teach them how to comply. When the parent does this the child receives this structure from someone who loves them which generally will be a better experience for them than if the parent doesn’t do this. If the parent who loves them doesn’t do it society which doesn’t care at all about them will and that will be a far more negative experience for the child.
Here is a montage of excerpts from the chapter that reflect this notion…
Page 124 “Parents are the arbiters of society. They teach children how to behave so that other people will be able to interact meaningfully and productively with them.”
Page 132 “…the fundamental moral question is not how to shelter children completely from misadventure and failure, so they never experience any fear or pain, but how to maximize their learning so that useful knowledge may be gained with minimal cost.”
Page 134 “You can discipline your children, or you can turn that responsibility over to the harsh, uncaring judgmental world – and the motivation for the latter decision should ever be confused with love.”
Page 141 “…nature and society will punish in a draconian manner whatever errors of childhood behavior remain uncorrected.”
Page 144 “You love your kids, after all. If their actions make you dislike them think what an effect they will have on other people, who care much less about them than you. Those other people will punish them, severely, by omission or commission. Don’t allow that to happen.”
Some other random thoughts from this chapter…
He talks about a biological preference for male children because a male has a greater capacity to extend the parents genes into the future than a female child. This raises a question for me that I would like to get others thoughts on. There is a theory / notion that a primary force in biology is that individuals have a primary drive to propagate their DNA into future generations. As I hear it described in some books I have read (not this one) it sounds like our DNA / genes are actively pursuing this goal of propagation. According to the experts this explains much of biological behavior,
JP’s notion of the male preference being one of them. I feel like I understand this principle but something seems wrong about it and I suspect that there is a reasonable chance that someday this notion will find itself on the ash heap of rejected beliefs similar to phrenology. What do others think of this principle? Is gene propagation a key explanation of human (and other species) behavior or do you feel it has little or nothing to do in explaining human behavior?
Page117. “…it is the things that occur every single day that truly make up our lives…” Hard to argue that and it really compels us to examine our daily lives.
More random thoughts...
In the neighborhood of pages 118 – 120 he has an interesting discussion on the notion of society being the great corrupter of individuals. That is, it appears that many feel that if individuals were left to be free and do what they naturally do without the constraints of society, things would be better all the way around. Society is the main corrupter of the individual. He references Rousseau and his concept of children as unsullied blank slates. JP disagrees with this and responds by noting that society and its norms are created by the individuals in the society. So, if society is corrupt it is because of the individuals in society corrupted it. The individuals are not innocent victims.
JP would argue that humans and children are actually corrupt from birth. We have innate evil in us that must be dealt with. He notes several reasons to believe this is true but I’ll highlight one on the bottom 121. He notes that murder rates among native / primitive societies tends to much much higher than most “modern” societies.
On page 122 JP contends that far from being the primary corrupter of humans, “socialization prevents much harm and fosters much good.”
I totally get his point on this here and I do think there is value in many societal norms. However I do have a question. I think that even if we agree that societal norms are generally a good thing and help us there are some norms that are clearly NOT good. For example race based slavery in the antebellum south. QUESTION: When you are in the society how do you figure out what norms are good and should be adhered to and which ones are bad and we should work to over throw? JP does not address this and I feel it is a gap in his thought process. What do others think about this problem?
Page 122 “Children are damaged as much or more by a lack of incisive attention as they are by abuse, mental or physical.” Bold statement. Do folks agree?
I want to share a personal experience that supports the need for incisive attention. When I was 20, after I had been kicked out of college and a few months before I met Verna, I was living at home and focusing on my life of faith. In that time I was helping with the bus ministry at Calvary Baptist church in Grinnell where we would pick up kids on a bus and take them to church each Sunday morning and then bring them back home. Leroy Calvin (who is a living saint and when we go to heaven I expect to find him living just down the street from Saint Peter) drove the bus and I sat in the back and was crowd control. We had one little boy who was a terror and fought and tormented all the other kids from the moment he boarded the bus. I tried to scold him into submission to no avail. Once while at my wits end I just picked him up and sat him in my lap. The transformation was miraculous. Once he was in my lap he sat as peacefully and beautifully as a cherub. He was obviously desperate for some “incisive attention.” A new pattern developed. He would get on the bus, terrorize the kids, I would sit him on my lap and he would be happy and peaceful. I wished I would have been smart enough to take him straight to my lap and skip the terrorizing part, but I wasn’t. The little bit of time he had with me was good. I moved on after a few months. I wonder what became of him. I hope he is okay.
and a few more on rule 5...
Page 123 “…parents are more, not less, than friends…” I like this statement and JP uses it to open a discussion on the need for parents to provide tough love.
JP raises the concern about how loose divorce laws have negatively impacted children and the adults that they grow into. What do people think? Do looser divorce laws have a negative impact on society or children? Do the benefits outweigh the consequences?
JP indicates that humans cannot flourish in a world without boundaries or structure. I believe he made this point earlier and in this chapter he is saying that part of parenting is to create this structure that promotes flourishing. I feel there is truth to this.
Page 137 “…children will definitely misbehave more in public, because they are experimenting: trying to establish if the same old rules also apply in the new place.” True that.
Page 139. Another positive of social norms. “A woman can say no to a powerful, narcissistic man only because she has social norms, the law (a formal manifestation of norms), and the state backing her up… what no means, in the final analysis, is always ‘If you continue to do that, something you do not like will happen to you.’ Otherwise it means nothing.” This line of reasoning makes sense to me.
In summary he articulates 5 main principles for the day to day nuts and bolts of parenting / discipline…
Page 137 “…two general principles of discipline. The first: limit the rules. The second: use the least force necessary to enforce those rules.”
He adds to these on page 142 “third: parents should come in pairs.” And fourth “…parents should understand their own capacity to be harsh, vengeful, arrogant, resentful, angry, and deceitful.” And inform the choices to discipline with that in mind.
Page 143 His fifth principle the “…most general principle. Parents have a duty to act as proxies for the real world – merciful proxies…”
I feel these are a pretty solid place to start when it comes to parenting.
I’ll add some comments on chapter 6 shortly.
Rule 6.
On the top of page 151 JP seems to tip his hand that he is not a Christian: “Even Christ Himself felt abandoned before the cross, or so the story goes.” Sounds like a cynic / skeptic.
“The Cocktail Party” by TS Elliot sounds interesting.
I found the early pages of this tough and depressing. Page 157 “People are limited and life is tragic.”
I feel like he acknowledges / asserts that life is very hard and a rational person might correctly conclude not worth living.
Side Note. I liked his summary of Tolstoy’s 4 options of responding this pessimistic view point of life. I thought they were interesting. So, I restate them in my own words here.
Option 1: Retreat - into childlike ignorance.
Option 2: Hedonism.
Option 3: Weakness – Just trudging through life even though there is no point to it.
Option 4: Strength – Commit suicide.
JP presents an option 4+: Mass Murder Suicide – Take as much life with you when you go.
Super happy thoughts all.
I would ask if folks agree with these options but JP identifies his own alternatives.
JP begins to discuss alternatives to responding to the challenges of life in negative ways.
• He gives 2 examples of people who responded to tragedy in wonderfully positive ways.
• He referenced Nietzsche again. “Distress…need not at all produce nihilism… Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations.”
• He cited statistics that give hope - “the majority of people who were abused as children do not abuse their own children” indicating that many people chose a more positive future rather than accept a negative past. Side note: that means some people must pick up the habit on their own.
• He talks about Solzhenitsyn’s life story. “One man’s decision to change his life, instead of cursing fate, shook the whole pathological system of communist tyranny to its core.”
• And he mentions other inspirational folks like Solzhenitsyn.
After rhapsodizing on all these great examples of responding to the tragedy of life in a positive manner he starts to draw some conclusions.
He references Hebrew history and makes the bold conclusion that the difference between good and evil is how you react to this fact that life is tragedy. We can act positively / dutifully and things can go kind of good or we cannot be attentive and resentment can start to set in and we can kind slide into Tolstoy’s options.
Two Random take aways...
Quote from top of page 157. “When the hurricane hit New Orleans, and the town sank under the waves, was that a natural disaster? The Dutch prepare their dikes for the worst storm in ten thousand years. Had New Orleans followed that example, no tragedy would have occurred … A hurricane is an act of God. But failure to prepare, when the necessity for preparation is well known – that’s sin.”
What do people think of that perspective? I tend to agree more that disagree.
Top of 158, “You can know that something is wrong or right without knowing why. Your entire Being can tell you something that you can neither explain nor articulate.”
I feel this is true. What do others think?
Also on page 158 he summarizes his suggestion on how to deal with all the tragedy in life. Instead of becoming bitter, corrupt and evil in response to all the tragedy he suggests, “Stop saying those things that make you weak and ashamed. Say only those things that make you strong. Do only those things that you could speak of with honor.”
At the very end he asks us to consider a world where everyone focuses on being good. It sounds like the Kingdom of God the way he describes it. I don’t hate his suggestions in this chapter.
One last point. With reference to Tolstoy’s options. I like to respond to tragedy with taking a supernatural viewpoint. Perhaps a 6th option. The view that there is a God and amidst this tragedy you can believe in God and a higher plan. What do people think about that? Perhaps Tolstoy would say that is option 1. Retreat. Thoughts?
Chapter 5:
I feel like I am in the throes of exactly what he was talking about in this chapter. I'll be sure to let everyone know in 18 years if all my boundary setting and rules have helped mold a decent human being 😉
I think I honestly listened to this chapter mostly for advice and really appreciated when he talked about the levels of discipline to take in certain circumstances. Starting with a warning and eventually a gentle swat on the butt if necessary.
I found his discussion on how human nature is sort of innately bad very true. I see it everyday when my toddler stares at me and then promptly stands on the couch, waiting to see what my reaction will be. She somehow knows to break rules and see what she can get away with.
In response to his thoughts on loose divorce laws, I honestly think it depends on the parents and kid, but I think learning to peacefully co-parent would be ideal. I know another woman who's parents are divorced and she is one of the smartest, most successful, nicest people I've met recently. Not to say it didn't affect her I'm sure, but she seems to have landed on her feet just fine.
Chapter 6:
For whatever reason these two chapters tied together really well for me and even when I was talking to my friend had a hard time separating them!
I hadn't ever heard any of the diary excerpts from the Columbine shooters before, so when I read them it was crazy to me that a high schooler would have such ideas and made me wonder what his home life must have been like.
I was also amazed by how resilient people can be when he told the story about how the woman was abused as a child but went on to become a good mother herself. I think that shows while parents are our first and strongest influencers, other people can have a huge impact and help change our course.
I think her story shows that our past doesn't need to define our future and who we become has a lot more to do with our choices than our circumstances, although circumstance is a huge barrier at times!
About New Orleans: I totally agree, it seems like that situation stemmed more from poor management and makes me feel worse for the people affected by it.
I also think we can know without explaining what's good and what's bad!
Great comments Jessica! I think you learn a lot about human nature when you are a parent. I am very confident that your molding practices will have a positive outcome.
I'm finally getting somewhat caught up. I apologize that I haven't been more engaged. Without offering any excuses, I'll double down on staying with the reading and offering some commentary, FWIW.
John, go ahead and tee up chapters 7 and 8 for me, and I'll roll out some comments over the next couple days.
Post a Comment