12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos

This chapter is about parenting. Peterson opens with a personal example of watching a hollering three-year-old in a public place. He says, “Maybe he needed something. But that was no way to get it, and his parents should have let him know that” (113). He calls the situation “shameful” and derides the parents for not carefully problem-solving before linking this memory to a tendency he calls out about parents of young children to be “unable or unwilling to say no” to their kids (113). He shames mothers for having a complex that allows male children to disrespect them and become “little God-Emperor[s] of the Universe” (114).

Throughout the chapter, Peterson recounts instances of excellent parenting and disciplining carried out by the author himself and his wife. He talks about their abilities as babysitters to make difficult children do the things they don’t want to do, like eat or sleep. The breakthroughs came in the form of persistence and offering rewards for small steps toward the desired end-product.

Peterson also places some of the burden of bad behavior on the children in these anecdotes. He refutes the notion of all-encompassing social corruption that locates behavioral issues at a higher level than the individual and immediate circumstances. He bashes “cultural restructuring,” instead preferring to view our status quo as full of “stabilizing traditions” (118). In this vein of thinking, he rejects “ideological shibboleth” (119). He explicitly references diversity and the liberal divorce law reform of the 1960s that allowed spouses to terminate unwanted marriages more easily—Peterson’s argument is that it destabilized children’s lives, but he makes no reference to the merits of escaping unwanted or even abusive marital relationships.

Outside of the context of marital abuse, however, Peterson goes on to talk about “the violent tendencies of human beings” (121). He stresses that it is an innate violence, observable in the facts that chimpanzees, our closest primate cousins, brutalize each other, and in statistics of inter-tribal warfare among peoples in Brazil, Papua New Guinea, and Indigenous people in California (122). In these examples, he does not discuss historical circumstances related to larger world-altering factors like famine, disease, or colonialism. In fact, he says that becoming “subject to state authority”—and in these examples the “state” is a colonizing power—is productive in the way it reduces intertribal homicide rates (121).

Ultimately, he suggests, parents should not try to be their children’s friends. He explains, “Friends have very limited authority to correct” (123). Parents need to be disciplinarians (he even advocates physical punishment), though he says it needs to be responsible and focused on properly socializing children so as to set them up for future success (141). He prescribes utilizing the “minimum force necessary” to inspire a child to behave properly (136). He says parents should be “merciful” and “caring,” but take seriously their responsibilities to “act as proxies for the real world” (143). He says following these guidelines will lead to better parent-child relationships and better adult civilian behavior.

Peterson frames the argument of this chapter around the notion that the logical (and demonstrable) extreme of the general cynicism in society is mass murder. He supports this claim by noting that school shooters, like the ones who killed students and teachers at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, expressed hatred for humanity and felt entitled to end so much life because of its lack of worth or good.

Peterson also says that suicide stems from a pronounced disdain for life, born of cynicism. He sees in humans the drive to blame and resent others for the unfairness and difficulty of life. Peterson admits, “Life is in truth very hard” (149). Though most people will not be driven to commit some type of atrocity over the “intolerable state of their Being” (149), the impulse to destroy one’s own life seems to be pervasive. He poses the question, “How can a person who is awake avoid outrage at the world?” (151).

To help answer that question, he discusses instances of people who were horribly mistreated in some way turning their lives around to do good in the world. Whereas some “people take their vengeance to the ultimate extreme” (152), others consciously reverse the course of the destruction in their lives and refuse to perpetuate the pain and suffering they personally experienced.

Peterson suggests this central step to “[cleaning] up your life” (157): “Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong” (157). Taking responsibility for one’s own actions and reversing destructive habits can, he insists, lead to great improvement and meaning. Introspection and self-improvement should take the place of outward criticisms.