Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life is a 2021 self-help book by psychologist Jordan Peterson. It is a sequel to his 2018 book 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos, which sold millions of copies and launched Peterson as a prominent public intellectual. As the subtitle indicates, the book provides 12 additional rules, which he describes as complementing rather than merely supplementing the original set of rules. The original book was principally concerned with imposing order upon chaos, helping a person to structure their life (with straightforward advice such as “stand up straight with your shoulders back” and “be precise in your speech”) to manage the challenges of life. Peterson opens the new book by describing a period of profound chaos in his own life following the publication of that book and his emergence as a public intellectual. While his wife and daughter were both suffering from medical ailments, Peterson’s own physical and mental health deteriorated. Once he and his family had recovered, he felt immense gratitude for having retained the will to endure, and he began to reexamine the beliefs and actions necessary for dealing with life’s challenges. Believing that his previous book placed slightly too much emphasis on order, this book aims to show how too much order can be dangerous, how some element of chaos is both inevitable and, in some respects, welcome, especially insofar as it unleashes innovation and creativity. 

This study guide is based on the 2021 Penguin hardcover edition.

Content Warning: This summary contains descriptions of mental illness and traumatic events relayed to the author from his patients. 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. 

Summary

Peterson begins with an overture in which he describes a recent moment of crisis in his personal life. He recounts waking up in an intensive care unit, unable to recall how he got there. He had been suffering from acute, unspecified ailments for the past year, and his wife and daughter had both undergone surgeries. Against this backdrop, he argues for the need to accept a degree of chaos as a necessary component of life, admitting that in his first book, he was too quick to dismiss the value of chaos in favor of order as an absolute value. The book is then divided into 12 chapters, each elaborating one of the titular “12 More Rules for Life.” The first rule advocates respect for two forms of human endeavor that Peterson frames as opposites: Social institutions (representative of order) and creative achievement (representative of the chaotic impulse within human nature). Peterson argues that people exist within socially constructed settings, where they must cooperate with others within a shared system of norms and rules in order to achieve anything meaningful. At the same time, every individual ought to retain enough autonomy not to follow rules uncritically, and each individual should strive for open-mindedness. The second rule, which tells the reader to imagine what they can be and pursue it single-mindedly, similarly integrates discipline and creativity. Pursuing an ideal begins with an imaginative exercise, a vision of something that is not but could be. Actually bringing that vision into reality, however, requires careful habits and an iron will. Peterson invokes stories, some from antiquity and others from modern popular fiction, to illustrate how the greatest heroes both challenge existing orders and succeed by imposing their own. 

In the third through fifth rules, Peterson advocates the acceptance of a degree of chaos in one’s personal life in the service of a more complete order. Rule three cautions against hiding unpleasant feelings or experiences in the ‘fog’ of forgetfulness. Individuals are often tempted to swiftly move on from and forget awkward social interactions or unmet needs. Peterson argues that, even if remembering these experiences causes emotional turmoil (chaos) in the short term, addressing them will lead to a more orderly and satisfying life in the long term. The fourth rule shifts the tone toward workplace self-help, urging readers to take up the responsibilities which others leave behind in order to make themselves indispensable and prove their eligibility for greater responsibility (and with it greater benefits). The fifth rule remains within the workplace, urging readers not to compromise their moral principles for the sake of career stability. Standing one’s moral ground at work may lead to the loss of a job—thus throwing one’s life into temporary chaos—but the alternative is a spiritual disorder that Peterson argues is far more lasting.

Rules six through eight draw from psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in emphasizing the role of culture in making order and beauty out of the chaos of the unconscious. Peterson issues a call to abandon political ideologies, which he defines as overly rationalistic systems of thinking that seek to impose an untenable degree of order on the messiness of reality. Such systems promise heaven on earth and offer simple solutions to complex problems—at worst, they can justify atrocities in the present as the means to achieve utopia in the future. Ideology is one area where too much order is a problem, and so people should instead (according to rule seven) work as hard as they can at one thing, finding an identity in the development of skills and the emotional resilience that comes with a disciplined life. Rule eight calls for making at least one room in one’s house as beautiful as possible, providing a daily reminder of the power of art in a well-rounded life. 

The ninth rule returns to Peterson’s work as a psychotherapist, calling for people to chronicle painful memories in thorough detail in order to come to grips with the chaotic feelings these experiences engender. The 10th rule offers marriage advice, specifically how to maintain a sense of romance in a long-term partnership. The final two rules are closely related: Peterson cautions against becoming spiteful or arrogant as a result of suffering, and he urges readers to maintain a healthy sense of gratitude. Throughout, Peterson cautions his readers not to blame others for their problems, which in his view leads to resentment, passivity, and learned helplessness. Instead, people must take charge of their own lives. Even if they do not accomplish all that they want, the effort they put in to pursue what they want will itself have a transformative impact, making them both happier and more capable of having a positive impact on the world around them.