12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos is Dr. Jordan Peterson’s most accessible published book. True to title, Peterson lays out 12 instructions for living well. Gleaned from ancient traditional stories and writers like Fyodor Dostoyevsky and C.G. Jung. The striking quality about these rules is their apparent universal applicability. Modern Western culture shares many values with ancient Egyptian, even if a majority of any particular community is unconscious of the effects these invisible forces on social connections and the fabric of civilization itself.
To oversimplify 12 Rules, much of Being is experienced between the duality of chaos and order. And the same for other meta-dualities like good and evil. “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago. Humanity has capacity for great good, but also the capacity for evil. Peterson articulates each and every Rule in a satisfying scientific style. His attitude toward seeking the truth is genuine in the most rewarding way for a reader.