/lit/ - Literature

>>13289899
Yes I read his book. It wasn’t that great, but by no means horrid. While clearly the ostensible theme tying everything together was the need for order in one’s life, it all felt jumbled. It was just twelve maxims stringed together and supported with a whole litany of facts/research from the social sciences. I just wasn’t sure where JBP wanted to take the book. I think he could’ve done a whole lot better. He’s really at his best when he’s describing archetypal stories and then tying them back to the lives of individuals (and I seem to recall that he does that partially with the creation stories in Genesis). I would’ve preferred a little less random social science trivia and more archetypal stories.

Also: probably could’ve cut down on some of the topics. I definitely would’ve made them more concise in terms of the rule names. Also, lots of the stuff in the book isn’t at all original (although maybe the masses to which JBP was appealing toward were unaware of this). Stuff in the chapter on friends is like a bad version of Aristotle’s On Friendship.

Ideally, I think the book should’ve been split up into two sections: Six rules for order (in both politics and culture), and six rules on chaos (how to deal with it, how to make the most of it, how to be creative). I think it would’ve been a bit more balanced that way. From there, it’d be niceness if each rule laid out an archetypal story (biblical, Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian, etc) and used that story to explain the rule. That’s what he does in most of his lectures (certainly all
of his good lectures) and why I think people gravitate toward him.

Photo for referencing Da Rulez