Reflections on Aristotle’s Poetics

Aristotle’s Poetics is one of the earliest surviving works of literary criticism, and I read it over the past couple days. It’s pretty short (the Project Gutenberg version I got came to 60 pages, and that includes the legal notices), but it’s interesting to explore it as a thought exercise.

It’s one of very few surviving texts that is more than two thousand years old, and it’s interesting to see how well it equates to modernity even though many of the terms and concepts that it uses have developed in the time since its writing (though, to be fair, some of this likely also is a factor of translation).

You also don’t need as much information to go into it as I thought would be necessary. Being familiar with Homer is a must, since Aristotle references his work constantly. Other than a very basic knowledge of Greek myth or drama (e.g. to catch references to Oedipus or Medea or the more famous ancient playwrights), nothing more is needed.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Be grateful in spite of your suffering. (Part 2)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. Although Peterson did not intend for all the chapters in the book to build on each other, this final chapter seems like a summary of many of the previous elements in the book.

The core focus of this section, which is a reflection on the final part of the final body chapter, is on the reasons why striving for the good is so important despite the presence of truly horrible things in the world.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Be grateful in spite of your suffering. (Part 1)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. Although Peterson did not intend for all the chapters in the book to build on each other, this final chapter seems like a summary of many of the previous elements in the book.

That isn’t to imply that there aren’t new ideas in here. There are, and it actually presents some images that are strong and either unexplored or only trivially pursued in earlier chapters or work by Peterson. It also relies on the exploration of past concepts while moving in a new direction.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 4)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three four parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

Tonight I’m looking at the final portion of the chapter, in which Peterson talks about deceit in particular before getting into the solution to (as much as the reasons to avoid) resentment, deceit, and arrogance.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 3)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three four parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

This particular section focuses on two things: the role of the individual (and the two orientations that they often fall into–the hero and the adversary), and the way to avoid resentment. While I am only looking at a very short length of the book (I am reading on Kindle, but it is probably less than ten pages worth of print), I think it might be the most important part.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 2)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

This section of the chapter relates to the premise only in an abstract sense, but deals with figuring out how to deal with the world in a way that prevents bitterness.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 1)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

The reason this chapter is so important is that it brings the grand scheme into perspective. Everything in Peterson’s book so far leads up to this point and mastering this one principle gives a lot of power to a person.

And this is essentially the antidote to evil, at least in the sense that you can keep yourself from being worse than your natural proclivities.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship. (Part 2)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. This is a longer chapter, and as a bachelor I have some limitations regarding the subject Peterson is focusing on here.

It took me a while to work up to writing this second part; I read it over the weekend but it’s been a couple days of thinking about it that really made it come together. I’m afraid I lost a lot of Peterson’s original thrust, in part due to my inexperience and in part because I had other things occupying a significant portion of my attention.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship. (Part 1)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. This is a longer chapter, and as a bachelor I have some limitations regarding the subject Peterson is focusing on here.

However, that really just means that I’m going to go off on tangents more than usual as I go through this chapter, because it’s still quite interesting. There’s some stuff that is really similar to earlier stuff in Beyond Order (especially the chapter about hiding things in the fog), at least in the first part of this chapter.

Read more

Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: If old memories still upset you, write them down carefully and completely. (Part 2)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. While the first part of this chapter deals heavily with case studies, the second half opens up to a deeper discussion of the reasons we need to confront the past.

The reasons this is necessary range from minor concerns to major life-impeding issues, and Peterson also brings to light the best methods for achieving this process.

Read more