This year Jordan Peterson, the cult Canadian psychologist, meat-eater and lifestyle guru, will tentatively edge back into the public spotlight, after spending time reportedly recovering from drug addiction in Russia.
Readers may be familiar with Peterson’s self-help guide 12 Rules for Life, which sold over three million copies worldwide and topped the bestseller lists. So you would imagine that with the sequel out in March, most publishers would be clamoring to be the ones to sell it.
But it appears that Penguin Random House, which managed to snag the rights, is now having the opposite problem. According to VICE, its Canadian employees are in uproar about the company carrying the book.
At a packed ‘town hall’ meeting, staff were said to be in tears that Penguin were publishing the book, and over 70 have submitted anonymous complaints to the company’s ‘diversity and inclusion committee’.
Cockburn has to confess that he’s a little confused about the furore. After all, should you be really working for a publisher if you don’t believe in publishing things you don’t agree with?
But considering that PRH employees are now in the business of pulling books they object to, Cockburn has some suggestions for other books they publish, that should now probably be thrown on the pyre:
1. Mein Kampf
1. Mein Kampf
On the other side of the Atlantic, Penguin’s UK branch are still hawking copies of Mein Kampf, which outlines the anti-Semitic beliefs of Adolf Hitler.
While Cockburn is sure that Penguin’s Canadian employees believe that Herr Hitler is several degrees less evil than Mr Peterson, should they really be endorsing this hate speech?
Interestingly, Penguin UK appear to have the right idea when it comes to Mein Kampf. They note that:
‘Mein Kampf is an evil book, but it remains necessary reading for those who seek to understand the Holocaust, for students of totalitarian psychology and for all who care to safeguard democracy.’
It appears though that Hitler gets more leeway than Peterson…