A publisher is not a Kinkos. Penguin Random House rejects far more books than it accepts, and it does not treat all points of view equally. It does not publish works of Holocaust denial or phrenology. It has standards, and it’s reasonable for employees to argue that Peterson does not meet those standards. After all, he has suggested that gay marriage might be a plot by cultural Marxists, that women wearing makeup in the workplace is “sexually provocative”, that trans women aren’t women because they’re not “capable of having babies”, that women cannot handle truth, and that transgender activists are comparable to mass-murdering Maoists. He peddles debunked scientific theories and dangerously dodgy diets. I have gone through his work myself and shown that he is a crackpot, whose writing is devoid of basic reasoning and full of wild unsubstantiated claims. When Pankaj Mishra wrote a critical review of Peterson’s work in the New York Review of Books, Peterson called Mishra a “prick” and said he’d “slap [Mishra] happily”. The things he says are often false, prejudiced and dangerous. What possible obligation does a publisher have to publish the ravings of bigots?
hahaha jordan peterson ahahah total xanarchy
Nice strawman you got there man. Sure they’re not obliged, but 4 million people were interested in reading his previous book. Capitalism goes brrrr.
The desperation to discredit JP by the left has only made him a bigger star. People already see through the incredibly ridiculous strawman arguments they have presented as his.
At a company town hall meeting, some employees were reportedly in tears as they described how Peterson had radicalized people in their lives.
This is beyond silly. The more outraged people get and even actually crying…the more people will buy his book and read it. I can’t see how normal human beings can read about people crying at a meeting over a book and think this is normal behavior.
He’s classical liberalism. He’s also a bit of an odd chap. But Far Right my arse.
Which of the points are strawmen?
Yeah, well, that’s the thing. Shouldn’t a good capitalist say okay I’ma take my business elsewhere and keep doing that until they all reject him and then say okay I’ma found my own publishing house and sell handmade copies on the street for $0.25 or whatever until he has enough money to buy a fancy printing press?
Or is Random House taxpayer funded (moreso than any other big business that can take advantage of convenient tax rules)?
He has more than enough money to self-publish, and the interwebs could distribute his book faster than any traditional store or lemonade stand ever could.
Now who’s doing strawmen?
The article only mentions “right” in the political sense once, in this paragraph:
We should hope for more revolts like the one against Peterson, and the one that occurred when Simon & Schuster dropped racist provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos. Of course, there are strategic calculations, because a huge part of the conservative “brand” is the feigning of persecution. If book contracts are canceled, rightwingers will claim that they are being silenced for expressing “disagreement”, when the truth is that private parties are simply declining to financially reward noxious views. The best solution is for publishers to not offer contracts to war criminals and transphobes in the first place, but this is unlikely to occur, because profit-seeking companies find it hard to turn down bestsellers. (We will soon see whether any of the Big 5 publishers can resist the windfall that would come from publishing Donald Trump’s presidential memoir.)
That being published is a human right. That’s just diverting the perspective that is: Peterson has a product to sell and the publishing house (the capitalist in my message) sees a way to make money off it.
Isn’t it implied in the characterization of the publisher’s refusal as censorship?
My understanding is that the publisher is not refusing to publish, so what is characterized as censorship is rather the totalitarian attitude of a minority of employees who demand that the whole house conforms with their arbitrary choice of what is publishable and what is not.
Care to address any of the specifics? They’re laid out above.
I was thinking childish. Crying at a meeting to not publish the book sounds like what a 5 year old would do.
It’s funny how people here trying to silence critics of JP are the same ones on other threads claiming they respect all free speech. Why is it not free speech when the employee expresses concern with the content of JPs book? You just call it cancel culture then you can silence anyone you want?
What about crying after Trump lost the election and pretending the election was stolen?
I’ll bite.
How about you actually watch his entire video to understand what he’s saying instead of little clips from people who clearly have it out for him. Which is many. The ways people have been trying to discredit him have been ranging from disgusting to laughable. I’d hope you could see through it and not listen to those people.
The first one for example. He is not against gay marriage and he is not saying gay marriage is a Marxist plot. He has made it very clear on other occasions he is for gay marriage if it helps gay people become part of the larger traditional society and he’s bot against consenting adults being together.
He is against gay marriage if it’s being pushed by cultural neo Marxists for their agenda nor for the sake of gay people. He used the word “would be” and “if” not “I am”.
You can disagree that neo Marxists are not doing that, he’s not even saying they are. He is saying in the situation that it is that. But the article made it seem like he’s against gay marriage and that he thinks gays are neo Marxists plotting.
The far right doesn’t even like him. Nothing about him is far right.
Who? me?
Lame attempt to distract me. Not going to work.
No one is. Quote it or take it back.
The more I read the article the more ridiculous it comes off. No one claims it’s a human right to have your book published. What is the person writing this even going on about?
And calling JP a transphobe is just…sophomoric. This is the clip it provides making it out to be that he doesn’t think trans women are women simply because they can’t have kids. He provided other reasons and said they deserve respect and dignity regardless. It’s as low level of a hit as calling him a neo nazi.
Expressing concern is one thing, demanding a reversal of the decision to publish based on ideological arguments is something else.
He is. He got rich based mainly on pushing anti trans views
I didn’t accuse you of strawman arguments.
But anyway, either he shouldn’t be published because his views are in some way problematic or there isn’t a problem. Perhaps his “noxious” views are left in the political sense.