Philip Hensher has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Like most novelists, I am a firm adherent to the W.H. Davies principle of finding time to stand and stare. I was once sauntering down Regent Street when a gentleman hared out of a department store, closely followed by two rather healthier specimens. They flung him to the ground, upon which large quantities of merchandise started falling from his pockets. I was fascinated, both by the level of violence the shop’s security was using and by what a captured thief actually says when he’s being subdued. (Clue: not ‘You got me bang to rights.’) After a moment or two another bloke came over to me and a couple of others gawping on the public pavement. ‘Move along there,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for you to see here.’ I replied as anyone would when a stranger starts ordering you around: ‘Who the bleeding hell are you?’
The same question came to mind when reading Beyond Order. Jordan B. Peterson published the successful 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos a couple of years ago, quite no-nonsense in tone. ‘Stand up straight with your shoulders back’ was number one; ‘Tell the truth’ number eight. Now he presents us with 12 more rules. Are these self-help books? And before we start listening seriously to someone telling us to ‘Try to make one room in your house as beautiful as possible’, let’s look at Peterson. Why should we follow his rules for life rather than those of Bimini Bon Boulash?
Peterson had been leading a blameless life in the groves of Canadian academe until, in 2016, the Canadian parliament passed a law prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Many transgender people, as well as those unwilling to conform to gender stereotypes, think it’s important to be able to choose the pronouns they use.
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