Misogyny to the left of me, chauvinism to the right…Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

“You have heard what he’s said about women, right?” tweets the bearded man with what I imagine is a condescending smirk. The ‘he’ man-beard is referring to is Jordan Peterson. The polarising and controversial Canadian Clinical Psychologist is in New Zealand on his speaking tour to promote his new book. I think it is a book about telling kids to tidy their rooms, but according to some Peterson “threatens everything of value in our society”.

Men like man-beard and those at Auckland Peace Action (do not get me started on the hypocrisy of their name) are determined that no one should listen to or read the words of Peterson or else they be…well, I’m actually not sure what they think will happen if people are exposed to ideas and opinions they disagree with. In fact, judging by this horrendously cringeworthy interview with Sean Plunket, APA struggle themselves to name what is that they fear Peterson will inflict on our small island nation.

What they fear is not that Peterson’s opinions will cause mass violence or that swarms of locusts will fill the streets of Auckland. They fear that people will listen to him and be persuaded. They recognise that rightly or wrongly their positions on many things are at odds with Peterson’s. They are aware of the precarious knife-edge…