So Jordan Peterson's profile has spiked higher in recent days with his interview on Channel 4 in the UK going viral on Youtube.
If he wasn't the the most famous Canadian intellectual in the world before, he is now.
What's been surprising to me is how he's been accepted as a legitimate public figure in the UK. Even the stridently leftist Guardian has posted some thoughtful and respectful pieces on Peterson
Banning people like Jordan Peterson from causing offence – that’s the road to dystopia
Jordan Peterson: ‘The pursuit of happiness is a pointless goal’
So when will Canada's media stop treating him like a pariah? If his politics were more ideologically agreeable to their own, the CBC would have aired a half dozen profiles and interviews with him. Turned him into a homegrown CBC darling.
But nope. Even as his prominence and popularity have grown, the CBC pretends he doesn't exist. Since the interview they did with him 18 months ago when he first took his controversial stand at Laurier, they've ignored him. It's like they wish he would just go away. Which seems a pretty sorry stance for Canada's public broadcaster to take with such a prominent figure.
You don't have to think he's a guru or agree with his criticism of identity politics to recognize that he's an important figure on the cultural and political landscape today. What does it say about the public dialogue in this country that he's being recognized as such in the UK while the Canadian cultural establishment has rendered him persona non grata?