Via TDK, more attitude management for unsuspecting students:
Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, has hired six students whose jobs as “dialogue facilitators” will involve intervening in conversations among students in dining halls and common rooms to encourage discussion of such social justice issues as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability and social class.
Apparently it’s inconceivable that any right-thinking young person could tire of discussing “social justice” – a term that, as so often, remains oddly undefined yet drips with tendentious implications.
“If there’s a teachable moment, we’ll take it,” said assistant dean of student affairs Arig Girgrah, who runs the program. “A lot of community building happens around food and dining.” She gave the example of a conversation about a gay character on television as a good example of such a moment. “It is all about creating opportunities to dialogue and reflect on issues of social identity,” Ms. Girgrah said. “This is not about preaching. It’s not about advice giving. It’s about hearing where students are at.”
Oh sweet lord. Hand me the explosives.
Like dons, who serve as student authorities in residence, the six facilitators will receive full room and board and a stipend for the full-year commitment, and will receive regular training.
But of course. Correcting political waywardness is the work of heroes, after all.
“We are trained to interrupt behaviour in a non-blameful and non-judgmental manner, so it’s not like we’re pulling someone aside and reprimanding them about their behaviour. It is honestly trying to get to the root of what they’re trying to say – seeing if that can be said in a different manner.”
On what basis do these “dialogue facilitators” presume they have any business policing the private discussions of others, even during lunch breaks, and steering students towards politically modish terminology and opinions? And however coy the language, that is what’s being attempted. Just pause to consider the monumental arrogance and vanity at work. Bask in its glow. Will it, I wonder, occur to such people that their own behaviour and assumptions are intrusive and condescending? Will they dare to be surprised if their presumption meets with emphatic resistance and, one hopes, an occasional fit of violence?
Update: Temerity Revisited.
“If a student avoids a classmate’s birthday party for faith-based reasons.”
I’m puzzled as to what ‘faith-based reasons’ there might be for not attending a birthday party. And how that could be distinguished from not attending it because you can’t stand him/her, or you’re ‘washing your hair’ that night….
Julia,
Quite. I’m trying to imagine the mindset that lists such things without registering the, um, difficulties that immediately spring to mind. How is the implicit subjectivity and intrusion to be avoided? And why is not attending a birthday party listed alongside scrawling racist graffiti on someone’s door? Should the compilers of such lists be trusted to be either competent or benign?
David:
I’m here almost by invitation, after taking exception to two references to physical violence, one of which appears in the last sentence of your post.
At my place, you indicated that you were simply indulging in a little hyperbole. Unfortunately, such “hyperbole” has found its way into comments elsewhere on this self-same topic. I find it somewhat alarming that for those who are quick to defend the right to freedom of expression when the target is Islam, or homosexuals (I’m thinking of cases that have been brought to various Canadian human rights tribunals), the notion of physical violence springs so quickly to their minds when it’s progressive speech that’s at issue.
Because, if you step back, that is we have here: individuals encouraged to speak up when they hear slurs being uttered in their presence. They have no power and no authority other than their own ability to argue. They are neither thought police nor jackbooted thugs. All they have is speech. It just happens to be speech of which you disapprove.
My ex and I once heard someone loudly use the n-word in a restaurant table next to ours. Both of us spoke up on that occasion. Were we mindless politically correct thugs, or civilized folk who didn’t want their dinner spoiled? Should the fellow have kicked us both to the curb?
In any case, the subject we are discussing is likely to have been someone’s fantasy:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081119/queens_facilitators_081119/20081119?hub=TopStories
Dr Dawg,
You don’t need to be invited here. You’re quite welcome.
As I said in the comments on your site*, you took my flip and obviously hyperbolical remarks – which were essentially bait, raising the issue of humour, subjectivity, etc – as indicating real physical intent, thereby advancing a misleading argument to your readers. You can use “hyperbole” in scare quotes if you wish, but the point about misinterpretation, wilfully or otherwise, remains. And it’s not a trivial issue. If you can be mistaken – and we’ve had several, lengthy exchanges so you have some idea of my humour and habits – then others will be too.
* http://www.haloscan.com/comments/drdawg/3676920871301441757/#200753
“…the notion of physical violence springs so quickly to their minds when it’s progressive speech that’s at issue… It just happens to be speech of which you disapprove.”
I have no idea what you mean by “progressive speech” but the term seems a tad presumptuous. I don’t recall criticising speech of any particular kind. I criticised the interruption and possible inhibition of private discussions by condescending interlopers, whose intention seems to be to dictate what constitutes permissible private debate. Which is not the same thing. Your attempt to frame the conversation taking place here as inhibiting “progressive speech” is similarly misleading.
“My ex and I once heard someone loudly use the n-word in a restaurant table next to ours. Both of us spoke up on that occasion.”
Good for you.
“Were we mindless politically correct thugs, or civilized folk who didn’t want their dinner spoiled? Should the fellow have kicked us both to the curb?”
This is facile conflation. The situations are not equivalent for reasons outlined earlier, several times.
“In any case, the subject we are discussing is likely to have been someone’s fantasy.”
I suggest you read my comment of 10:50am today, which may cast some doubt on that. As I said earlier, if the project *has* been “mischaracterised” and “misconstrued,” then the dean of student affairs and at least one of the “dialogue facilitators” tasked to “intervene” have also “misconstrued” what it is they’re planning to do.
David:
Thank you for your initial comment, and for directing me to the dean’s remarks in your earlier one (10:50am).
When does public speech become private (or vice-versa)? The dean of student affairs has a point. A cabinet minister in Canada lost his remit because he was overheard making some damaging comments on an airplane, by a staff member for another party who subsequently publicized the minister’s remarks.
My understanding was not that these facilitators would obtrusively listen in on as many conversations as possible–the campus, after all, is quite large–but would, if certain slurs were noisily uttered in their presence, remonstrate. This, if it’s happening, is but an extension of programs now in place in some of our high schools, in which trained students intervene when they come across incidents of bullying and harassment.
I think this is all to the good, and the only difference that I can see between it and the anecdote I offered is that there is some training and official support involved. It’s still speech met by more speech.
But back to the issue of physical violence, if I might. The fact that we have had long exchanges in the past has indicated to me (and I mean no condescension whatsoever here) that you are an urbane and civilized man. This is why your references to violence raised in me some concern. Hyperbole? All right, but why would the idea of violence even come to mind in this context? You aren’t alone: I have cited other examples of this in my own post.
[OT: No comments on the BNP outing?]
“The fact that we have had long exchanges in the past has indicated”
Read: “Our long exchanges in the past have indicated”
Sorry–I really should compose off-line.
I have just posted this at Dr Dawgs site:
“Any civilized person should speak up, of course, when homophobic slurs and so on are uttered.”
And who are you to decide what is homophobic? Are you gay? Has a deputation of gay people selected you to be our spokesman?
Why are you qualified to be the arbiter of what is proper and what is not?
Who died you and made you Lord High Protector of All Minorities?
Where were you and your ilk when I, whilst standing in front of the attacker to protect my boyfriend was head-butted and had two front teeth knocked out by a real homophobe,?
Sitting pretty in your safe, tenured, candy-assed university spouting this same kind of drivel – talking shops of high minded but abstract theory and “solidarity” that have a personal cost of zero.
The 6 people I was with – lefty pacifists to a man – couldn’t run away fast enough.
The one man who intervened, with whom I established a long friendship was a dyed in the wool conservative, who, even though he was uncomfortable about “queers”, rushed to my defence and prevented my injuries from being much worse. Where would your calculus rate that good man?
This is wholly representative of all my actual experience of homophobia.
You lefty gay-wads are all talk and will reassure yourselves that you are “right-on”, choosing soft targets for your campaigns for so called equality and tolerance – while completely failing to get in the faces of those who actually exhibit hate.
Where are you now – as Californian homos resort to the N word and attack Christians and Mormons because they didn’t get their way on proposition 8?
Where are you and your socialist compatriots on the vicious homophobia of Muslims?
Sitting pretty in your tenured candy-ass universities trying to control words rather than actions.
Organise a homophobia workshop on a council estate. Stand up in front of one of the lower class bully boys (the same lower class scum that you are so ardent should be supported by my taxes) that attacked me or just shut the hell up, because otherwise you are just blowing smoke and using my sexuality to score political points against people you don’t like. And that’s the real point here – it’s not that you are motivated by any real desire to help people – you just don’t like views that don’t coincide with your own.
I detest your implication that free speech doesn’t matter – that it is OK to open windows into mens souls over a dining room conversation whilst ignoring racism and homophobia in the communities that you view as “protected”.
I detest the implication that, as a gay man, my personality is so fragile that I need YOU to stop people from making jokes about gayness or associating gayness with anything less than the totally positive. Some of the vilest people I have met are gay. Bitchy queens and racist middle class bigots whose behavior is never questioned because they have a special status in the minds of lefties. Gay men who have beaten their partners and who lie and cheat with gusto. White straights do not have a monopoly on bad behavior.
Double-standards. Blog posts about “tolerance”. Welcome to the lefty world of the politics of appearance. Cost and danger free but with all the social benefits of being “right-on”.
Dr Dawg,
“It’s still speech met by more speech.”
But who gets to decide what’s acceptable, or indeed private? Isn’t it actually “private speech met by instructions to speak differently, in an approved way, even in private”? And what if someone says “no”? What are we to make of the dean of student affairs, who says, breezily: “If people are having a conversation… and they’re doing it loud enough for a third person to hear it… it’s not private”? Doesn’t that statement warrant a raised eyebrow? And I’m not talking about shouted racist abuse, which is almost certainly covered by existing policies; I’m talking about less clear-cut instances, of which there would most likely be many. (What about something like my comments that were quoted on your site?) And based on the statements of the “facilitator” quoted in the article above, it seems inevitable that eavesdropping would rear its head sooner or later, if only to justify the project. And how would you or I react if someone heard and chose to interrupt a private conversation we were having, possibly much like this one, and presumed to make suggestions as to how we might say things “in a different manner”?
Maybe we should look at it this way. We’ve joked and debated at some length and you have, I hope, at least some idea of my humour and habits. You should, I hope too, have some confidence that I’m not prone to making racial slurs or harassing people for no particular reason. Yet, despite this, you took comments I made (to illustrate a point about humour and subjectivity) as indicating a literal urge to violence, thus giving your own readers a misleading impression. Isn’t it possible, indeed likely, that others will make the same mistake? Doesn’t that give you pause?
And don’t you see the broader difficulties that would inevitably arise if people are employed to monitor speech in the ways indicated (accurately or not) in the piece quoted above? And doesn’t it concern you that these self-appointed Guardians of Verbal Propriety seem to regard innocuous references to a substandard film being “a bit gay” as no less actionable than real acts of harassment – say, the scrawling of racist graffiti on a student’s door? Given the apparent willingness to conflate the trivial and the truly obnoxious, doesn’t that raise concerns about *their* judgments and motives?
And isn’t the basic premise of monitoring and “correcting” private discussions just a tad worrisome? Can I monitor yours? Or do I need “training” and an approved outlook? Should we suppose, based on nothing in particular, that those selected to do so, whether we wish them to or not, will invariably have our best interests at heart and be dazzlingly competent and objective? Or are racism, homophobia and an urge to suppress “progressive speech” the only conceivable grounds for concern?
I responded to TTM’s rant at my place. Suffice it to say that he should not make such easy assumptions about a person with whom he is not acquainted.
David, what I see in your comments and in those of others is a wildly exaggerated response to something that falls far short of the monster that is being created by the critics. There is no threat to free speech here–just, as I said, the addition of more speech. The apparent officiousness of it all has you upset, and I can understand that, but I think that there’s much less here than meets the eye.
This is not telescreens and thought police. If it’s taking place as described, it’s a few trained students trying to make Queen’s a less hospitable place for prejudice, by verbally confronting it. I hardly think that our conversations would warrant intervention!
Dr Dawg,
“OT: No comments on the BNP outing?”
I followed the BNP membership list story but didn’t have much to add to what was blogged elsewhere. And there are times when you just don’t want certain subjects in your head, if you see what I mean.
Dr Dawg,
“I hardly think that our conversations would warrant intervention!”
Well, maybe not this one, but others perhaps. If we were to poke through the archives, I’m pretty sure we could find comments of mine that would set antennae twitching. (Muhammad ahoy!) And I’ve a pretty good idea of how I might react if accosted on that basis by some condescending prick. (And condescending pricks will almost certainly be drawn to “work” of that kind.)
And I notice you haven’t addressed the points raised above, a number of which are pertinent regardless of how ominous you feel the proponents’ intentions are.
David:
I thought I had. There are times when common sense should prevail. This initiative doesn’t lend itself to a Jesuitical exercise to determine what types of speech would come under the ban, with all of the refinements and hair-splitting that such an exercise inevitably produces. If the program is actually on offer, only the more egregious cases would be addressed–if only because there are only so many hours in the day, and there are 20,000 or so students attending.
If someone poked their noggin into one of our conversations, I think we would remonstrate right back, wouldn’t we? Might make for an amusing blogpost, in fact. 🙂
“trying to make Queen’s a less hospitable place for prejudice”
No it’s not. It’s about the orthodoxy of the leftist world-view being imposed by bureaucratic fiat and the exclusion as socially unacceptable any views or beliefs that deviate from that.
Don’t they get it – however vile the members of the BNP and their views are, provided that they aren’t encouraging violence, they are as entitled to their views as Dr Dawg is to his.
Without this freedom, we are no different than the Protestants who persecuted the Catholics in 16th Century England, or the Catholics who massacred the Huguenots in France.
I presume no-one would suggest that I support or condone Fred Phelps and his “Church”- but I would be horrified to see him and his awful family arrested for their beliefs. I find Islamic teaching about any number of subjects – but especially homosexuality abhorent – but I would not want laws requiring all sermons in Mosques to be vetted by bureaucrats – because I know that such laws would be terrible and unjust instruments that would and there is no uncertainty in this – they WOULD be used to diminish the freedoms of other groups.
Dr Dawg,
“I thought I had.”
Well, no. It seems to me you’re basically saying there’s nothing to worry about because only loud and inarguably nasty stuff will be acted upon and the people involved are honest and benign and will know when to mind their own business. Needless to say, and based on past experience, I see no reason to share your confidence. And many of the points I’ve raised throughout this thread are pertinent even if one assumes the most implausibly positive intentions at all stages, which I don’t. They’re matters of practical application, personal space, ideological loading and inevitable ambiguity. To assume that good intentions (embraced heroically by everyone involved) are sufficient grounds for comfort seems to me rather fanciful.
But ‘tis late, I must to bed.
To assume that good intentions (embraced heroically by everyone involved) are sufficient grounds for comfort seems to me rather fanciful.
I suspect peer pressure would play a strong role as well, given that the facilitators have nothing but their wits to fall back on–no civil authority, no power to sanction. There could be some fascinating conversations arising from this, which is all to the good in itself at an institution of higher learning.
Good night, David.
“To assume that good intentions (embraced heroically by everyone involved) are sufficient grounds for comfort seems to me rather fanciful.”
I forgot–no html tags here. These are David’s words, in case I caused confusion.
Earlier for me across the pond, but I’ll sign off too, and ruminate about The Thin Man’s suggestion that responding to speech with more speech is, in this instance, a replay of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
“If the program is actually on offer, only the more egregious cases would be addressed”
Then how do you account for this:
“Should Gov. Ted Strickland fire the state agency director who authorized an improper search of private records?
An inspector general report found Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Sservices Director Helen Jones-Kelley authorized an improper search of confidential records of Joe the Plumber — the Ohio resident turned political celebrity. Strickland suspended the director without pay for four weeks, but Republicans are calling for her firing.
Jones-Kelley serves at the discretion of the governor, and according to state policy:
“using resources to violate or attempt to circumvent confidentiality procedures is strictly prohibited.” Doing so “may be cause for termination.”
Jones-Kelley said in a written statement through her attorney that her only intent in authorizing the information searches was to fulfill the agency’s fiduciary responsibilities to Ohio’s families.
But Friday, Strickland gave his reasoning for not firing Jones-Kelley, saying she made a mistake, and the punishment he settled on was appropriate.
“I felt one month without pay, which will deprive her of nearly $12,000, was a pretty severe sanction,” Strickland said. “But I did not feel this good person who has served the public admirably for so many years should be tossed aside because she made a mistake.”
How many “mistakes” of this kind will it take for Dr Dawg to understand the chilling effect on free speech of programmes such as this one?
More reductio ad absurdum from Dr Dawg.
I’m not claiming that anybody would be massacred – just pointing out that the same “good intentions” as the Catholics had in trying to save their society from the evil heresy of the Huguenots is what is at the root of speech codes.
In what way is the suppression of an individuals right to hold whatever views seem appropriate to themselves different from this kind of enforced orthodoxy? Aren’t people entitled to be stupid or bigoted in their private spheres?
How ready will anyone be to question a politician or “dialogue-facilitator” if the cost of doing so is to bring down quasi-official opprobrium and risk the social exclusion that such opprobrium may lead to?
What speech codes enforced by official sanction represent are a form of the Milgram Experiment or the Stanford Prison experiment. What results is the effect of exposure to authority and the acquiescence of the average individual, not a change in the thought processes or views held by those affected.
Dr Dawg,
“If it’s taking place as described, it’s a few trained students trying to make Queen’s a less hospitable place for prejudice, by verbally confronting it.”
Well, as I’ve shown above, there are grounds for doubting the judgment and motives of those involved, including the casual redefinition of privacy and the conflation of innocuous language with acts of real intimidation. These are a few of the many points you still haven’t addressed. And failing to attend a student’s birthday party may also be taken as a sign of intolerable prejudice and a basis for intervention. This doesn’t exactly bode well.
“There could be some fascinating conversations arising from this, which is all to the good in itself at an institution of higher learning.”
Given the above, and given that the dean of student affairs doesn’t seem to respect the idea of private discussions being none of his damn business, I’m pretty sure some of the exchanges will be “fascinating,” though possibly not in the way you suggest. And this, for me, is the thing. We really haven’t touched on the question of personal space, as if it didn’t matter. As The Thin Man said, we should be very, very wary of opening windows into men’s souls. I have no interest whatsoever in a person’s private bigotry and stupidity. However distasteful they may be, a person’s private views are, in themselves, none of my business – and none of yours either. If the person who holds those views isn’t actually hurting anyone or impeding someone else’s business, I see no sufficient reason to probe their psychology or guide them towards The Light™.
No-one I know is keen to hear racist epithets being shouted pointedly over lunch, but is that really what’s happening, or likely to happen – sufficiently so to warrant the measures being taken? Do gay students and black students walk across the dining hall and common room fearful for their wellbeing and assaulted verbally at every turn? We are, after all, talking about a *university* here, not a rough run-down high school in some low-rent neighbourhood. And if that isn’t happening – and happening very often – is there any credible basis for even considering the measures above and what they entail?
Dr. Dawg: “If someone poked their noggin into one of our conversations, I think we would remonstrate right back, wouldn’t we? Might make for an amusing blogpost, in fact. :)”
The point is we don’t want “dialogue facilitators” poking their noses in at all. We don’t want to have to “remonstrate right back.” And as david said, what happens if someone tells them to fuck off and mind their own business? Is that “hate speech”?
Not sure Dawg appreciates thin ends of wedges.
And i was hoping for a leftist version of a “fisking” of The Thin Man’s post that he attempted to dismiss as a rant.
Otherwise it appears that he has (for want of a better expression,) been “pwnd”
Update:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2008/11/temerity-revisited-.html
“David, what I see in your comments and in those of others is a wildly exaggerated response to something that falls far short of the monster that is being created by the critics.”
If you raise the temperature slowly enough, the frog won’t notice that it’s being boiled until it’s too late. And the cook will insist that the pot is just a hot tub.
Queen’s University to change it’s name out of sensitivity to gays
Why do parents continue to pay thousands of dollars in University tuition fees? Students at Queen’s University who sprinkle their dialogue with an assortment of “homo” or “retarded” could find out the hard way that not everyone finds their remarks…