Kevin Elliott2013-05-19T02:04:53-04:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=kevin-elliottCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Kevin ElliottGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Disturbing Cultural Attitude of "Tolerance"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29455792013-03-25T18:33:41-04:002013-03-26T11:20:00-04:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-elliott/
The body of Lucy Meadows, 32, who taught at St Mary Magdalen's School in the mid-sized town a few dozen kilometres north of Manchester, was discovered at her home by authorities on March 19.
Although police, awaiting coroner results, have not confirmed her death was a suicide, they did specify that her body was found "under no suspicious circumstances."
By the following two days the news had spread across the U.K. media, and by the Thursday, two online petitions appeared, one on SumofUs.org and the other on Change.org, demanding the dismissal of infamous Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn, garnering over 115,000 combined signatures at the time of this writing. Littlejohn, who is a previous recipient of the Columnist of the Year prize from the British Press Awards and was at one point the U.K.'s highest-paid newspaper columnist, is no stranger to controversy for his long-standing complaints about political correctness and, as the Guardian has implied, his closet homophobia.
Upon the news last December that schoolteacher Nathan Upton would be returning to work after the Christmas holidays as Lucy Meadows, Littlejohn wrote an ignorant and insulting column (which the Daily Mail has since removed from its website, but its link is archived) in which, after making it very clear that he has nothing against transsexuals, he nevertheless argued that "Upton," not Meadows, mind you, "is entitled to his gender reassignment surgery, but he isn't entitled to project his personal problems on to impressionable young children." Heck, I did not even realize there was a problem.
The crux of Littlejohn's thesis, more to the point, involved a hierarchizing of identity positions, impressionable and innocent youth versus transsexuals: "The school [where Meadows worked] shouldn't be allowed to elevate its 'commitment to diversity and equality' above its duty of care to its pupils and their parents." Littlejohn then cited the concerns of one of the parents of Meadows's students, Wayne Cowie, who had previously been quoted as saying that the children "are too young to be dealing with" the confusion.
Although there is as of yet no direct evidence that Littlejohn's article and the subsequent firestorm of media intensity against Lucy Meadows that it sparked led Meadows to suicide, we do know that the media did indeed hound her.
Meadows's tragic death brings to light the implicit, closet phobias of LGBT communities that are prevalent in our Western, liberal culture. This is not only an issue of criticizing Littlejohn and his defenders and sympathizers. This is not only an issue of attacking the media culture that subsequently harassed Meadows as part of a systematic tactic to sensationalize their stories (which itself also explains why the likes of Littlejohn failed to mention that parents such as Cowie were evidently in the minority with their views).
No, the biggest problem here is the liberal identity politics that pits identity positions against one another. Although in this case, as liberal-minded thinkers argue and not incorrectly in and of itself, the rights of Meadows trump the concerns of impressionable and innocent young children because the parents and school administrators of these children should instead assume the responsibility of quelling such concerns--this fact in itself is problematic because it is contingent on the circumstances. That we have to "trump" anything in the first place is troubling on its own.
The liberal mantra of tolerating others necessarily relies on the plurality of differences that, however inadvertently, feeds the conservative tactic to hierarchize identity positions that establishes such asinine questions as, "When are children too young for us to expose them to LGBT issues?"
We need to seize upon this tragic incident to critically reflect on how our Western, cultural attitudes may have sadly contributed to its outcome.
This blog originally appeared on the author's website.]]>Why This Free-Speech Wall Came Crumbling Downtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25792472013-01-30T17:30:10-05:002013-04-01T05:12:01-04:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-elliott/According to the campus newspaper, such comments included "abortion is murder" and "traditional marriage is awesome." The former I think is too blandly ubiquitous to not be self-trivializing, and you'd have to inject a lot of subtext into the latter to give it the traction needed to qualify it as a hateful comment, but what do I know?
What became even more controversial was Smith's self-published declaration of intent, written the night of the incident. Smith described his deed "as an act of forceful resistance," presumably against the symbolic construction of liberal-democratic discourse, if I am reading his philosophical rhetoric correctly.
"'Free speech'" is a "meaningless platitude" which only functions to legitimize "the damage [hurtful words] do to individuals in marginalized communities," Smith argues, concluding that safe spaces for such individuals and communities cannot exist "where there is potential for triggering, the invalidation or questioning of the identities of others, and/or the expression of hatred."
Credit to Smith for his ability to at least construct a logical, if misguided, argument in defence of his position. As a seventh-year(!) undergraduate student, he's at least demonstrated first-year writing skills. With that being said, I fail to see how the positive affirmation of identity is possible without free speech, an irony completely lost to him. This point was also articulated by civil-rights commentator James Peron, who argued Smith's hypocritical actions are actually detrimental to gay rights.
This story, however, more recently started to gain even more international attention when well-known and progressive Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, on Jan. 28, cited Smith as an explicit example in the destruction of the university as a space of critical dialogue.
Greenwald compared Smith to radical Jewish student groups who cry foul when universities host guest lecturers whom speak out against Israeli violence done to Palestinians. (Remember George Galloway, Canada? Smith eerily resembles Conservative MP Jason Kenney in that analogy.) Importantly, against Smith's comment that "'not every opinion is valid, nor deserving of expression'" was Greenwald's counterpoint that Smith unjustifiably anoints "himself arbiter to decide which opinions are so invalid they cannot be heard."
And here's where things get sticky. Smith's actions were hypocritical, and he was in no position to silence others. What's particularly ironic is not just his own reliance on freedom of expression in order to articulate his point against free speech (as already demonstrated by the likes of Peron and Greenwald), but that the specifics of his own argument are self-defeating.
Fighting "meaningless platitudes about inclusion and equity," Smith asserts conceptually similar grounds on which supposed spaces of inclusion and equity can, and must, breed. Either we live in a liberal-democratic zone where spaces of equality bloom through uncensored free speech -- the positive position -- or the negative position on the same spectrum propagated by Smith, by which he uses freedom of expression to censor speech that, supposedly in his case, threatens spaces of equality.
This is why Smith's actions are so hypocritical: his own argument is merely the other side of the same coin as his counterargument. What's also interesting is that, likewise, Smith actually has a point (as ostensibly absurd as that sounds): although calling affirmations of free speech "acts of violence" is outrageous hyperbole, Smith also -- and rightly -- at the beginning of his self-published declaration, reveals that liberal-democratic society too often utilizes free speech to tackle the symptoms of inequality, leaving the systematic causes of inequality constantly unchecked.
What ends up happening is that Smith then goes and does something to tackle a symptom -- as if negating the freedom of speech to protect vulnerable people from hurtful words will impact underlying systemic attitudes towards such people. What's needed is not external censorship, least of all the "forceful" and self-defeating kind Smith exhibits, but responsible self-censorship, and this comes through critical thinking and awareness, not removing free-speech walls.
The removal of external censorship to free speech does not actually provide spaces of dialogue necessary for inclusion and equity, only their conditions for possibility (and thus also impossibility). Our collective dialogue on this issue should focus more on how to work towards self-restriction to free speech under an ethical framework, to create such spaces of equity. In other words, Smith could better spend his time fostering a culture to alter free speech towards more responsible means. It's hard work, and he gave up too early.]]>When Asking Y, Do We Ask the Right Questions?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22100522012-11-29T12:16:29-05:002013-01-29T05:12:02-05:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-elliott/series on, ahem, the trials and tribulations of Generation Y, those, roughly speaking, currently aged 18-30, we have a very advantageous opportunity to move forward given some unwelcoming statistics.
And yet, many analyses seem to merely entrap themselves in the dichotomy between labelling young people as "lazy" or as lacking "perspective" on the one hand, and on the other hand, (more admirably but still problematically) claiming that young people simply have an opportunity to reshape the world in which they live by, for example, engaging in new forms of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The only problem? Such a dichotomy stifles us more than anything. Although both perspectives premise themselves on plausibility, the former trivializes and the latter objectifies (at least the latter one strives for a more optimistic outlook). As a result, and also because they are merely opposite ends on the same spectrum, as both a society and a generation we cannot really get anywhere -- we remain stuck on that spectrum.
If the same charges are laid every two decades or so against the new generation, and if the same typical responses are constantly rehashed to compel the younger generation to adapt, then really nothing new changes at all. In analyzing a column that addressed the bleak economic prospects for young people in the U.S., former LA Times editor Tim Cavanaugh thought it amusing that it was his generation, Generation X, that was told throughout their youth that they in fact would be the first generation in U.S. history to earn less income than the previous generation. "I suspect if I had a time machine," Cavanaugh continues, "I could find newspapers in the 1960s saying the same thing of the baby boom generation."
What I must emphasize is the imperative that I think we all ought to tackle, that is, the need to initiate the kind of dialogue that gets us thinking about ways out of this debilitating cycle. I do not want to suggest that Generation Y's situation is not unique; in fact, for the very reason that it is unique is what will allow us to start articulating these kinds of dialogues.
What do we know about Generation Y's situation? We know that young people are suffering from both high unemployment and underemployment rates -- whereby not only are some finding it tough to land a job at all, but many are having to settle for low-paying jobs for which they are overqualified -- and historically high costs of education that burden them with almost unheard-of debt levels. Economist David Macdonald rightly expands upon these points, outlining how Generation Y has more systematic barriers than their predecessors to things like saving for retirement, a mortgage, and paying off debt.
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Presumably, given the assumption that young people's subsequent stress over the situation derives from a selfish sense of entitlement, the arguments that they are lazy or lack a sense of perspective are designed to encourage them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and start taking responsibility for their actions, thus preparing them to effectively take on the real world, so to speak. However, if the opportunities exist for young people to succeed but not enough of them are taking advantage of those opportunities, why are we not also asking "What does this say about our society that creates these opportunities?" instead of only asking "What does this say about young people?"
The other argument in the dichotomy leaves us in the same helpless position. If the previous arguments are designed to encourage us, with whatever good intentions, to get active and conform to, or maybe even alter, the world around us, making the case that young people are active, and that it is all a matter of them seizing hold of their convictions to "brainstorm," "collaborate," and "create more entrepreneurship and public-private partnerships," also supposes that young people can make something of themselves by altering the world around them.
At the end of the day, all of these views, in their own way, compel young people to engage with the world -- but there needs to be a distinction between content and form. As young people, we can either decide to conform to or alter the content of our society, or we can go a step further and assume the courage to discuss ways in which the form of our society may be what is holding us back. Or else, we will be the ones writing in 20 years the same thing former LA Times editor Tim Cavanaugh is writing in 2012, as the next generation of kids has it even worse than us (and can you imagine even worse student debt?).
The form of our society is one founded on many contradictions. One could hazard that in this information age, never has knowledge been so easily accessible and in such vast quantity, yet overwhelmed by it all, Generation Y is all but programmed to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. Better yet is this example: it is true that youth have abundant opportunities for success, but they also have more systematic barriers than ever before to pursue such opportunities. It would be prudent of us then to seize hold of Macdonald's overview and parse through its implications, namely, the consequences a society creates as it individualizes and privatizes risk.
Encouraging young people to get a grip, go it alone, and seize hold of the opportunities before them will inevitably leave many people behind in the dust -- and it certainly does nothing to shed light on the form of our society that makes it less of a society at all, and more of a collection of individuals increasingly burdened with the sense that retirement, a mortgage, and tuition are nobody's problems but their own.
]]>Appointing a Female Justice Won't Solve Women's Rightstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19632132012-10-15T02:29:12-04:002012-12-14T05:12:01-05:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-elliott/Justice Richard Wagner to the Supreme Court of Canada less than two weeks ago, a backlash developed in the days that followed criticizing not Wagner himself but the fact that the Supreme Court's presence of women justices has now been weakened. With this admirable attempt to advocate for fairer gender representation on the nation's top court, I can't help but wonder if an emphasis on such direct representation distracts us from more effectively tackling systemic barriers to women's rights in our country.
Journalists immediately put Prime Minister Stephen Harper under the microscope for his nominee, noting that he "risked controversy" because, with Wagner, four out of five of Harper's total nominations have been men. Queen's University law professor Kathy Lahey agreed, arguing that Wagner's nomination "reduces the diversity and equity reflected in the court, and sends the message that the wisdom and expertise of women lawyers and judges is still not valued equally with that of men in 21st-century Canada."
A couple of days later, Montreal Gazette writer Janet Bagnall followed Lahey's lead with a column critical of the appointment. Bagnall's premise is that, with women now comprising three instead of four members on the nine-judge court, "the court [...] has moved into the comfort zone created when women make up a third of the workforce." This institutionalized "comfort zone" presupposes that women have achieved equality as long as they have reached that one-third threshold of direct representation, therefore trivializing women to ridicule if they make any further claims to equality.
This "comfort zone" to which Bagnall refers seems intuitive enough for me, and I can't imagine anyone being foolish enough to even attempt to dismiss its existence. What I find problematic, however, is Bagnall's mostly explicit argument that reversing the trend of the underrepresentation of women will necessarily solve systemic gender inequalities in Canada.
Of course it is true that, as Bagnall notes, the more "women joined the court" in recent decades, the "more rulings came down that took into account women's reality." However, we should be mindful that the direct representation of women isn't going to provide an inherent safeguard to women's rights. One only needs to look at the recent controversy with Rona Ambrose for evidence on this point. The federal MP who is also the status of women minister voted in favour of a private member's bill that would have effectively re-opened the abortion debate.
Now, it's important to point out that the counterargument to Bagnall's position has its own flaws. Bagnall cites Ottawa lawyer Eugene Meehan's comments as that counterargument, with Meehan implying that the judicial system has moved beyond gender by focusing instead on "talent, ability, and experience." Such a dismissive perspective is insulting; as if you could just pretend we have moved beyond gender. And here's where Bagnall's "comfort zone" is a useful point of reference.
But simply making the case that we can fight inequalities with greater representation of women is a Band-Aid solution, something to make ourselves "feel good." Let me make myself absolutely clear so as to avoid misunderstandings: the arguments put forth by both Bagnall and Lahey are important and necessary. But in their limited scope, they have an unintended consequence of creating a subtextual mindset that the only alternative to the one-third threshold in the fight for women's rights is greater ostensible direct recognition. What gets lost in this melee over identity politics is the reality that even if women (or any other minority group) have a formal majority in the Supreme Court, legislature buildings, or corporate boardrooms, that that majority by itself does nothing to fight systemic inequalities.
My point is thus that we should not just advocate for stronger women representation on our courts and in our legislatures, as equal attention needs to be paid to battles over women's rights that underlie this representation.]]>Clark's 'Sick Culture' Comments More Telling Than They Appeartag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18988642012-09-19T21:53:35-04:002012-11-19T05:12:02-05:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-elliott/"sick culture" of Victoria, the provincial capital.
Surely as a premier facing an upcoming election whose party is already struggling in the polls, such comments probably are not the smartest of political moves. Granted Clark made the remarks after the interview had formally ended, so perhaps she was under the false impression that they were "off the record," although that is not a legitimate excuse. To cite a line from Mitt Romney's playbook, one imagines that Clark could have responded by suggesting that her words were "not elegantly stated" (you think?).
I can't help but wonder though if all of the backlash to Clark's admittedly foolish comments are missing the mark. Which one of us, especially the politicians and political commentators in the bunch, can truly look in the mirror and say that the state of government in our society today is not a little bit perverted? If there is an "unhealthy" discourse in politics, which leads to gridlock and general systemic barriers, why are we not talking about those problems?
Of course it is easy to understand how many people can interpret Clark's comments out of context. Consider:
"I try never to go over [to Victoria]," she says. "Because it's sick. It's a sick culture. All they can think about is government and there are no real people in Victoria, and you get captured by this inside-the-beltway debate, and it's really unhealthy."
She certainly knows how to give ammunition to her opponents.
B.C. NDP MLA John Horgan is quoted as arguing that Clark's comments exemplify a lack of genuineness in her as a leader, and that it is "little wonder that the Liberals have little support on Vancouver Island."
National Post columnist Brian Hutchinson links Clark's comments to her government's decision to cancel the provincial legislature sitting for this fall, which itself is, as Hutchinson is not wrong to argue, "unhealthy."
B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix characterizes the cancellation of the fall session as embarrassing.
Maybe Clark, although no doubt inadvertently, is getting at something more profound here. It is a bit of a stretch to assume that the "sick culture" to which she refers encapsulates the city of Victoria and its general residents, which is the accusation that Horgan levels. More likely Clark was using "Victoria" to denote the culture of provincial politics -- a point she herself has since confirmed. Anyone who has ever worked in a government town before knows that the bureaucracy of it all can drive anyone mad at times.
But even that is an oversimplification. If the über-partisan and rhetorical debates that have dominated headlines recently with the federal government's return to Parliament are any indication, then yes, we do know that the "politics of politics" creates a vitriolic and sometimes useless environment. Does this mean that we should give up hope, and just expect our politicians to not sit in the legislature to do their jobs? Of course not, and Clark is wrong to even attempt to argue otherwise. Then again going back to "business as usual" does not do anything to fix the problem inherent in our political system. Participating in an "unhealthy" discourse is only a marginal step above avoiding your job in the first place.
And here is where Clark's words, perhaps unintentionally, could have an impact: If the provincial legislature is an unproductive space of mud-slinging and pundit-dominated politics, let's acknowledge these problems and take that acknowledgement upon ourselves as an opportunity to reflect on ways that can make politics more productive and less rhetorical.
Both the Liberals and the NDP need to critically self-reflect how they contribute to this "unhealthy" environment, and although Clark's argument that spending more time with constituents is a better alternative is a copout to detract from the fact that she and her party are abdicating their responsibilities, merely criticizing her for avoiding Parliament is not sufficient.
Of course Clark shoots herself in the foot with the cancellation of Parliament, but in many ways, merely debating issues in the legislature can be no less "undemocratic." Simply arguing that the legislature should be back in session is the easy thing to do. The harder job is what nobody has addressed yet: what to do once you get there.]]>It May be Victoria B.C.'s Anniversary, but the Focus Should be on First Nationstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17300472012-08-02T12:00:03-04:002012-10-02T05:12:06-04:00Kevin Elliotthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-elliott/150th anniversary on August 2, something is oddly amiss: reflection. The city has a relatively strong presence of First Nations inhabitants, particularly the Coast Salish groups, who have occupied the lands many -- many -- years before colonial settlement. Victoria has an opportunity to reflect on how to best move forward with the strained relationship they have with First Nations peoples, an opportunity which they sadly don't seem eager to take advantage of.
It is important to remember that August 2, 1862 is a date that marks endings as well as beginnings. The incorporation of Fort Victoria also subsequently meant the cessation of Coast Salish lands to the Crown, as many land treaties negotiated with First Nations groups around this time were wrongly conveyed to them as merely peace treaties. More importantly, present-day poverty and violence that plague First Nations communities across British Columbia continue at staggering levels.
Surely, I suppose it's to be expected that a provincial capital in Canada today celebrating its sesquicentennial will have its usual fare of politically-neutral block parties, family festivals, concerts, and the like. Victoria's planned week-long celebration will even feature historical and interactive fairs with a nod to Coast Salish families and traditions--again, that it is a "nod" is probably and unfortunately to be expected. Perhaps debates will develop about whether such a festivity is appropriate, or if it trivializes or objectifies First Nations peoples.
I'm not interested in starting such a debate, but no doubt this situation is problematic. However, what is the solution? Could the festivity organizers augment the presence of First Nations tributes and events? Probably, but I'm not sure if it would solve anything. Possible alternatives from the opposite perspective are protests--which would likely fall on deaf ears.
The fact is, debates will continue to swirl long after the dust has settled: to assimilate or to resist? But such a preoccupation with identity politics -- and I use the term identity politics very loosely -- distracts us from more relevant, systemic problems.
Such a debate bears resemblance to colonization versus decolonization, a fight between competing processes that continues to trouble many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis groups, particularly in British Columbia, often leading to violent outcomes. A recent article in the Vancouver-based Georgia Straight magazine cited experts from both Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria about the issue, with one predicting an upcoming resurgence of indigenous warrior societies. Clearly tensions are reaching a breaking point. For such warrior societies, the pressing issue that faces them is formalized Canadian politics that challenge indigenous nationhood. This, then, is the fight for today's young indigenous people.
Now, these issues are of the utmost importance, and of course my main point is that an anniversary celebration that symbolically also marks the loss of such nationhood is an ideal opportunity for reflection. But this reflection should be used to generate dialogue, not necessarily urgent action. On Canada Day, the Globe and Mail published a sarcastic editorial mocking Canada's culpability in colonization. Victoria's own Monday Magazine, in light of the anniversary, recently wrote a somewhat shocking exposé of the city's "lesser-known secrets" from its 150-year history, including events that shame Victoria with its treatment of First Nations peoples.
Such dialogue and knowledge create an opportunity for a shift in perspective. Forums and community discussions that can arise from such an anniversary celebration, to create and foster dialogue and awareness, are equally advantageous opportunities for everyone involved to understand the stakes -- and one's own role -- in the challenges ahead.
Should Victoria's anniversary celebrations do more or less, and how should First Nations groups respond? These I feel are questions that blur the issue. We should resist the urge to get caught up in identity politics. Instead, let's take a step back and use this opportunity to reflect on the situation at hand.]]>