The Dangers of a Single Ideology or Can a One trick Pony ever Change His Mind

I have fought the temptation to comment on the last month of the new America under Trump - yes I know that it has in fact been less than a week - but it feels like a month. I have lost that battle.

There is so much to say, and for a Canadian most of what I would say would be a waste of time. I am not too sure if Trump has any understanding of our history or our relationship with the country he now runs. In fact, I am not too sure if his understanding of that country is much deeper than the top 1%.  For Canadians to rant and rave what a buffoon he is, or how misguided his first few executive orders have been seems to be a useless expenditure of energy.  I find it absolutely mind boggling that people can defend some of his outrageous comments, that the phrase "alternative facts" seems to be accepted has being the same as the truth or that one person can undo so many things, so quickly. But those things are happening.

If his executive orders only affected citizens of the US, perhaps I would be less concerned. However,  his comments and his decisions may affect my life in Canada. That, I think, gives me the right and the responsibility to think about and to comment on occasion. It is not enough to sit back and say - not my problem.

Mr. Trump only has one set of skills - he knows how to negotiate from a place of strength. He does it by being bombastic, occasionally by bullying and in general, acting as if he is total oblivious to anything outside his narrow tunnel of vision. There is no sense that he knows how to compromise or that he is a team player. Any country that wants to/needs to negotiate with his government is at an extreme disadvantage because he assumes he is in a position of power. I suspect for Trump, negotiation only means how can I brow beat/manipulate you to give me what I want. As soon as that does not work - he throws a hissy fit, changes the rules or walk away from the table blaming the other party. That strategy might work when one is planning on building a hotel - I don't think it works when you are running a country. Unless of course everyone is too afraid to stand up to him.

It seems as if the "big" three American automakers might be among the first CEOs to stand up and salute their new leader. There might be some advantage on getting rid of the Japanese/Korean auto makers that have, for the last 30 years, consistently outsold the American car companies. If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler companies are told that they can only sell cars in the USA if those cars are built in the USA, but are given the right kinds of incentives including the breaking of unions and tax incentives that ensure greater personal and corporate profits - such a policy may make sense to them (but not to the thousands of Americans who work for Honda, Toyota etc.).  In spite of the fact that those CEOs know how complicated and how intertwined the three countries are (Canada, USA and Mexico) in the building of our cars, they are not standing up and telling the president that he is wrong. Perhaps the dangers of them disagreeing in public with the president may be deemed to be far greater than any benefits.

It is a slippery slope. If the first group of companies bow down - then it become increasingly harder for other companies to disagree. And who will want to? Oil companies will kiss Trump's feet if he limits or eradicates  any environmental standards, banks will praise him if they are deregulated, the far right will dance in public if gay rights, woman's rights and any other segment of society other than theirs, loses legal protection, both large and small corporations will sign up to be on his donations list if what little protection left for unions is taken away and the poor sot who voted for him will be thankful if life doesn't get any worse.

If change is going to occur, or at the very least if citizens of the US want to slow down the destruction of what they have, marching in the streets is not going to do it. Member of unions need to stand up and use what power they have to get the CEOs and stock holders to listen, employees of the federal government need to stand up and say what is happening to the health care or to the environment. People have only power when they are prepared to put their economic power on the line. That means the best paid people in the US, those who have good jobs need to stand up for others who are not so fortunate.

I am afraid however, that they too will be too afraid to voice their discontent. In the new world where the leader says that only his view and his beliefs are of value - it seems far more likely that people will act the same way.

Netflix, Cliff-hangers and the Death of Delayed Gratification

There was a time (well before my time) when people who went to the movies saw more than one movie. There would be a newsreel, some cartoons, a short serial movie and then one or two longer movies. The serial movie was a multi chapter movie in which every chapter ended with the heroine or hero in a precarious situation.  The films were designed to bring back the audience the following week to see how the hero or heroine got out deadly trap or got untied before the train ran them over or stopped themselves from plummeting to their death. It was a clever marketing device.

And then came television. Initially with limited choice in terms of programs, producers did not have to work hard to attract viewers week after week. However, when there were more than two or three television stations available in any one area, advertisers and program producers started to look for ways of getting the audience to return for the next week. An obvious and well tested method was to end each program with a cliff-hanger - some event that would, at the very least, rouse some curiosity as to what would happen next. Day time dramas (soap operas) have frequently used this device and almost all hour long shows especially at the end of their season have some sort of season finale that is designed to attract viewers back in the fall.

With the advent of such companies as Netflix , Amazon or Crackle, customers no longer need to patiently wait a week, or perhaps the summer, for the next hour of their favourite program. They can binge watch an entire series all at one time. Plots that may have taken thirteen or more weeks to evolve can be seen in one long viewing session. In a week, one can watch four or five years of a program. The viewer no longer needs to patiently wait  to see how the cast of Gray's Anatomy or the Walking Dead will resolve the next crisis - they only have to wait about 19 seconds for the next program in the series to start.

I would never suggest that people's inability to wait a week to find out what will happen next to their favourite character is the root of all of the world's problems. But there are other signs that our capacity to wait to get rewarded for anything is decreasing. We expect our news to be instantly delivered to our phones, we are hurt when people do not respond to our emails immediately and certainly our bosses expect us to be available at all hours. We live in a world where gratification of all our needs is expected to be instantaneous. If it is not - we assume the right to complain about poor service. Educational programs are designed to feed information in short bursts - with an immediate reward for the young viewer; computer games are designed to frequently reward players so that they will continue playing (Seidman, theweek); even college text books are designed to make the information simple to find. It feels as if people can no longer be expected to wait or to work for their rewards. 

Binge watching a whole season's worth of  Dexter or Breaking Bad is only proof that most of us have no desire to delay our gratifications - binge watching by itself, is not the cause.  But surely it is a symptom of what ails society. It might be useful for us to remember that sometimes waiting to eat the cherry last is in fact, the most rewarding way of eating a sundae.

The Wrong Question

Breese Davis in this month's edition of the Walrus, in just under two pages, succinctly sums up the issue of the Canada correctional system's poor handling of individuals who live with a mental illness. As part of that exercise he list a few of the 104 recommendations made by the coroner's inquest into the death of Ashley Smith. They are fine recommendations but that inquest and in fact the whole article asked the wrong question. It is not surprising therefore that the recommendations have not been implemented . As long as we continue to ask what we can do to help people who live with a mental illness and who have been incarcerated within our provincial and federal correctional system - the solutions will be at best unworkable. The fact that there are so many people incarcerated who are struggling with mental health issues is only a symptom of the problem. The question that we should be asking is - why are there so many people struggling with mental health issues being incarcerated and what can we do about that?

A number of years ago, in another life, I spent a lot of time in court. I was at that time working for a community based agency that supported some individuals who had a dual diagnosis. That is - individuals who had been labelled both as being developmentally challenged and as having a mental illness. On occasion some of those individuals committed a crime. Most of the crimes were of the nuisance variety although occasionally the charges were more serious. Some of their activities put themselves at risk. Again and again I attended court with these individuals, trying to get the defence lawyers, the Crown and the judges to be creative in their sentencing. Again and again the lawyers wanted me and my colleagues to provide treatment solutions.

There were no solutions. What few programs there were, were underfunded and had extensive waiting lists. There were times when we recommended that jail time be given to the individual in the hopes that some consistent structure and some sort of program would be better than anything available in the community. I can remember clearly when a judge, in open court, expressed his frustration at seeing one of my clients for the umpteenth time by saying " stop using my court as a behavioural management program!". He was right - in the absence of anything else - I along with many of my colleagues across the province were attempting to manipulate the courts to get services for people. It was inappropriate for us to do so - but we were desperate to find any solution that made an individual's life safer.

In the twenty or so years since that judge's comments, nothing has changed. There are still not enough services to support people who are living with a mental illness. According to the Globe and Mail, a Corrections Canada report in 2009 suggested that 33% of all women and 10% of all men incarcerated had a mental health problem. More recent reports suggest that those numbers have only increased. People are being convicted and sent to jail because there are insufficient  supports in the community. Canadian jails are being used as behaviour management tools because there are no programs in the community.

I, along with many social service workers were delighted when the government announced that they were going to close institutions. Some of us had spent years fighting for that very decision. However, we were told that all of that funding, and more would flow into the community to provide the necessary supports. That never happened. The community members who needed special support s lost access to intuitional programs - but nothing was made to replace it.

The issue of people who struggle with mental health issues in Canadian prisons will not go away until we provide community based, treatment options for them. Pouring money into the correctional system to fabricate  programs will only mask the problem. The solution does not lie within the correctional system because the problem originates within the community.

As long as we only deal with the symptoms - we will never create the solutions.

  

Celebrity Status and the Right to Speak

For a number of years Joseph Boyden, a  bestselling Canadian author and multiple award winner, has spoken out eloquently on a number of indigenous issues including that of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. He has been given a voice in these issues because of his literacy status and because he has made claim to having links to at least three distinct tribal roots through either his mother or father. The Canadian literary scene is all abuzz with the news that perhaps the author Joseph Boyden is not quite as indigenous as he suggested he was. In theory an author's ethnic background is not particularly relevant  in terms of his or hers ability to write entertaining novels. However, when those novels purport to reflect a specific orientation and/or a specialized understanding of a culture or a history - it becomes critical. When those authors are given specific platforms to speak out because of those assumed cultural or ethnic affiliations - we all need to be sure that they have the right to be there.

There is a long history of Europeans claiming a specific cultural or ethnic heritage to either increase their income or to enhance their message. While Archibald Belaney may be one of the better known names in Canada, the tradition of appropriating another culture is not restricted to Canadians. In the USA a number of individuals have claimed kinship to First Nations including Elizabeth Warren, a US senator and Ward Churchill, a former University of Colorado professor. We live in a world where at least ideally, it does not matter what race we are. We publically espouse the theory that the colour of skin is only skin deep and that individual characteristics such as skills or intelligence are not related to one's race.  So does it matter whether or not Boyden's ancestry is indigenous? If he can eloquently discuss the issues of such communities, if he can bring those issues to our attention in new and attention getting ways - what is the harm?

Canadians have struggled for the last 400 years to accept that the perceptions of Indigenous peoples in terms of history, discrimination and of land use are legitimate.  From the time of the first comments of the Recollet priests in the early 1600 in Quebec, there has been the assumption that oral histories are not valid, that the spirituality and culture of the First Nations lacked legitimacy because it was not written down. Until fairly recently courts have refused to accept oral traditions has having any relevance.  As Canada hopefully matures in its capacity to understand other culture's truths that are expressed differently - we need to continually ensure that those who have the knowledge are given the platform to speak and to be heard.  If those platforms are taken over by individuals who, while they may have the best interests of another culture at heart, are not part of that community - there will be less space for those have been immersed in and who are part of that culture.

For too long we have decided what is best for Indigenous Canadians. That sort of cultural do-gooding is inappropriate. It is the kind of colonialist thinking that allowed for residential schools, out of community adoptions, relocation to other places and the creation of on reserve government that frequently does not work. I do not know if Boyden's cultural/ethnic roots are Indigenous or not, but it is clear to me that it is not sufficient just to think that you are. (Boyden himself has described himself as “white kid from Willowdale with native roots”  (The Star.)

 It is not enough to feel an affinity for another culture, specifically one that has been oppressed - such affinity makes one an ally - not a member of that group. Oppositional consciousness ( sociological term referring to the need to identify with a marginalized culture/group so that one can legitimately protest ) is at best - the appropriation of another culture's truths. Even worse it can smudge the truths and lessen their impact.

We need to be able to let people speak and to be heard even if that means that some of those people do not have celebrity status.

Post Secondary Education - Revisited

I was washing some wool the other day when, almost out of the blue, it struck me that the whole argument about the relevancy of post secondary education was, at the very least, based on the wrong question.

We seem to go through spurts of enthusiasm for reviewing the value of our education system. Almost invariably the conclusion seems to be that we are teaching young adults the wrong information. The argument is that  if we could only give them access to the right information, they would be so much more successful and so much more useful to the business world. We make the assumption that people don't use the information/theories they are taught because those facts and theories are not relevant in the 21st century.

 But what if the question was - why don't people use the information that we give them?  Before we assume that the information is not useful - perhaps should wonder if there is some other reason why it is not being used. Let me give two examples of information that every student who takes first year sociology and psychology course is exposed to: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Durkheim's theory of suicide.

The first argues that before an individual can maximize their potential they need to have their basic needs meet. That is, before an individual can have meaningful relationships, experiment with their creativity or be engaged in an exploration of their world in a meaningful way - they need to have, amongst other things - a secure supply of food and a safe place to live.  If our governmental and corporate policies reflected this theory; if we focused on ensuring that basic needs were met - everyone could potentially be a full and meaningful participant within our society.  

The second theory suggests, in part, that people who feel disconnected from their society, who have been forced to relocate away from their roots (either physical or emotional), who no longer feel as if their society can provide to them the needed moral values or guidelines, are far more likely to commit suicide ( or engage in anti- society acts) - Durkheim referred to it as anomie - than those who have maintained close ties to a society that has retained its value. We have known for over a century what causes despair amongst dislocated peoples. Yet we continue to create policies that facilitate such dislocation.

Both of these theories (there are many more)  are well known and accepted within the academic world.  Both have been tested and explored by more than a few generations of students and social researchers. The question is not whether or not the information is valid or useful - it is why, in spite of some excitement on the part of students when they learn them, do we not use the information when we leave school? Why, as soon as we leave university or college - do we never think about them again? How are our perceptions of the world shaped/manipulated so that we ignore what we have paid good money to learn.

I am not a great believer in conspiracy type theories but one has to wonder if there is an explanation other than the theory is not valid. Using Maslow as an example - do the capitalist elite really want individuals to be self actualized? Does it want a population of workers and consumers who have the capacity to think creatively and critically?  Is it possible that society gets "fed" the question about our post secondary education not being of value because some don't  want the real question to be answered?

It is so often true that we waste time and money solving problems that don't exist because we don't take the time to ensure that we are asking the right questions.

p.s. Actually the above thoughts did not appear totally out of the blue - my daughter's questioning what kids learn in high school and a friend mentioning how rare it was to see people quote academic writers outside of university in all likelihood laid the seeds of the thought .