Do We Expect Too Much From Those Who Aspire To Lead?

It struck me the other day as I was reading some news item, that we expect our politicians to be brighter than us, to have fewer faults than us and to never, ever have done anything dumb in their lives. I think that those are fair assumptions - we just shouldn't be terribly disappointed in those folks when it turns out that they are not quite as perfect as they suggested they were. I sometimes wonder if our disappointment in them is at least partially connected to our feelings of  us, one more time, being so stupid as to believe their self-stated perfection in the first place.

It feels as if there are more and more politicians publically being exposed for the humans they are - flawed (sometimes fatally), full of weakness and missteps, incapable of making a clear decision and sticking to it and generally being as incompetent as the rest of us. Some of these revelations are of course, the politician own fault. In a technological era of social media, where every pundit harps upon the importance of candidates and elected politicians to be connected to the "people" via various social media platforms, it is hardly surprising that some people fall into the trap of putting things "on paper" that they shouldn't.

One could wonder (and perhaps even guess) what the first Trudeau thought about the Queen or the separatists in Quebec or some of his ministers, but we did not get to know until he decided to tell us. For that leader and the thousands of other politicians, dissemination of their thoughts could not be instantaneous. The process of sharing their thoughts was filtered by the process of writing. All of us who write know that typing is faster than writing in longhand. The actual acts of holding a pen and having to reasonably carefully shape the letters slows down the thinking process. One actually has to think before putting the words on the paper. There was no delete button on the pen.  This process stopped or at least limited whatever stupidity that was circulating in our brain from leaking out.

While the blond headed buffoon/leader in the country to the south of Canada is perhaps currently the most famous/infamous politician who spews out what ever enters his limited mind - many politicians seemed equally as compulsed to share their thoughts and activities to anyone who has a Twitter account. We perhaps should be less judgemental as to what they write in the spur of the moment. If we want real, raw, unfiltered thoughts - if we expect them to be honest about what they are thinking - we probable should not expect particularly clear or logical thinking. Perhaps we should just accept that social media is at best a mechanism that at best, provides a superficial view of an issue, a view that is limited by both the lack of facts and a substantive discussion.

If we stop trying to use such platforms to have meaningful conversations and if we stop pretending that connecting to "friends" is a valid substitution for relationships - perhaps our politicians will attempt to communicate with us in ways that are more useful and less fraught with the risk of misunderstanding.

Robot Trucks

I know a little bit about long distance trucks and the men (I know there are many women drivers - I just have never met one) who drive them. As I hitchhike across parts of Canada, truckers have kindly offered me a seat in their trucks for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres.  They have told me their life stories, offered to buy me a meal and more often than not offered me place to sleep in their top bunk.

I was therefore pleased to see in the December issue of The Walrus, an article about truckers and the future of the industry ( robot trucks). It is an interesting article from the perspective of what may be happening in the next decade or two in terms of how goods get transported between cities in Canada - more importantly for me, it gave a small glimpse of what life is like for truckers.

In my experience for the most part, truckers are an unusual group of men. For some of them, they are gone for weeks at a time. For many of them, their weeks are comprised of a fixed rotation of drive, eat and sleep. All too frequently, they spend their day off in some truck stop amongst a hundred other drivers, hundreds if not thousands of miles away from their families. On more than one occasion a trucker has told me that he is meeting a friend at the next truck stop – someone who every week or ten days he meets for a coffee at some truck stop or another. In all likelihood, that might be his only human face to face contact of any significance for that week. I suspect that many truckers are lonely much of the time.  Truck driving is a hard job. It is hard on the body and the temptation to eat poor food and to exercise little is overwhelming.  

In my experience truck drivers are a fairly conservative lot. They adapt slowly to change and are frequently fierce critics of those who do. For example some sort of automatic transmissions have been around for large diesel vehicles for years (think buses), but until recently most truck drivers have, at best, been disparaging about drivers who use them. Those who do use the new transmission love them - especially when driving in the cities. There are certainly a lot more of them on the road than there were ten years ago. Some technological changes are happening without the truckers' consent. Big trucks in Canada are limited by law, in how fast they can go. Usually it is just a few kilometres over the speed limit. On so many of the major highways in Canada, this regulation means that the drivers can make less money (especially if they get paid by the kilometre), it is harder work (a lot more shifting through hilly country) and for the most part is not needed. When cars, are going 20-30 kilometre per hour faster than the truck they are zooming past, putting a limit of truck speed seems more than a bit silly.

In spite of some of our semi romantic version of truckers, in part engendered by such old movies as “Smoky and the Bandit”, where everyone is on the CB and they all have interesting nick names, more and more truckers are controlled not just by federal regulations but by electronic devices that allow the company to know exactly where they are and when their allotted driving hours for that day have been used up. Truck drivers are no long those lone wolves, those mavericks, the last of the cowboys and Don Quixote all rolled up into one.  So many of the newer drivers no longer see their profession as a noble one, one that was of value to the community.  Now they are just someone doing a job. They, like so many other Canadians, just feel over-worked, over-regulated and underappreciated.

I find it a bit scary and more than a little sad that at some point in the future, some hitchhiker will be standing on the side of the road and the trucks passing by him/her will have no driver. Part of that is I am less re-assured than others that a computer can always make the right decisions, that one can store enough possibilities in an electronic brain to make a quick, life affecting decision; but I am also sad that a way of life will be changed, in fact destroyed, because someone has found a way to be more efficient - to make more money with fewer people involved.

Robot trucks may serve the commercial needs of the companies, those stores and manufactures who survive using the "just in time" model (means that one does not have to build large warehouses to store items when trucks arrive every day with fresh deliveries), but that does not mean that we should openly embrace driverless trucks.

And in the future - who will pick up that hitchhiker?

Who Says What Is Or Is Not Free Speech ?

In the last couple of days there have been two unrelated but similar news reports about public figures being harshly criticized for their comments made on public platforms. The first was Margaret Atwood who wrote an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail. Atwood had in 2016 signed a petition asking for a clear and public process regarding the dismissal of Steven Galloway, who had been a professor at the University of British Columbia. Galloway had lost his position due to allegations of  sexual misconduct. Atwood has since been vilified by some individuals as a "bad feminist for signing the petition.

The second bit of news was about Rick Mehta, a Professor of Psychology at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, who tweeted an opinion as to whether or not the Conservative leadership in Ottawa was denying free speech to former Conservative Senator Lynn Beyek. There has been a petition circulating demanding that he be removed from his teaching responsibilities as he is supporting a racist (Senator Beyek).

While there is no doubt that Atwood is by far, better known by the Canadian public than is Professor Mehta, the public reaction to their comments are similar and disturbing. Atwood is not suggesting that Galloway is innocent, she is not saying he is a wonderful fellow - she is just suggesting that a publically funded institution such as the University of British Columbia needs to have a process that is transparent. That if the professor is guilty of the charges - then the public have the right to be told what the facts are. Galloway may be entirely guilty - given the frequency of abuse reports by students from other institutions, it seems to be highly likely, but if so - what are the facts? If he is guilty enough to be fired - why is he not being charged under the criminal code?

Similarly, Professor Mehta in his forty-two word tweet - was at least in part criticizing the Conservatives lack of consistency about free speech as well as suggesting that there needs to be a clear and honest dialogue about the issues facing Canadians. Again Mehta may be an out and out flaming racist - his opinions as to Canadian Indigenous people may be totally wrong, but to suggest that he lose his position without any sort of dialogue or process is wrong.

It is easy to understand why individuals who belong to groups (e.g. women, First Nations etc) and who have historically been devalued, abused and dismissed by those in power, would need to be diligent in protecting the rights that they have clawed back in the last few decades. I recognize that both the abuse that they have experienced and the amount of energy used to reclaim their rightful place has been all consuming. I also accept that the process has just started and that there is much that we still need to do. No one can afford to sit back on our collective laurels and just assume that everything will now be all right.

But in our desire to be supportive, in our need to get on the collective bandwagon of political correctness, we run the risk of ignoring the very processes that allowed the disenfranchised and the abused to be heard. If we start to decide who can or cannot speak up based solely on their opinions; if we chose to limit an individual's right to express themselves in reasonable ways; if we close off avenues of debate because they are uncomfortable - then we limit the ability of those who we have yet to recognize as being oppressed to speak out.

There is no suggestion that people who say (and believe) hateful things about our fellow citizens who are part of the LGBT community or belong to visible minorities, ethnic groups, religions or any anything else, should have a public platform to continue their childish and to be pitied rants about some other time and place. There is no place in our society for those who intentionally say things that are hurtful and just plain wrong. But surely there needs to be a place for well reasoned arguments to be exposed and debated. Surely our society is strong enough to allow discussion of contentious points without resorting to name calling and public shaming.

Those in positions of power have much to apologize for. They have consciously maintained a status quo that has limited and been harmful to millions of Canadians. But if we are to hold them accountable for their backroom deals and old boy networks - surely we must do so in the full light of public scrutiny. If we have learnt anything at all, it must be that deals made behind closed doors, to benefit those who are screaming the loudest are seldom if ever benefit the majority of Canadians.

Awards NIght (Part Two)

In a previous blog I discussed the fact that actors and others who worked in the business of producing films and television programs were being clear about how their industry needed to clean up its act both in terms of how women were being treated and the lack of diversity within the profession in general. While I did not see the awards show early this week, it is clear from the various news sites that both of those issues were raised.

The issue of how diverse the profession and its product needs to be is complex. It is not clear to me as to who or what is driving this agenda. Is the demand for more movies/programs that reflect the cultural and ethnic makeup of the USA coming from those people who feel under-represented? Or is the concern being generated by a relatively small group of people who are immersed into that industry and from their high perches think there is a problem.

There is no doubt that African-American, Hispanic Americans or Indigenous people are under- represented on both the large and small +screen. It is equally true that for much of the last century, what roles have been available have frequently portrayed members of the above ethnic groups as being inferior, incompetent and either natural subservient or unreasonably agresive.  What is not clear to me is whether or not people from those ethnic groups go to movies, and if they go - why?

If the answer to whether or not they go to movies is no - then the reason why Hollywood and it satellite cities produce the movies/programs they do is clear. They are producing programs geared to their audience and to maximize their profits. If on the other hand, those groups do go to movies and watch programs that unfairly represent them - then I suspect that there are complex sociological reasons as to why anyone would go to watch people of another race doing thing that may be irrelevant to them.

 

If the problem of lack of diversity was just a matter of people feeling left out, the solution would be simple. Only go to movies that accurately reflect your community. Those who invest in the movie making business - chose what movies to make based of what they think will sell the best. If large blocks of people stop going to movies - the capitalists will change what kind of movies they make.

  

There is however, a more important reason why movies/programs need to reflect our diverse society that has little to do with people feeling left out. If the dominant culture is never exposed to the reality that their culture is not the only culture and that those other cultures are of equal value, then our society will always be dysfunctional and less productive than it can be. Research has shown that companies that embrace and use their diversity are more productive at problem solving (Berkley, Stanford) . We need to have those people be more aware of the world around them and more able to work with all members of that society.

It would be lovely to suggest that such awareness could be developed by schools and by parents. However, given the inordinate number of hours that most children spend in front of a screen, the fact that not only do many parents not share the values of diversity, but even the best parents are consumed with the pressure of work and that schools are already overwhelmed with the number of things they are required to teach - we need to use the mass media.  Whether we like it or not, movies and television programs are frequently the primary (and sometimes only) vehicle to reach and to educate millions of people. Therefore, the movies/programs that we watch must reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity that exists in our society.

 

There is no doubt that the agenda of least some of the people involved in the movie making business understand the issues and why it is important. I however, struggle with the concept that some of the highest paid people in the world - people who do not produce anything except for 130 minutes of entertainment - understand very much about the world that say they want to change. As a group, their industry may be lacking in diversity - I suspect their own personal lives do as well.

Awards Night

Apparently tonight is when the Golden Globe Awards are given away. Even if I had access the right  television station - I would not watch the show. I have never found either the Golden Globe Awards or their slightly larger counterpart - the Academy awards to be that interesting. I do appreciate that hundreds of thousands of people around the English speaking world find the shows interesting entertainment and that for the performers that are being recognized - it is important if for no other reason than award can validate an increased pay check on their next project. But what I do find interesting is the comments from the performers as to the validity of the awards given the lack of diversity within the field and the amount of sexual abuse that has tainted the profession.

Both issues are valid and both should be addressed by everyone associated with those industries - including those who watch the movies or shows. However, it seems to me that the people who are complaining about the limitations of the environments they work in are the very ones who have the power to change how the movie/television industry  functions. For example the individuals who have come forward in the past few months alleging sexual assault from co-workers and directors all have said that they did not report it when it was occurring because they were afraid of what would happen to their careers if they did so. I suspect those professional were absolutely correct in making that assumption. It would appear that actors are as self-centred and as aggressive about their careers as any other profession and many would have no difficulty in replacing another person regardless of why they were deemed to not be suitable. If however, no actor applied for that newly opened position - the movie/show would not go on.  Entire productions would stop until the issue was addressed. I think part of the solution is for members of the actors union to start acting like union members first. If a member alleges assault and then loses their job - then a grievance gets filed and no member of that union applies for that job. That may sound incredibly harsh for everyone to put their jobs on the line to support a fellow union member but it has happened before with great success. Not quickly but changes did occur when union members have place the collective good above their own.

The fact that Canadians only work a 40 hour week, that there are rules as to how employers treat their employees, that there are paid vacations and that the employer must protect employee safety are all the result of workers refusing to work until their place of work became safer etc. Workers and their families went through incredible hardships to get what we now call rights. While no individual actor should have to feel afraid, the collective power of all of their peers could not only support them, but could also ensure that no one else was exposed to those types of action until the issue was addressed. I have no doubt that the corporations behind the productions would move quickly to resolve issues if they were about to lose money. It is great when actors say that they believe their peers who are now more forth coming about the abuse they have faced, but those actors need to be prepared to put their money and their careers on the line much earlier.

I am sure that numerous presenters of the awards tonight (and those who are receiving them) will rant about the abusive system they work in. I wonder how many of them will put their careers on hold to fight that abuse in the future? They may not be responsible for the abuse - but up to now,  they also have not been part of the solution.