Reader Mail: So quick to judge….
tagged David Kahane, Down's Syndrome, Satan, social justice, St. Joseph's College, Technorati and University of Alberta
It never ceases to amaze me how a minor little blog such as mine (seriously: check out the Technorati rating on the sidebar…mid-to-high 30s? Pathetic!) attracts the notice, on occasion, of folks in the news. Not that David Kahane is exactly a household name. Then too, he hasn’t exactly managed to avoid the spotlight either, and he writes in to remark on something I wrote about a class he teaches.
“St. Joseph’s College strives to engage everyone in the experience of those human values that encourage a respect for all persons, promote social justice, service, and friendship, and foster a desire for truth that includes the sacred.”
Hear hear. And yet I’m not feeling this ethos in your condemnation of me. Sorry.
I wish that you weren’t so quick to categorize me as your enemy, and to dismiss my work based on very limited information.
For the record, O Reader, I am but a former student of St. Joseph’s College at the University of Alberta — I am not currently a student of that institution, nor am I a member of the staff or faculty there. I am a member of the College chapel parish, as it is a Catholic church in addition to being an institution of learning, but that is about as far as it goes.
To be fair, I generally align myself with the ideals expressed in the statement of purpose that Mr. Kahane has excerpted above, especially in regard to “a desire for truth that includes the sacred.” To be equally fair, my intent in my earlier article was not specifically to offer condemnation, nor was it to define myself explicitly as the enemy of another person.
Rather, it was meant as a commentary on a certain…shall we call it liberal smugness? Fundamentally, what was at issue was that a philosophy class — in which students were encouraged to, among other things, think positive self-referential thoughts in a meditative style and to spend time sitting in public directing these “positive energies” as passers-by — was being touted as an experiment in social justice, when in fact it was nothing of the sort. Had it been billed as an experiment in liberal self-absorption, I’d have not bothered to take issue with it, because that latter classification would have been closer to the truth. But as it was billed as an experiment in social justice, I chose not to remark upon the untruth.
Sitting around thinking happy thoughts and hoping that the people walking past are getting your vibes is not social justice; it’s hippie-dippy claptrap. Social justice is spending five hours in a meager kitchen serving the best damn meal possible to a few hundred homeless people. Social justice is volunteering to take persons with out for various recreational activities. Social justice is joining [insert profession here] Without Borders and going to Africa for a year or two to do your very damndest to improve the lot of as many people as you can through the use of what technical skills you have amassed.
I’m not interested in being the enemy of anyone but Satan. I’m not trying to make enemies with what I write (as hard as that might be for some to believe). But equally, I have no tolerance for bullshit. If that sets me at odds with the “ethos” of the mission statement of St. Joe’s College (the educational institution, not the church), that’s something I’m willing to risk.
