Who facilitates the facilitators?
This doesn’t have “soft fascism” written all over it. Nope, not at all:
Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., 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.
“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.”
“Teachable moment” is evidently the new name by which “censorship of opinion” is now being called.
“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.”
She’s correct: it’s not about preaching (which can be listened to or ignored at one’s discretion), nor is it about advice giving (since one need not follow advice one is given). It’s about dialogue, which in the leftist lexicon translates into “telling you that you’re wrong (and a bigot) until you agree that you’re wrong (and a bigot).”
Daniel Hayward, a 46-year-old Master’s of Divinity student, applied to be a facilitator believing the role would offer him an opportunity to connect with many different students.
“It’s an opportunity to interact with lots of people, hear their stories, about the experiences they’ve had, hear the questions they’re asking,” he said in an interview yesterday. “It’s not like we roam around the halls looking for people having conversations. If somebody is yelling something across the dining hall that’s a racial slur, yes, we will intervene in that situation.
“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.”
I’m not sure what sort of different manner one could say “Death to the Zionists!” in. But then, these facilitators probably won’t have time to deal with such minor offences, as they’ll be too busy “fostering dialogue” and “intervening” with students who use, apropos of Kathy Shaidle’s pithy saying, words like “gay” to mean “retarded,” and words like “retarded” instead of “dumb.”
Seriously…who thought it would be a good idea to appoint six people to fill the role of busybodies, tasked with running around telling students “you really shouldn’t say that, and did you want to talk about why?”
Moreover, is there any kind of oversight in place to deal with facilitators who take their job a wee bit too seriously, and who act to all but stifle any conversation they find even slightly disagreeable?
I started blogging back in 2004 -- in May, if the Wayback Machine is to be believed. Not that I remember the exact day. To be honest, I didn't take it that seriously then; it was a fun distraction, but nothing more.
That all changed, I think, once the Danish cartoons were published, and the assault on the right to freedom of expression became very visible. With the recent issues in Canada concerning the "human rights" commissions, the gravity of the matter has only increased, and my interest in blogging has increased right along with it.
I used to blog at a domain called Time Immortal, but it seemed to be the right time for a change -- there's been a lot of that in my life of late. Hence this blog: a fresh start, and proof positive that I won't shut up even if I get shut down once in a while.
