Can we rein in the latest iteration of political radioactivity?

 The British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, tells reporters that this is a pivotal moment for the world…given the precarious knife edge the Israel-Iran-United States conflict is wobbling. And, of course, at the hub of the geopolitical military and political and economic vortex is the single individual seeking to become the most ‘famous’ (infamy is also now part of his definition of fame)..the man ‘elected’ president of the United States.

With the B-2 Bombers now on their way to Guam in the Pacific Ocean, with multiple refueling tankers, signaling a possible U.S. strike on the Iranian nuclear site. The Times of Israel reports today:

According to Haaretz, between 2 and 4 stealth bombers, alongside a refueling aircraft, ascended from the Whiteman Air Force Base on Johnson County Missouri, toward naval base Guam. It is unclear whether the planes will continue toward Diego Garcia, the Chagos Archipelago Island that serves as a  US-UK base some 3.500 kilometers (2,175 miles) from Iran. Diego Garcia is seen as an ideal location from which to operate in the Middle East….According to The Times, the Us would need British permission to attack from Diego Garcia because the Island is  under British sovereignty, but this would be necessary if the aircraft take off from Guam…

This space studiously avoids military conflict, believing, probably somewhat naively, that any and all words spilled about military conflict give the historic military option too much power and influence…However, today is very different!

There is a megalomaniac in the Oval Office with his metaphoric finger on the nuclear codes, the largest and most lethal war machine in the history of the world at his disposal (with self-proclaimed puppets at his command) and a cranium that, for all intents and purposes has been lobotomized, as far as carrying out the legitimate, legal, historic, traditional moral and ethical principles and guidelines of the Constitutions of the United States of America. Imagine it as parallel process, but this individual has moved far into the deliberate process of lobotomizing the United States identity, historic reputation and geopolitical trust, all of which took more than two centuries to design, fabricate and sustain.

Human life, for all intents and purposes is little more than a mass of digits on an envisioned digital screen, analogous to PacMan for this little man to manipulate, according to both the hard wiring of his brain and the software of his psychic debilitation. He needs the power of dominance, manipulation, extended beyond the ‘newspeak’ of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, where it was only the juxtaposition of opposites (War is Peace) that could be decoded. There is no process of decoding the scramblings of this man’s intentions, fantasies, worst nightmares, and over-weening fears. No psychiatrist, neurologist, political scientist, nor even those whose lives have been dedicated to the study of tyranny, and have precedential patterns to drawn on, (some of which fit here), have been able to provide convincing counter-measures to neutralize this demonic presidency.

War-lord Netanyahu obsessing over war and the relief it brings to his dark cloud of an impending prison cell, while snookering his American desperate accomplice, may have put him in a place where there is no good option. He too, when it comes to his personal political and insatiable need (not merely desire or ambition) but downright psychic need and dependence on dominance, power, and the deployment of all of the hard and soft instruments to attain it, disregarding even charges of war crimes, and using famine as a weapon of war, and killing thousands of women and children to ‘erase Hamas from the face of the earth’….echoing the Iranian fixation and obsession to remove Israel from the face of the earth.

Of course, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, all proxies for Iran have been engaged in military and terrorist acts against Israel for many months…with the impunity of ‘hands-off’ for Iran who funds, trains, arms and deputizes this terrorist groups. And, now the Israeli people, according to most reports reaching the West, support Netanyahu’s invasion of Iran itself.

Does Israel seek regime change? Or, the actual physical scorched-earth elimination of the Iranian nuclear program, as if such a program were in even the slightest way analogous to the removal of Hamas. These ambitions of ‘absolute control’ whether over undocumented immigrants who have committed no crime and are foraging a respectable living for their families, or over all of the agencies of government, including the Justice Department, (or over the whole of Ukraine, as Putin boldly declares is ‘his’), or over the eradication of an idea, embodied in such groups as Hamas and Hezbollah and Houthis, or ever over a potentially non-military fusion program in Iran….it is the ambition and the fantasy that have been fused. And the fusion exceeds capability….it also exceeds what the world can tolerate as a modus operandi for any government, any leader, or any legitimate ideology….

Elimination of whatever and whomever one considers an ‘enemy’ is the prevailing ethos in the United States of America, an ethos that, by definition, contains the seeds of its own death. The zero-sum game, applied to the whim of any individual, without appropriate, muscular and committed deterrence, is so lethal as to be radioactive, without a measuring device to determine the degree of lethality, as would be the case in a nuclear reactor’s implosion.

Launched over the southern half of the North American continent is a political, psychological, military, cyber and national security radioactive bomb, launched ironically and tragically by the very administration that was elected to protect the 330+ million Americans from such a bomb. There are no apparent effective antidotes, neutralizing forces, antibodies, inspection regimes, or even detection devices that can and will determine the extent of the lethality….in a metaphorical and political and cultural sense.

Apparently, launched over Ukraine is a similar radioactive bomb of presumptuous ‘ownership’ that defies the identity of the Ukrainian people and their chosen future as members of both the EU and NATO. Apparently launched over Gaza is another radioactive bomb to erase the millions of Palestinians who have attempted to survive there for decades.

And now, are the perpetrators of these already unleashed political radioactive bombs about to unleash another over Iran…no one in the West, or in the East wants Iran to have an nuclear bomb. Iran, itself says, it does not seek such a device. No one outside Iran seems to trust that Iranian claim….and there is some considerable reason to doubt it.

However, to unleash a real nuclear bomb potential in and for Iran, as a geopolitical goal, and a legitimate goal, is not to justify unleashing bombs sufficient to destroy a nuclear reactor miles underground under a mountain. And for Trump to declare that Europe cannot be effective in talks with Iran, and only America can, is to challenge and threaten both Europe and Iran to succumb to the inordinate, illegitimate and undisciplined and untethered pseudo-power of the self-declared megalomaniacal model….

Any bombing of the deeply buried reactor will spew radioactivity through the region…and such dispersal will kill and maim many….for what? To satisfy an illegitimate political, military, and morally corrupt movement that is sweeping the planet.

As the Secretary General of the United Nations reminds us, we must not let this conflict spread out of control, (if it is not already beyond reining in).

And Russia, alone, cannot mediate, in spite of Putin’s lofty and fantasy-based ambition.

The world community has to come together to rein in these singular, unitary-tyrants and their hegemonic fantasies, and the time is very short….just as it is for the world community to rein in the suffocating pollution that is strangling all life.

Culture and leadership revisited June 19, 2025

 Cathay Kelly, writing in the Globe and Mail, recently, opined that the culture of the Florida Panthers is all about winning while the culture of the Edmonton Oilers is not as cohesively committed to the same proposition. And that he went on to delineate the usual cliché attempts to change culture by inserting a new piece here and removing another piece there, and hopefully by ‘adjusting’ and ‘band-aiding’ whatever seemed to be the vulnerabilities is not either about winning or about changing culture.

And, of course, as is practically mandatory in a corporate culture that pervades most sports entertainment and even academic and political endeavours, the important cliché that culture change has to start at the top…follows.

And while the importance of the ‘guy-at-the-top’ is an archetype that waxes and wanes cannot be either missed or exaggerated, especially in a culture that has so veered off in the direction of ‘personalizing’ everything and every relationship and every organization, by concentrating on the character (or lack thereof) of the ‘head’, the archetype is also highly reductionistic.

Strong men, and/or imaginatively cloned, imitating the strong man image, strong women, however, have virtually taken over the public consciousness as the human ideal to be worshipped, adored, nurtured and sustained as the pivotal level in any envisioned ‘successful’ enterprise. And for illustrative purposes, Cathay Kelly also has the recent example of the release of the President of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, perennial losers in the first or second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for most of the last decade. Adding to the evolving argument is the insight, the creative genius of the Florida Panthers, winners of the last two Stanley Cups, and finalists for the last three years, their General Manager, Bill Zito.

It is alleged, affirmed and very difficult to dispute that Mr. Zito has amalgamated a choir of young men who are all, judging by their success, singing from the same song sheet. And the unity of their alleged ‘harmony’ is demonstrated in their total commitment to an over-powering offensive onslaught that literally hems their opponent into their own defensive end zone for as long as is feasible. Wearing their opponent down is the cliché that depicts this model of waging hockey war.

 And if ever there were an appropriate and congruent metaphor for hockey, it has to be military warfare. While not exclusive to hockey, (I once attended a  basketball coaches clinic, conducted by the renowned Bobby Knight, then of Indiana Hoosier fame, whose ‘biblical reference, metaphorically, was Lao Tsu’s The Art of War) the war strategies, language, tactics, training methods and even mind-set are the template followed to a greater or lesser degree by many successful athletic coaches, corporate executives, movie moguls, and even, although perhaps a little less ‘testosterone-infused’ philanthropic leaders. Competition, one of the core sine qua nons, allegedly of masculinity, as in warfare, has been embedded in the psyche of both individuals and the North American anima mundi (ethos, culture) for decades, rivalling religion as a moral, ethical, political and even intellectual and epistemological truth to be venerated by generations of those seeking success on a personal level. If no one has as yet completed a doctoral thesis on the military-training, at such institutions as West Point, of many professional and college athletic coaches, doubtless such a thesis will emerge fairly soon.

We teach, inculcate, foster, reward and sacralize both winning and the strategies, tactics, mind-set and ethos that ‘promote’ winning, and then, of course, we have to pay the price for what amounts to a cultural ‘blindness’ (until after the imagined victory) to the costs of such a social, political, corporate, athletic, scientific and even ethical juggernaut. Short-term thinking, short-term solutions to immediately perceived and acknowledged crises, the headlines and the resume-inflation, budget injections, genuflections to the ‘powers-that-be’ for all of those seeking to ‘succeed’ in their respective bailiwicks….these are all endemic to the competitive, nano-second-instant-gratification-culture, indeed a shared perception of whatever the organizational moment might be ‘calling for attention.’

Only this week, while retrieving our Portie from daycare, the owner-operator, upon leashing her and leading her into the lobby of the centre, to find her champing at the bit to welcome her adoptive ‘dad,’ offered a treat with the repeated instruction, ‘Sit, Tasha!’ four or five times until the dog complied, sat, received the reward and then was turned over to me. Of course, for some such an anecdote seems incongruent with corporate competitive instant-gratification ‘war’ in the universe…and yet…is it?

The model of the dog’s impatience, however, is really not alien to the degree of both impatience and the perceptions and decisions that many adults, in even highly charged, high profile and highly responsible positions even of extreme political and social significance, have and make, in order to satisfy what seems to be an obvious and perhaps inordinate ‘need’ or a ‘crisis’ that needs attention. And while this model has validity if there is evidence of an immediate impending medical exigency, for example, or a missing three-year-old for three-plus days, it has deep holes, often holes to which many executives may be blind to, or unconscious about. Of course, it is not only time and money that executives have to manage; those two have perceivable numerical boundaries in things like budgets and schedules, especially in professional sports, when a season has distinct calendar dates and final dates.

It is the subjective, ephemeral, intangible, intuitive and imaginative qualities of an organization for which highly sensitive, self-confident, imaginative, collaborative and visionary ‘traits’ (not all of these are skills to be taught and learned, sorry to all those clinical and behavioural psychologists who continue the project) are essential.

And the degree of perceptions, development and embrace of these ‘intangibles’ among those charged with hiring decisions will have a significant impact on the courage of the organization to embrace the ethereal, subjective, and elusive, yet open-to-be-embraced, manuscript of the song this organization seeks to both write and then perform. And much of that ‘embrace’ for too many, will come in the form of classical conditioning techniques.

A sad example of such classical conditioning blurted out in a conversation with a mother of a five-year-old daughter who, laughingly, retold a story of her husband, the little girl’s father, telling his hockey-playing daughter, he would give her a dollar for every time she touched the puck, as a way to correct her refusal, avoidance of fully integrating into the game. Of course, the tactic worked; she picked up a few unexpected loonies after that game. Whether or not such a tactic has long-term impact, for adults, seems to be relative to the perceived and agreed urgency of the organization.

Non-profits, for example, likely take a more collaborative, collegial and consensus approach to decision-making and operational objectives and their achievement. Military, and quasi-military, or pseudo-military, or even faux-military organizations align with immediacy, compliance, and whatever conditioning ‘reward’ applies to the specific target group. The literal, empirical, measurable and thereby provable success, goals scored at the end of a game, accounts closed, properties sold, degrees awarded, job placements for graduates….these are the measures of success, and their attainment is often, if not almost always, regimented by similar thinking, strategies, tactics and hope-for successes.

How is that model working? For those whose aspirations, dreams and imaginations fit comfortably into the strategic plan, including the nature and expectations of rewards, probably the ‘fit’ is ‘like a glove’….However, for others who envision, imagine and need to ‘question’ the smooth-functioning machine-like efficiency and effectiveness, (both mantras, guiding lights and organizational ‘goal posts) the ‘system’ might be one to question….And this fine line between the compliance and harmony of the choir with the manuscript and the conducting of the performance, with the sand-paper and questioning within, (some of it conscious, some of it secretive and unconscious, both deliberately and unknowingly) will determine the nature of the outcomes.

Getting men and women to ‘sing from the same song-sheet,’ is a matter of envisioning and striving for some kind of order, while allowing for ‘objections, options, alternatives and incorporating those into the evolving ‘flow’ of the organization. However, for many organizations, the ‘template’ of ‘how-we-do-things-here’…whether a bureaucracy, or a tribe, or a professional sports team, or even a church congregation may have a kind of precedence-attained authority and respect that defies both harmony and even melody. Courtrooms, operating rooms, emergency rooms, fire and rescue departments, church sanctuaries, and even some classrooms, have an established ethos, or culture in which professionals are trained, as part of the legacy of those professions.

It is a man or woman who can see a picture of a vision that extends past the immediate, the instant-gratification, and the discernment of the latest ‘tempest’ through a lens of both broad experience and sensitive and sensible imaginative confidence in his or her judgements/discernments/reading and interpretations of the whole situation who can be and will be most adaptable. Accommodating, without appeasement, and without deceit, and without bias or prejudice for or against either an individual or an idea that might be tension-generating yet worthy….These are guides fit for no single living or deceased human; we have conceived, both here and in most organizations, beacons of light in the darkness of the fog of reality, which itself continues to ebb and flow, changing by the moment, expectations, both literal and empirical as well as ethereal and ephemeral, abstract and intuitive, like both gossamer and granite, that only when taken together, offer a kind of both leadership and musicianship for the performance of the choir that can and will exceed many other ‘choirs’…in both performance as well as in the joy and ecstasy of the participants in the reviews.

And while direct comparisons of Zito and Shanahan are being made, it might be more instructive, for all organizations, to consider not only who is the ‘man-at-the-top’ (think Oval Office for a moment!) and the many surrounding such a person attempting to fill that role and title, including the needs, aspirations and complex and nuanced ‘ideas’ that might come from the custodial staff, the ticket-booth attendees, the electrical and plumbing crews, and the health and wellness experts….It is simply no longer feasible, (probably never was) to consider an organization exclusively from the perspective of the CEO, or the General Manager, and fall into the glib believe that all organizations and teams and schools ‘take on’ the personality and character traits of that ‘man-at-the-top’….And it is not nor will it be irresponsible to really listen to each and every member of the organization, both formally and informally, and on an equal and valued basis, in order to inform the most strategic and tactic, short-and-long-term plans and goals and objectives.

Unitary leadership has been proven to be, essentially both faulty and dangerous….for the organization as well as for the occupant and proponent of such a form of leadership….and that proposition could even apply to the Vatican.

MEN: more complex and interesting than our negative stereotype

 The Democratic Party in the U.S. has launched what they are calling Project SAM, Speaking with American Men…in the hope that they might recoup many of the lost votes of young men who either did not vote in 2024, or voted Republican.

Smerconish, on CNN earlier today interviewed a representative of both the party and the program, noting that, from the Democratic Party website, there is a long list of those the party ‘fights for’ that excludes young men.

This issue of masculinity, especially focused on men between the ages of 18 and 35, although not restricted to that demographic, has lurked around, not necessarily in polite and political correct corridors for a decade or more. There are ‘gender politics’ reporters and commentators on some daily papers, many of them women, who as some report, receive many calls from young men who are deeply concerned about their own ‘fitting into’ the society.

They list such subjects as:

Feminism has gone too far,

How to relate to women

How to provide for a family

How to know if they are healthy men

Why do I feel unworthy?

And, as might be predicted, many of these searching young men are then referred to groups like the White Ribbon, a movement of men and boys dedicated to ending violence against women and girls. Other groups have programs for retraining, for budgeting, for mental health and the need for their expertise cannot be doubted. A personal anecdote:

While speaking with a group of earnest community minded women about the issue of male suicide, the instant response was ‘we need a men’s group’….and when I heard those words, I literally and figuratively wilted, like a dandelion starved of rain-water.

Why?

Programs, by their very nature need mission statements, fund raising, values, goals and objectives. They rely on leadership from executives, and a filtering process of whom they consider to be their prospective clients. Even the most primitive, unbureaucratic, anti-authoritarian and accessible present as a ‘support and solution’ for whatever it might be that is ‘troubling’ their prospective clients.

Men are already feeling somewhat stigmatized, without knowing either why or what it means to be a man in contemporary culture.

And while programs may help some, I, for one, suggest, that using the analogy of the food banks that really perpetuate the problem of hunger and scarcity, they are at best a band-aid, a necessary and worthy band-aid, but a band-aid nevertheless.

Even mental health programs and facilities, while worthy, warranted, and honourable, offer psychic barriers to anyone who would like to talk with someone, and, for many men, that someone does not have to be a trained, schooled graduate in Social Work, Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, or even Emotional Counselling.

Not that long ago, I was speaking with male counsellor who had participated in a formal, organized conference of professionals, whose topic was ‘Why do men not participate in talk therapy, as women do?’ And although my response to this conference was that men did not need to apologize for not being female, and he clearly took offence, I continue to posit that talk therapy is a child of primarily female therapeutic and psychiatric clients. The flowering evidence of this sociological trend is that the definition of depression in the DSM (whatever number they’re at currently) is derived from exclusively female clients.

Women for decades, perhaps even centuries, have gathered in circles of ‘sisters’ to talk, to commiserate, to console, to support and to embolden their sisters. And while those groups have an honourable and completely justified history and tradition, there is literally nothing similar among men.

Pubs where men engage about the political, business, sports, weather, and perhaps even an occasional job loss, generally, have both different topics, different approaches, and different expectations. Talking about emotions, for many men, is not only out of sight and out of mind, it is almost considered an invasion of privacy, and a threat to their masculinity. Emotions are the area where women rule. As a family doctor explained to me, in the first years of this century, when I mentioned that ‘men needed to own and discern their emotions’ responded, without skipping a breath, “Oh John but women do it so much better!” to which I retorted, “Who is making it a competition as you just did, certainly not women?”

That little anecdote slips from memory alongside another, with a volunteer fire and rescue forty-something autobody tech. After a particularly lethal and ugly car crash his crew had worked, I asked if the crew had any support system for them to unpack their trauma like the one just experienced. His answer is written in large, indelible letters:

“No, and if there were such a support, not a single one of our crew would ever let another crew member know that he had sought it out.”

Two-plus decades as an English teacher taught me that the literature, especially the novels and poetry were generally regarded as either BS, or frothy, flim-flam of emotions by the young men. This masculine resistance was as much about not being like the girls, (who eagerly and authentically, if experimentally, engaged in the conversations), as protecting their own emotions from public display. The male students would, however, engage vigorously if the topic arose from the manuscript, and they could argue for or against some decision of a character. Eager to engage and to demonstrate debating prowess, they obviously thought, was very different and also totally tolerable for a male adolescent to participate, without losing any of the fragile self-regard and identity he was developing.

Not to stereotype masculinity among adolescents as primarily or exclusively as competition, (that would be unfair and reductionistic), nor femininity as compassionate and supportive, (that would also be reductionistic), however, it seems that there can be some qualitative and nuanced perceptions among the different genders, at the adolescent stage.

And the ‘rub-off’ influence of other males, whether as personal mentors, parents, athletic or academic or professional role models, it seems to this unschooled, unresearched eye and mind, have a significant role to play in the development of whatever sort of masculinity a young man arrives in to enter adult life. Supportive and mentoring fathers, as compared with the father who can and will never be satisfied with the ‘achievements’ of his son, can seed and nurture healthy male attitudes, perceptions and potential relationships.

Similarly, fathers, as husbands, who defer sycophantly and without authenticity or integrity to the will and the whims of their spouses (mothers) offer a subtle and not-often documented negative model for their young sons. Deference, as core respect, of course; it is when deferral is absent authenticity and self-possessed masculine identity, fails both the husband and the wife, as well as the children of either or both genders.

And this model of sycophancy is not exclusive to the domestic scene of our families and marriages. It is rampant in the corporate, military and all forms of hierarchical organization. And while the trend may be dissipating somewhat, following orders, and ‘sucking up’ to the boss, as a prime and too often successful path to advancement, promotion and career security. The male relationship to authority, in any and all of its many forms, is a core issue for many men.

And even while many men submit willingly and earnestly to their supervisors, coaches, and professors, for legitimate reasons and honourable motivations, there comes a time, perhaps many times, when a man has to ‘draw a line in the sand of his boundaries’….and refuse to cross it, irrespective of the implications.

Apparently, many Republican Congressmen and Senators, have yet to experience this life-changing, transformative, personal, psychic, and even spiritual metanoia, a moment that need not be exclusive to one’s relationship to a deity.

After nearly eight decades, I have had the privilege and the honour to work for a sizeable number of male asupervisors, as well as college and high school instructors and coaches. And, the ones who have continued to hold a special place in my memory are those who embodied a balance of self-and-other respect…and while that epithet may sound glib and rather inconsequential, I disagree.

The male who knows himself, is confident in his own judgement, and in his perceptions and attitudes of his place in the world, including his family, his profession and his contributions to the wider world, obviously, one for whom doors he seeks to open are more like to comply. The man who struggles, whether overly or more dangerously, covertly, to demonstrate his worth, his value and his worthiness, especially in pursuit of those medals and applause from others, is the man for whom doors, if and when they open, will likely close often prematurely.

And, here is another anecdote about male-self-sabotage.

While teaching report writing to a group of aspiring law enforcement candidates, I found them disrespectful, irritating, and disturbing to the community of the career college in which they were enrolled. They each expressed their desired goal of admission to the provincial police college, for which each of them would require a positive reference from their previous experience. As soon as this simple fact was pointed out, there was a collective look from every one to the others in the room, while had gone silent, as the realization of the foundational indisputable truth of their  sabotaging themselves became clear.

And yet, I have worked for university graduates, men, likely the first member of their family who even attended university, whose seemed to ‘cower’ in the face of their superiors. Their snivelling and grovelling, almost as a physical almost secretive way of moving even their bodies foreshadowed their self-effacing, self-doubting and spineless entries into ordinary discussion of professional issues. This kind of body-messaging is, analogous to verbal expression that reeks of insecurity and doubt, (very different and separate from humility, respect, and decorum) can be seen and heard in many often important meetings…and it sends messages to others that the men themselves may be totally unaware of sending.

We do not, except perhaps in theatre schools, train young men in body language, nor in how to speak in various normal, yet challenging human social situations, unless we are preparing someone for a formal interview. We do not regard the acquisition of skills in the basics of relationships, except perhaps in the occasional health and physical education segment of a total curriculum. Men, especially, and this comes directly from educational establishment men responsible for enhancing the school experience of young men, thing and believe that ‘more digital tech’ is all men need to get and to stay interested and engaged in school.

Men, all men, irrespective of their/our age, our education, our professional credentials, our family background, our faith community or lack of, or the economic and political status in the community, need…..need (not a typo) other men to talk with, to listen to, to learn from and to commiserate with….without having to first confront a crisis. Breaking down the resistance to self-disclosure, to emotional vulnerability, to honouring and respecting the loneliness many of us experience are not aspirations that are likely going to find ‘answers’ or even experiences in designed programs….

Experiments like Men’s Sheds, an international group of men, seeded by a family member of a lonely senior father, in Australia, has spread its wings to Ireland, Great Britain, the United States and Canada, providing friendship and whatever activities the men wish to engage in,….alleviating loneliness, and isolation and depression.

Could Men’s Sheds members consider adopting young men in their community just as friends, willing and open to learn and to share with each other…..not dissimilar to Big Brother, but on a rather unique, mutual need basis.

It is the mutuality of need as men, irrespective of the situation each faces, that can begin a conversation of respect, equality and a level playing field. Men are beyond tired; we are exhausted from having our gender considered primarily and stereotypically a ‘problem’ and yet many of us have made it very difficult to get out from under the conventional stereotype that men are basically angry and over-sexed.

There is really a lot more to us that our stereotype!

Really!!!

Students versus customers....the difference matters....a lot!

For much of the last decade, swirling around colleges and universities, at least in North America, and most likely in other regions as well, is the debate over whether students in post-secondary institutions are considered ‘customers’ or ‘students’.

Anyone who has familiar with this space will already ‘know’ that this scribe abhors even the need for the debate, given that students are ‘students’ and they are not customers, clients, patients, nor geopolitical terrorists. We have all both witnessed and participated in the objectification of humans, as numbers of a marketing niche, as cases in emergency rooms, as suppliers and consumers, as ethnicities, as card-carrying denominational religious members, as citizens of a nation, Brits, Scots, Irish, Canadians, Americans, Indians, Aussies….the list is endless.

Much of this objectification emerges from the multiple classifications of people depending on the source of the categories. Service club members take the name of their club, (Rotarians, Lions, Kinsmen, Optomists, Civitans, etc.) And with marketing algorithms delving into the preferences, biases, origins, addresses and customs of every single ‘customer’ of a business enterprise, for the purpose of both enhancing sales, as well as evolving the nature of the business to meet changing demands.

People who are know primarily in and through a religious ‘brand’, or a nation or a social class, or a university ‘brand’  (think He is a Harvard grad, or a Columbia grad, or a Duke grad, of a Saint Francis Xavier (SFX) grad) may be more ‘known’ or presumed to be known by others of the same brand, with the same pedigree.

Distinguishing traits of educational institutions that have attained a high level of corporate or academic ‘status’ analogous to such ‘elevated brands’ such as Lexus, Infinity, Cadillac, Lincoln, BMW, Mercedes, are attempting to create an imaginative link of their institution with such well-known corporate brands largely for the purpose of enhancing the magnetic draw of their institution for a select ‘grade’ of student…..and that grade could involve family donations, (legacy admissions), as well as academic and/or athletic prowess, family connections (grandfather graduated from X)….and the marketing plans are designed to ‘fit’ or comply with the ‘stated and understood’ values, priorities and preferences’ of the institution.

As the culture devolves, (downward certainly) into little more than an unregulated, wild-west kind of frontier of selling, and buying, the various approaches of how to ‘grow’ whatever initiative it is, come from and are sustained by marketing, public relations, communications and persuasion (propaganda?)….At the core of this culture, the pursuit of money, growing numbers, votes, donations, academic test scores, salaries, stock options, ‘value-added proposals’ to enhance the allure, the nature of both the message and the conceptualization of the receiver of whatever is the product or service are highly mutually influential.

In another life, as part of a grade thirteen teaching staff, a proposal was made that three different instructors would offer three different ‘themes’ in literature and make presentations to all grade thirteen students who would then ‘select’ their choice for the semester. Instantly, I recognized the absurdity of this proposal….however, I attempt to participate, reflecting years later on the superficiality and the motivations of many of the choices.

Also in another life, I taught at an Ontario private school, then all-boys, where tuition ranked among the highest in the province. In that culture, the boys were dubbed almost exclusively by their grade or form level or ‘prefect’ as a status symbol and role. Last names were deployed almost exclusively, not only in cases of administering sanctions, presumably in the spirit of making ‘boys-into-men’….

In another life, I was instructing in what are designated as private colleges, where students often partially or fully funded by government programs for skill-development, and I confronted the owner/operator of this operation, (it could be known and designated as nothing more nor less than a for-profit business, where the students were ‘customers.’

“These young men and women have to be considered as students and not as customers,” I recall pleading in his office. His face went blank, as if I were speaking a language with which he was totally unfamiliar. Revenue, costs, resources, even testing were all consuming issues and whatever learning/teaching process was operating, there was at best minimal, if any, discussion of individual student learning preferences. There were basic behavioural skills to learn, most of those skills committed to a kind of recipe, introduced, and followed by practice of the recipe and then testing held tightly to the recipe.

In a ‘police ethics’ course, I attempted to introduce the concept of ambiguity, and a blank slate of expectations, for prospective law enforcement officers, to adopt on their assignment to and entry into a specific situation. The concept was discomfiting for the students, who were determined to ‘know’ where the guilty party was even before entering. Nevertheless, I ‘dreamt’ that one or two might have actually read the section in the prescribed text that detailed the ‘blank-slate- withheld judgement’ notion, and inserted an option question on a test to that end.

The students complained that ‘he tested something he never taught’….and the owner/operator sided with the ‘customers’ because he dreaded losing their fees.

The reductionism of the students was mirrored, and perhaps even endorsed and enhanced by the owner/operator and also, sadly by the retired law enforcement staff instructor.

Today, in America, university and college students have become political ‘weapons’ in the eyes of the Washington administration, and the propaganda war of requiring exclusive support for Israel in the Israel-Gaza war has spilled over not only to the on-campus protests but also into the administration’s withdrawal of billions in order to force the hand of university administrators, to comply with the White House’s demands to control admissions, faculty hiring and the elimination of all initiatives designed to enhance what has come to be known as D.E.I. (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion)….all initiatives that were originally designed to enhance racial harmony, and mediate against gender and ethic biases.

While in another life, I worked in a community college, where FSE (Full-Time-Student-Equivalents) was the accounting symbol for the provincial calculation of projected funding. There was then a lag between this years FTE’s and the projected budget funding from the province in two years (if I recall precisely). Engaged in marketing, and focused on enrolment figures, we were regularly comparing and competing with some twenty-plus other colleges which offered many of the same programs as ours did. Attempting to ‘sell’ prospective futures for young adults many of whom were undecided, uncertain, unemployed and somewhat insecure, one of the struggles was to maintain both a language and an attitude of respect, challenge, life-long-learning, opportunity and hope in all public engagements, including trade shows, radio and television messages and student activities.

If the accountants and the bureaucrats needed or wanted to call them FSE’s, that was their choice. When we were designing and implementing initiatives, for example to reduce on-campus smoking, (many young adults were then fully engaged in cigarette smoking, vaping was still on the horizon) these young men and women were considered not only as students, (not customers) whose personal and social health was important, along with many other issues that impacted their experience while they were students…. like gender equality, technical innovation, bilingualism (French-English) and respect between and among students themselves and between and among staff-faculty and students.

Drawing from another moment while working as a secondary school teacher, I listened as Stephen Lewis, then leader of the New Democratic Party of Ontario spoke on a professional development day in the late 1960’s.  His thesis was that legislators had a very narrow, constricted and reductionistic view of the education process: they saw, considered and valued only two numbers: first dollars of cost (provincial and per-student, and second, teacher-student ratios.

Dollars and ratios, thereby, were the subjects for provincial-teacher federation negotiations for contracts. There were a few skirmishes between boards of education and local teachers’ federations over novel titles, especially if there happened to be some passages that fundamentalist Christians considered ‘sexually explicit’….What was once a minimal brush-fire has apparently exploded into an all-out culture war with book-banning a political lever pulled by parents seeking to exert more control over the process of primary and secondary education.

Is there a customer-provider equation operating in that protest movement. Are parents so steeped and indoctrinated into the ‘consumer-customer-provider’ model, that, as customers they have an enhanced ‘right’ to demand the ‘services’ they deem essential for their children for whom they pay those education taxes?

Doubtless, there has to be some impact of that cultural model of both thought and operating.

In this evolving vortex of both language and attitudes about education, impacted by the tidal wave of technology, a pandemic, increasing pressures on state and provincial budgets resulting from the spiraling costs of health care, relegating education to the family pages of daily newspapers (unless there is a violation of professional conduct), leaves the gestalt of learning and education with few if any real advocates or political levers to address these issues, dispassionately.

Every parent has, at one or more times in his/her life been a student. And while many changes have evolved, every parent ‘knows’ what makes a good teacher and a ‘bad teacher.’’And in a highly competitive, transactional, politically charged cultural ethos, where both language and perceptions have been dumbed down to multiple binary either-or propositions, (as if such a reduction were to resolve any complex issue) surely we might agree that students can and should remain students, in their own minds, as well as in the minds of those instructing them as well as those administering their institutions….and even more importantly in the minds and languages of those legislators who can and do too often fall victim to the radical, thoughtless and enflamed extremists whose self-induced political naivety and refusal to see or accept the complexities of even their own child’s learning life fuels their angry protests.

And as for the for-profit owner-operators of private trade and skills colleges, it might be appropriate for legislatures to consider a formal orientation program of not less than three months, prior to the licensing approvals. In that way, at least some basic ‘education’ might be applied to the methods, attitudes, and desire to continue to learn on the part of those leaders who espouse profit at all costs.

Just sayin! 

Previewing the Saskatoon meeting of Canadian Premiers and Prime Minister, June 2, 2025

 All political rhetoric cuts in at least two different ways; it uplifts and inspires and/or it evaporates into thin air and disappointment.

Build, Build, Build….echoing the American ‘drill, baby drill….is a call to action….now resounding like a bugle-cry from the Peace Tower of Parliament to a nation quivering in anxiety, about what all of the futures might, short, medium and long-term.

And it echoes on national and social media as if the canyons among the Rockies were full of the energy of another national transformational moment….really also a crisis moment.

I am old enough to remember vividly the lyrical notes of “Give us a place to stand and a place to grow,” the Ontario theme song penned for the Ontario Pavilion at Expo 67. The nation was “abuzz” with optimism, hope and eager to take in the world show. I am also old enough to recall that then NDP Leader Ed Broadbent introduced a bill in 1989 ostensibly to outlaw child poverty by the end of the 20^th century, to an historic unanimous vote by all MP’s……and then what happened? Many sources claim child poverty has only got worse!

Those two images are like the book-ends of Canadian history: we love to celebrate a civic event, and we are loath to roll up our sleeves and dig into the intractable, yet solvable problems.

If we consider this “two opposites” image as one of many Canadian examples of Yin and Yang, the Chinese principle that describes the interconnected and complementary nature of opposites, that all things are composed of two opposing but interdependent forces. Each for contains within it the seeds of the other; they complement each other and the balance between them is crucial for harmony and order; they are in constant flux, with one force waxing while the other wanes. Yin is often associated with darkness, passivity, femininity and the earth, while Yang is associated with light activity masculinity and the heavens.

The Premiers of the Canadian provinces and territories will meet with the Prime Minister in Saskatoon this week, ostensibly to come to some agreement on nation-building projects that will serve both to ignite growth and development of the Canadian economy and to help to bring about some degree of harmony and unity between and among the provinces.

There is much speculation about the potential of the Saskatoon meeting, where, as former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, appearing on Question Period, on CTV reminds us all that turf wars, while perhaps not on the front burner, will nevertheless be part of the discussion. Provincial premiers have a history of guarding their ‘turf’ and that is one reason why only in 2025 are we hearing about serious moves to dismantle trade barriers between provinces, including moving toward common labour standards across the nation. Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, rumoured to be a potential Poilievre replacement for the Conservatives attempted to move with a national-vision and was stone-walled by silence from other premiers at the time.

Provincialism, and parochialism lie at the heart of this country….while we proudly display our flag whenever we travel the globe. And at the core of both parochialism and provincialism there is a rigorous tradition of independence even within towns and cities. While covering a small city-hall, for more than a dozen years, I would often ask, ‘What is X city doing about this issue?’ only to be either laughed out of the room or hear the idea outright rejected..’We are not interested in what THEY might be doing about this! This problem is unique to our town and we have to find our own solution.’

Parochial originally meant ‘related to the parish’, a small administrative district within a church, many of which had their own unique customs and practices, in pursuit of a sense of local identity and loyalty. Provincialism, too, based on a slightly wider geographic region, has similar characteristics as parochialism…

Narrowness of outlook, by whatever name, generally offers a sense of belonging and pride in place with the attending traditions, history, and rituals of that place…It also brings with it a resistance to whatever might be new and different, considered invasive, or ‘not the way we do things here’ or, that plan has been designed and is being imposed by outsiders, ‘experts’ who know nothing about us, our history and our traditions.

Even in a digital age when global travel has become accessible to millions, and real-time information puts Canadians in touch with events, speeches, disasters and terror attacks, almost as they are happening, it can be argued that we are still highly possessive of our local ‘traditions’ and ways of thinking and ways of operating. Canadian history, too, is built on the foundation of a tension between the federal and provincial powers, all of those powers needing both legislation and funds in order to continue to operate. And the image of the federal government oscillates between ‘miserly bully’ and ‘beneficient banker’ in the extremes, or more relevantly perhaps ‘bully-regulator’ and ‘development-impediment’….depending on the provincial interest and the federal leaning.

This week, all of the traditional barriers to national projects, and to the regulatory processes, both federal and provincial, as well as the bottom line question of ‘who pays’ for whatever is being proposed, will be like the Canadian dirty laundry hanging on the clothes-line of CBC, CTV and Global. And, there will be no ‘pre-wash’ to reduce the influence of these traditions, expectations, and even demands from some premiers.

The Prime Minister, while cool, detached, new, and somewhat unknown, will be well apprised of the various ‘agendas’ of the various premiers; some even suggest that there are already projects that have federal and provincial agreement that might be announced at the conclusion of the Saskatoon meetings.

And while the nature of the projects, whether they move energy resources, or provide new housing, or see indigenous leaders, provincial premiers and federal leaders reaching anything that looks like something all Canadians can legitimately consider to be nation-building, all impulses to parochialism and provincialism will have to recede in order for national perspective to prevail.

And that will mean a surrender of ‘sacred’ (for some) sovereignty, not necessarily of land, but perhaps of adamantinc demands, intractable expectations and short-sighted visions.

The real and lasting impact of Saskatoon, we can and will only hope, will be a tectonic shift in attitudes, within each province and between provinces and also between the provinces and the federal government…and that such ‘new perspectives’ can and will seep slowly and almost imperceptibly into the Canadian cultural ethos…

Separatism, that toxic arthropod that has found some breeding ground in Alberta, and still lives somewhat silent this Spring in Quebec, will, at least in silence, hover over the meeting like a grey cloud….not yet black or filled with thunder and lightning…and keeping it both in mind, while not in voice, will likely guide the meeting’s participants.

Canadian identity has often been defined as ‘not-American’ or as Marshall McLuhan puts it, ‘Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity.’

Will that statement still be true after Saskatoon, as it may be before? Or will the statesmen and women who gather see beyond their provincial and parochial horizons to a national perspective and imagination that seeks not only to resolve the current economic and political crisis, but also to imprint their signatures in the Canadian archives of accomplishment?

Some words from former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson might be appropriate to hang on the wall of this Saskatoon talkfest:

Whether we live together in confidence and cohesion; with more faith and pride in ourselves and less self-doubt and hesitation; strong in the conviction that the destiny of Canada is to unite not divide; sharing in cooperation, not in separation or in conflict; respecting our past and welcoming our future.

And from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau:

We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom, and privilege.