When nobody wins
You might’ve read in the national media stories about the firing of the manager of Veritas Café, a small restaurant on Laurier’s campus, over what was deemed to be inappropriate content in an online job posting. In the ad, the manager stated he was looking for “a new slave (full-time staff member) to boss (mentor), . . .” among other tongue-in-cheek remarks about the requisite qualifications of applicants.
That’s how the reported story goes, anyway. Rumours around campus imply there might be more to the story. There usually is.
Yet I still can’t see the benefit of any of it. I don’t really know who wins in this situation, but my sense is that nobody does. On one hand, there’s a café manager who’s been turfed right before Christmas, cut off from his livelihood right at the time of year when it matters most. On the other, there’s the president of the Graduate Students’ Association (the admin body that did the firing) who is undoubtedly becoming acquainted with the darkest corners of the internet: those scuttlers and creeps that come out to threaten and harass people who are at the flashpoint of some public controversy. Out among the general public, the news story has become grist for reactionary types who think our campuses are besieged by PC thought police. None of this is good.
To that last point: I’ve not experienced Laurier’s campus to be a governed by PC reactionaries. I have observed that it is, like most campuses, home to a trendy kind of activist spirit, one that is especially preoccupied with language and vocabulary. Whereas activists from a prior generation might’ve focused on solidarity with campus service workers, or lobbied against the sort of policies that permit the quick termination of contract employees, the current generation seems more focussed on the sort of tongue-taming that (purportedly) fosters a campus culture of inclusivity and equity. It’s fair to presume that this sensibility is at play in the regrettable affair at Laurier.
Non-punitive activism
And you know, there’s a lot to be said for a campus culture that seeks inclusivity and equity. They both strike me as fine things to fight for, and certainly no Christian should be a stranger to the idea that the tongue can spark forest fires, either. And yet, here we are, in the midst of a big mess, with no winners in sight. Maybe we’re in this big mess because we’re trying to do the good work of inclusion and equity in a culture that is ever more fractured and individualistic. We’re at cross-purposes. So, in frustration, we reach for punitive measures instead of restorative ones; we aim to shame rather than educate; we atomize ourselves into ever more refined identities, instead of looking for solidarity. This isn’t just a Laurier issue either; similar situations have occurred on numerous campuses, and – maybe especially – on social media, too.
As I’ve been turning this all over in my head this week, a line from St. Anthony the Great, the father of Christian monasticism, has been glowing like an ember in the back of my mind: “Our life and our death is with our neighbour. If we gain our brother, we have gained God, but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.” If you ask me, that’s a really fine and mercifully short three point sermon on Matthew 18:15. But more than that, I’ve been thinking it might be a fruitful ground for an activism that isn’t punitive, isn’t shaming and isn’t alienating. What would be the contours of an activism rooted in gaining brothers and sisters? What habits would inform it? Do our secular campuses – or our churches, for that matter – even have the resources to help us to truly understand that our very life and death is with our neighbour?
Some translators render St. Anthony’s “gain” as “win.” If we “win” our brother, and our sister, too, we win God. In the wake of a situation where nobody wins, what a wise and challenging thought that is.
