Here's a hypothetical. I meet a visiting student from
Is she one of the family? No. Is she my gender? No. Is she my colour? No. Is she of the same background and experience? No. Do we listen to the same music and read the same literature? No.
Is she welcome at our home? Yes. She's a highly interesting person.
By any stretch of the imagination, she is not equivalent, she is not equal. She is included in this activity and more than this, she's welcome. This is beyond tolerance.
Do I invite her to a faculty meeting? No. She is not included here, not because we "don't want her" or don't "recognize her equivalence with the other professors as being just as good as them if they'll only let her" but through sheer common sense - she wouldn't want to be bored by a bunch of fuddy-duddies plus she can't speak the language.
So no, she's not equal here. Sanity. Common sense. Tolerance and inclusion in some areas does not equal Equivalence and Relativism. These latter two are catch-all rash generalizations based on no known reality in society.
They are political correctness which, by definition, is insane.
Now the Feministi at the university get to hear of her non-inclusion in the faculty meeting and press the board to decree that she MUST be included in all faculty meetings as this is a "tolerant, caring, all-inclusive campus".
So there we all are, not in a meeting but in a large auditorium with the professors lost in the middle, discussing the next academic year and surrounded by all manner of humanity, partying, listening to loud music [tolerance, remember, on pain of dismissal] and how much work gets done?
But at least it's politically correct and the Femnisti at the other end of the campus, whose own meeting no one wishes to attend, have a nice all woman discussion, in the cushiest armchaired room, making resolutions about who else they can find to "equivalentize" this academic year.
Do you detect a slightly intolerant note in this article?
By the way - here's an interesting exercise. Type "university" into Google and see what comes up on the first few pages. I was very surprised.
Agreed. Tolerance does not necessarily mean equivalence.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not your visitor would be bored, etc., etc., is her problem, not yours, so why wouldn't she be invited to your meeting if this is the appropriate thing to do? Should she, or anyone else in her position, be invited to your meeting? If not, then it doesn't really matter who she is, inviting her for politically correct reasons would simply be a gesture and her attendance of little use. However, if you are doing her thinking for her in assuming she will be bored, but really it would be a useful exercise and the right thing to invite her, then maybe you need to think again about why she was excluded in the first place.
ReplyDeleteIf you fear inviting every Tom, Dick and Harriet to your meetings because it would interfere with the business at hand, fair enough, don't let them in if you can get away with it and their presence is inappropriate anyway. But the "tolerance does not mean equivalent" statement worries me a bit, and although I've never been to university myself it makes me realise why the various committees are needed to question arbitrary decision making from on high. As in real life.
James if she was entitled to attend ex officio she should be attending- if not not. Like Welshcakes I don't beleive that equivalence operates- a meeting of Professors is a meeting of Professors but if she was a Professor and therefore had the right to attend she should attend. Especially if decisions were being taken at the meeting which affected her.
ReplyDeleteYou've lost me there. You say she is a "visiting student", not a "visiting professor", so why would anyone want to invite her to a faculty meeting if that meeting is professors only?
ReplyDeleteDitto, confused. Why would a student be invited to a faculty meeting? Unless a student representative was invited and then it probably wouldn't be her since she can't speak the language or understand it.
ReplyDeleteregards
jmb
She's black and female - therefore she must be included according to the feministi.
ReplyDeleteThe answer is that she is black and female and therefore, according to the PCers, must not be excluded. Note what Swearing mother said:
ReplyDelete...However, if you are doing her thinking for her...
You see, nothing to do with whether she is a professor or qualified or anything - only whether a man is discriminating agaist her by doing her thinking. Therefore she must be included.
Let me focus on "language".
ReplyDeleteLooking up "diskriminieren" in my German-Latin dictionary (New edition 1963) I did not find the word.
When looking up "unterscheiden", I found: discernere, distinguere;
And only when looking up the noun "Unterschied" I found discrimen.
Well, and it has its advantages being able to discriminate, hasn't it? :)
I think only beginning about the second half of the sixties the word got its pejorative connotation. From this time on those who would dare to say they were able to discriminate black from white etc., could almost be sure he would be called a racist, chauvinist. :)
Finally, as for tolerance. I think this word has a wonderful sister: Tactfulness.
Sir James: Whether a he or she, it doesn't matter, the principle is still the same. Either she was entitled to come to your meeting or not, and if she wasn't entitled to attend, there's an end to it. No excuses necessary. Why would you need to justify not inviting her if she was not qualified to attend anyway?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you said "she wouldn't want to be bored by a bunch of fuddy-duddies plus she can't speak the language" lead me to believe that her attendance was a matter of choice, not qualification, and that you were the one making that choice, irrespective of her entitlement to attend, i.e., doing her thinking for her. If she had been a he, I would have found that just as patronising.
And BTW, I didn't mention discrimination, you did. I just thought it was plain annoying. And please, don't lump me together with the PC brigade - you must be kidding! Me, I'm more a fan of common sense.
Then I stand corrected, apologize and will be over to you shortly.
ReplyDelete