I remember it like yesterday. Students in my broadcasting class seemed particularly rowdy that morning. They didn’t appear to want to calm down to take in the lecture. I’d had an unusually difficult commute to the campus. I began the prerequisite attendance check, couldn’t get the students to respond and came to a name on the attendance list I sensed had been a regular absentee. She bore the brunt of my frustration.
“You know, you should pay more attention when I call your name,” I said to the young woman. “If you paid more attention, perhaps your grades would be better.”
The young woman looked devastated. My heart sank. And I wished in that instant (I’m sure you’ve been there) that I could have reached out, grabbed the words I’d just spat out and crammed them back into my mouth. I realized I should have thought a second longer before I said something as hurtful as that.
Of course, that wasn’t the only time I’ve done that. I know I likely did it to our daughters. I’m sure I’ve done it to some of my working colleagues and closest friends. But probably because our girls are blood and since my friends are loyal, they take those kinds of off-handed remarks with a grain of salt.
The problem, these days however, is that going off half-cocked tends to be more frequent, more dangerous and cause greater harm than it might have, even a few years ago. For one thing, social media provide plenty of avenues for reactive response – via Facebook or Twitter – but none of the safeguards of an editor or restraint.
A perfect illustration of the problem emerged this week. The Toronto Fire Service decided to dismiss three of its firefighters over their tweets about TFS recruiting more women into the service. The National Post published several of the firefighters’ knee-jerk remarks.
“Reject a woman and she will never let it go,” one Tweet said. “I’d never let a woman kick my ass,” another said. And the insensitivity went downhill from there.
That’s not to say if Twitter hadn’t provided an outlet for the firefighters’ misogynist points of view that the world might never have known their attitudes. My guess is that any capable platoon commander on the force would have recognized their unacceptable attitudes and have meted out discipline.
It’s possible, however, that because going off half-cocked these days is so public, so open and available in 140 characters or on millions of users’ Activity Logs, that these three firefighters have suffered more immediate consequences than if they’d made such remarks in the fire-hall locker room.
To emphasize the speed of these sorts of events, when instantaneous response is expected and sometimes even demanded, I remember a conversation, some years ago, with a lawyer in town. This was when the facsimile machine was a relatively new communication tool, designed to speed up the delivery and return of information. Back then, the lawyer remembered, clients were beginning to fax him their legal questions and consequently expected an immediate fax back with his legal advice. He lamented that the protocol of the fax demanded he answer pronto, instead of taking a day or so to research, distil and contemplate a more thoughtful response to the legal problem posed. The medium demanded action, ASAP!
But the human shortcoming remains. For whatever reasons – the ease of technology, a poor sense of restraint, or even failings of our (formal or informal) education system – more than ever before our reactive instincts are overriding our reflective ones. Perhaps that explains such things as road rage, proroguing Parliament, violence between youngsters in the schoolyard, and a lower tolerance level of those who don’t think, behave or look exactly the way we do.
My guess is, given the outrage at home and across the country, that Quebec Premier Pauline Marois might be having second thoughts about her proposed Charter of Values. Among other things, the legislation targets religious symbols – such as yarmulkes, crucifixes and hijabs – being worn by public servants. In just one week, the premier has seen public support – even inside Quebec – slip from a strong majority to less than 50 per cent.
“I don’t have any comments about the reaction of the street,” Marois said on Monday; in other words, she’s refusing to admit she may have underestimated the Quebec public’s tolerance for her impulsive legislation.
For the record, I apologized (publicly and privately) to the young woman in my class for my outburst. To boot, when I checked her file, I discovered that she had a good attendance record and decent grades. I had inappropriately made her the scapegoat of my frustration that morning.
I don’t believe in muzzling either public debate or personal opinion. Indeed, this column benefits from the freedom of speech enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On the other hand, a bit of self-imposed restraint and sober second thought before hitting the send button might go a long way to preserving reputations and creating fewer victims.