The Times They Are A-Changin'

Today I had an experience that I feel warrants a blog entry, even during these hectic times during the month of may. A few weeks ago, I began my month long Initial Practicum placement as part of my Bachelor of Education, and I have thus far had a wonderful experience teaching in a small outskirts school where the atmosphere feels very warm and familial. All along it felt weird to a degree--after all, it was when i was the age of many of my students that my experiences being bullied first occurred. Given this, the feeling of coming full circle has been prevalent throughout my placement, though today I really had this feeling driven home. Simply put, my placement class attended a presentation being given at my old high school, and this meant my being there in an official capacity.

How can I describe to you the intense feelings of nostalgia that swept over me? It began as we got off the bus and made our way inside. The minute I set foot in the main entrance, it hit me immediately. The sights, the smells, the sounds...all were as I remembered them having been nearly four years before. Guiding the class into rooms that I myself had used as a student, my memories kicked into overdrive and I found myself once more overcome by the feeling of nostalgia. It got to the point where, if I looked hard enough, I could almost see ghostly after-images of my friends and I going about our daily lives and interacting while in high school. The ghosts of my past were rampant today, but at the same time they were clearly just that--ghosts...remnants of a prior time.

This whole experience today really drove home for me how quickly the years do pass. I remember being in high school like it was yesterday. In fact, given my experiences being bullied in elementary school, I treasured high school as the thing that saved me and allowed me to come into my own. Given this, it felt very strange to be back, though as a teacher not a student. Interacting with former teachers as colleagues was one of the weirdest experiences of the day, as was being told by my former homeroom teacher that I seemed to fit the role of educator well. It all served to prove to me though how fickle the passage of time really is. If it seems to any of you that the present will always be, then you are sorely mistaken. Four years ago in Grade 12 I felt as though my graduation from university was still a long time away...and yet now here I am, about to embark on another new chapter of my life. Lately I find myself wondering where all the time has gone, and a certain line uttered by Dr. Soran in Star Trek Generations comes to mind:

"Time is a predator, that stalks us all our lives."

It's easy to see the logic of this quote, seeing as how our lives seem to go by so quickly. Given this, it almost seems unfair to live at all, since it's all over too quickly to be enjoyed. Even so, however, while I can understand the sentiment underlying these words, I don't fully agree...while time may in fact be a predator, our lives are also defined by our mortality, and the quickness of our lives. As Jean Luc Picard says in that very same movie, "Time is a companion, one who comes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment, for they won't come again." Personally, it is the latter quote I choose to embrace, since to me it is the one that rings more true. While yes, the quick passage of my life has lately been making me feel uncomfortable and nostalgic, I also believe that many great days are yet to come and I plan to cherish them all. The title of this blog is a reference to Bob Dylan, and his song by the same name has a similar message: that time is always changing, that the march is always forward, and that we should either embrace and enjoy it, or have no part in it whatsoever. Here's to you, Bob.

So say we all.

Ann Coulter: Spreading Hate or Freedom of Speech?

The other day I was eating lunch and talking to my dad about politics and world events, when he told me something that I found deeply disturbing. Ann Coulter, a prominent Republican pundit for the extremely right-wing Fox News, had recently come to Canada to speak at universities across the country. In her addresses to the students, she argued against allowing people of middle-eastern descent on to airplanes since they apparently pose a safety risk, and told one middle-eastern student who asked how she should then travel to take a magic carpet or camel instead. She went on to make other claims, such as how great the world would be if everyone was white, conservative and Christian, and defends these abhorrent comments by stating that she was only joking. The subsequent debate centred around her right to say these things under freedom of speech, and got most people thinking and talking, including myself. Does someone have a right to say what they please, free of persecution, if the things being said are hurtful to many in society? To what extent do we apply freedom of speech to others and ourselves?

First off, let me just say that, while I believe in freedom of speech, it should have its limits within the bounds of a caring and tolerant society. People should indeed be free to say things as they please and express themselves to others, but when these things threaten to hurt others, the limit is fast approached. There's a very fine line, after all, between free speech and hate, and to allow someone like Ann Coulter to spread her racist views under the tenets of free speech would be to invite hatred into our nation. No one would dare say that Adolf Hitler had a right to preach the systematic annihilation of 6 million Jewish Europeans during the Second World War. The argument made against this is that Hitler had the military means to back up his hate and actually kill people, while Coulter is merely using her words, but as any survivor of verbal abuse knows, words can often stab and cut more sharply than the sharpest knife or sword.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh. After all, should we not all be allowed to listen to Coulter speak, and then come to our own conclusions regarding what she has to say? This is probably a very reasonable idea, since to most people her ideas are utterly reprehensible, and she has certainly be torn up quite efficiently in interviews with celebrities such as Bill Mayher. The thing is though, is that Coulter is a public face in the media, and such people have enormous sway over the minds of the masses in our society, whether for good or ill. This is an immense power to be wielded by any organization, let alone one person, and in such a situation, one must be careful not to overstep the bounds. If there's one thing that Spider-Man: The Animated Series taught me while growing up its that with great power must come great responsibility. Freedom of speech is such a power, it is only too obvious that Ann Coulter does not have the responsibility to match its use.

Hypocrisy, and Why It’s Humanity’s Greatest Flaw

Before getting any further into this rant, let me first state once more that I work in retail. Needless to say, this involves interacting with the faceless masses of humanity every time I walk into work. As I stand there on the job, being berated by the latest in a long, long lineup of customers for a situation completely out of my control, I often find myself thinking of the immense contradictions present at every level of society. This observation was confirmed for me at Thanksgiving dinner this year when I took part in a debate with my relatives on the subject of members of other cultures and how they should behave when here in Canada. They, of course, took the conservative stance of adopting a way of life more in line with the majority, and I was disgusted upon hearing it!

Think about it; on the one hand, we live in a part of the world that claims to value human diversity, and yet people still clamor for others to assimilate and become “good Canadians.” The irony in this statement is obvious, considering that Canada is a nation made up of the descendants of refugees and dissenters who came here to escape oppression in their home countries generations ago. Given this fact, how can we argue for the ideal of adopting a “Canadian” way of life when this so-called “Canadian Way” is representative of a multicultural ideal? One that should shun assimilationist policies? Listening to this argument, I can’t help but think, “okay, so you want me to assimilate into an ideal that shuns assimilation and promotes acceptance of other cultures? Shouldn’t that just mean that I keep doing things the way I did them in the old country and let others do the same?” As you can see, the hypocrisy and contradictions are undeniable.

The thing is, this kind of thing is not merely limited to the higher levels of power in society; chances are, you’ve experienced it yourself in your personal life. What am I talking about, you ask? Well, boiled down to its simplest form, my rant here is all about people saying one thing and doing another, or giving one impression but meaning something else entirely. We’ve all experienced this: the co-worker who takes on a task with the assurance that he’ll finish it, only to leave it incomplete, or the friend who keeps telling you that you’ll hang out someday, while never really intending to follow through with it. I’m not pretending I’ve never been guilty of this, as I’m sure have many of you, but all of this has led me to a conclusion. As far as I can figure, the main problem with the human race rests in these contradictions and hypocrisy. If only people meant what they said when they went on about “loving thy neighbor,” for example, there’d be less hate crimes fueled by intolerance. If only the United States didn’t use their beliefs in freedom and democracy to justify invading another country and oppressing the people there, we’d have less international incidents and more friendly relations with the other people of the world. It’s all about practicing what you preach, because after all, in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos, there are only about six billion human beings. That’s not even a visible speck when you consider the sheer size of the universe, so wouldn’t we be better off getting along and making something of ourselves as a species rather than destroying ourselves from within? Just a thought.